New album: Random Access Memories
Artist: Daft Punk
Label: Columbia
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The French twosome Daft Punk (Thomas Bangalte and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo) was last heard on the soundtrack for the 2010 Tron reboot. “Random Access Memories” is the duo’s first studio album since “Human After All” in 2005.
Bands that create dance music usually have the life span of whichever club movement they’ve either invented or latched on to. Daft Punk — now entering its second decade as a musical entity — has become like elder statesmen in a genre that usually detests anything older than the morning papers.
“Random Access Memories” pulls off the neat trick of sounding like a Daft Punk record without having to rip off anything that came before it. There are a healthy number of guest stars on board (Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder), but instead of using their guests as crutches Daft Punk seamlessly integrates its collaborators into the proceedings.
Depending on your mental age, “Giorgio by Moroder” is either the worst pun ever or an homage to the 1980s Mirodor’s pioneering work in disco music. Truth is, it’s actually both.
Paul Williams (yes, the guy who wrote “Rainbow Connection”) turns in an earnest performance on “Touch” that shouldn’t work but does. The album’s only misstep comes in the form of “Doin’ It Right,” a processed-vocal overload featuring Panda Bear from Animal Collective.
No matter how “Random Access Memory” is received, Daft Punk will probably go into hibernation again while the music industry goes through a few more upheavals. If it does take these guys another eight years to put new work out, at least their fans have this great piece of work to gnaw on ’til they return.
Classic album: Morrison Hotel
Artist: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Between 1967 and 1971, The Doors released six studio albums, with 1970s “Morrison Hotel” being the fifth.
The band’s previous effort “The Soft Parade” was viewed as a slight letdown, even though it contained the No. 1 single “Touch Me.” That single — like much of the album — was awash in lavish string sections that took up much of the space usually occupied by the sinewy keyboard work of Ray Manzarek.
“Morrison Hotel” was the perfect way for The Doors to right the ship — a 12-song collection of stripped down, sometimes bluesy rock songs that teetered between loutish and sublime.
Being one of rock and roll’s most celebrated drunks, it made sense that singer Jim Morrison’s lyrics for the stomping “Roadhouse Blues” was an homage to the skid row aesthetic. Ever the pickled poet, Morrison sang “I woke up this morning and got myself a beer/the future’s uncertain and the end is always near” like a guy who knew his liver was about to ask for a divorce.
The raucousness continues with “Land Ho!,” “Maggie McGill” and the surging “You Make Me Real.” Mixed in among these tougher songs are a few orphaned tracks from previous album sessions. “Indian Summer” was tracked for the first Doors lp but makes its first appearance here with a newly recorded lead vocal.
Psychedelic masterpiece “Waiting for the Sun” was for some reason left off the album of the same name some two years earlier. Both of these tracks sprinkle in a bit of the dreamy mysticism of The Doors’ early work that isn’t present in the “Morrison Hotel” rock songs.
The most unique track on the album is “Peace Frog,” featuring guitarist Robby Krieger doing his best to emulate the funk of James Brown. The lyrics (“blood on the street — it’s up to my knee, blood on the street — it’s up to my thigh”) serve as a concise time capsule as to what was in the air in America in 1970.
Manzarek’s funkified Farfisa and Krieger’s otherworldly guitar solo sound as fresh today as they did when they were first committed to tape.
“Morrison Hotel” didn’t spawn many Top 40 radio hits, but as an album it restored The Doors’ reputation as an important band. Forty-three years later, it stands as their most timeless work as a band.
Jon Dawson’s album reviews appear every Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Ray Manzarek (1939 - 2013).