Random Access Memories is the fourth and final studio album by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk , released on 17 May through Columbia Records. It pays tribute to late s and early s American music, particularly from Los Angeles. This theme is reflected in the packaging and promotional campaign, which included billboards, television advertisements and a web series.
Following the minimal production of their previous album, Human After All , [ 2 ] Daft Punk recruited session musicians with the help of Chris Caswell to perform live instrumentation and limited the use of electronic instruments to drum machines , a custom-built modular synthesizer and vintage vocoders. It combines disco , progressive rock and pop , with contributions by Paul Jackson Jr. It also topped the charts in twenty other countries.
Its lead single, " Get Lucky ", topped the charts in more than 30 countries and became one of the best-selling digital singles of all time. They were pleased with the compositions, but dissatisfied with their process of sampling and looping , as they had done for their previous albums. As Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk stated, "We could play some riffs and stuff but not keep it [up] for four minutes straight.
They spoke with Chris Caswell , a well-connected musician in the industry who had previously composed arrangements for Legacy , and commissioned him to gather a group of experienced session artists to perform for the record.
The idea was really having this desire for live drums, as well as questioning, really, why and what is the magic in samples? The album features Chic frontman Nile Rodgers. According to Rodgers, the collaboration was "something we've talked about for a long time. We've respected each other endlessly. Moroder had recorded a monologue about his life for use in a track on the album. Rodgers was also present during the Moroder recording session.
