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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Exclaim!

This is the album on which Daft Punk are truly and convincingly "human after all." And on this toweringly grand achievement, they've never sounded better.

100
The Telegraph

Their return should be heralded from on high, because it is the boldest, smartest, most colourful and purely pleasurable dance album of this decade.

100
The Line of Best Fit

Daft Punk have not only made a career-defining album, but the smartest dance album since disco. 

100
AllMusic

At first, it's hard to know what to make of all the fromage, but Random Access Memories reveals itself as the kind of grand, album rock statement that listeners of the '70s and '80s would have spent weeks or months dissecting and absorbing

100
NME

By assembling a cast of their favourite musicians and delving into their adolescent memories, Daft Punk have created something as emotionally honest as any singer-songwriter confessional – and a lot more fun to dance to. 

100
The Arts Desk
This is the most immediate, instant, analysis-proof record you could hope to hear.
100
Pretty Much Amazing

It took exuberance, painstaking detail, and wide-eyed nostalgia for Daft Punk to create Random Access Memories, their best.

100
Entertainment Weekly

It’s a headphones album in an age of radio singles; a bravura live performance that stands out against pro forma knob-twiddling; a jazzy disco attack on the basic house beat; a full collaboration at a time when the superstar DJ stands alone.

90
DIY

'Random Access Memories' is ... an album in the proper sense of the word; these aren't thirteen dancefloor ready bangers, it's a grandiose statement of intent.

89
Northern Transmissions

The album ... is a simple reminder of the things that we like about Daft Punk, it’s the perfect album for your late night disco musings, and robotic love making.

88
Pitchfork

.. something that channels the past but sounds like little else right now, an album about rediscovery that's situated in the constantly-shifting present.

85
Under the Radar

Random Access Memories contains plenty of evidence that the band is still creatively fertile and capable of moments of mind-bending brilliance. 

85
Spectrum Culture

It’s this contrast that truly makes Random Access Memories complex: as much as it’s a musical history book meant to invite listeners on a past journey, it’s a deeply personal document for Daft Punk.

83
A.V. Club

The album is nonetheless an entrancing and endlessly entertaining musical experience, a fun collection that can soundtrack a great party from start to finish, but also rewards the focused listener with a collage of fascinating quirks.

80
Mojo

Random Access Memories manages to maintain a core of sense and sobriety.

80
NOW Magazine

Both a musical history lesson and a capital-P pop album, it eschews bedroom knob-twiddling for live instrumentation and warm, expansive analog production that pushes their obsession with ELO-style soft rock through their roboticized retro-futuristic filter.

80
Uncut
Silly and overblown, but wittily, brilliantly so.
80
The Guardian

Its flaws are outweighed by moments that justify the excitement. It felt like a major event before its release: more incredibly, it still does once you've heard it.

80
The Observer

With RAM – a masterpiece complete with flaws – Daft Punk have shone a laser beam into dark corners of the 70s and 80s and made them sing again, with timbres more human than ever before.

80
God Is in the TV

While it may breathe much-needed fresh life into modern dance music, it still has its flaws like most other albums. It’s often brilliant and is worthy of high praise but it’s not perfect.

80
Billboard

"Random Access Memories" is a messy album, filled with passages that can be trimmed and one or two too many plodding songs. But it's also fantastic to hear these masterminds trying again.

80
FasterLouder

Random Access Memories is too intimate to be the late night dancefloor banger some might’ve expected. Instead it’s the sensual conversation on the velvet sofa in a dimly-lit room.

80
The Independent

It’s an exciting journey, and one that, for all its musical twists and turns, has its feet planted on the dancefloor.

80
The Needle Drop

The kings of French House return with a new album that pays homage to the roots of their roots.

80
Resident Advisor

Once Random Access Memories unravels, it is, at its best, pretty magnificent.

80
Rolling Stone

This is Daft Punk conjuring the musical era that first inspired them, when disco conquered the world with handcrafted grooves and prog-rock excess magnified emotions in black-lit bedrooms.

80
Earmilk

For Daft Punk, a group that indulges in the masquerade of being sci-fi superheroes, Random Access Memories leaves you suspecting that they might just be human after all.

80
FACT Magazine

As long as you’re prepared to accept that it’s a Hollywood production inspired more by Steely Dan and California highways than Cajmere and French basements, then Random Access Memories is a treat.

80
The 405

It's immediate, but it's challenging; it's instant, but it's a grower; how it manages to be all these things at once is, quite frankly, beyond me

80
Beats Per Minute

RAM can oftentimes feel scattered, too ambitious, or too similar to the era it’s working from, but, in the end, it’s an album held together by that palpable reverence.

80
Consequence of Sound

Random Access Memories proves that Daft Punk remain masters of their domain, who defend their array of superlatives because of, rather than in spite of, unconventional sound choices.

80
No Ripcord

What Daft Punk have done on Random Access Memories could be seen as a methodically curated, musical museum of the future, rather than a conservatory for experimental collaboration.

80
SPIN

If Daft Punk's Random Access Memories sounds like a new Broadway musical, that's because it might as well be.

80
PopMatters

It’s never just a pastiche or going retro for retro’s sake: they’re utilising methods of the past to create something new true to their own vision.

80
Mixmag
With only a couple of uninspiring tracks, this is an ambitious game-changer that’ll leave you with a renewed optimism about the future of music.
80
Q Magazine
Daft Punk's best album in a career that's already redefined dance music at least twice. It is, in short, a mind-blower.
80
Evening Standard
Did music need reviving? Dance as it stands has become pretty predictable. Thanks to this pair looking back, maybe it now has a future.
75
The Young Folks

Is this the ascension of Daft Punk? Absolutely not by any means, but it’s a hell of a lot of pure, fun entertainment, and is a welcome departure of sound for the band after “Human After All.”

75
Crack Magazine

An album that’s nearly as great as we wanted to be, an album that’s best points are better than nearly anything released this year so far, an album that’s going to sell millions of copies and introduce a lot of people to sounds and styles they’ve probably not explored before, an album that’s ambitious and grandiose, and, in a strange way, exactly what we expected.

70
Slant Magazine

RAM is an album that ultimately comes off having more respect for its spiritual predecessors than its listeners. Daft Punk aren't necessarily presuming the mantle of pioneers so much as they're using an LP to pay tribute to the roster of people they consider to have earned the designation. 

70
Sputnikmusic

Over time it seems likely that Random Access Memories will stand as a logical evolvement of Thomas and Guy-Manuel’s sound, and a fairly rewarding listen for those looking for more of what sets Daft Punk apart from the crowd.

70
The Fly

The more prosaic truth is that ‘Random Access Memories’ is an enjoyable – if sometimes screamingly overwrought -return

70
Tiny Mix Tapes

As soon as one lets go of his or her expectations and preconceived notions, Random Access Memories begins to reveal its own merits as a well-produced, enjoyable piece of musical pastiche.

70
Drowned in Sound

The universe of Random Access Memories, an album that can only be taken as a whole, is a maze unlike much music existing now, with only one way out: up.

62
Paste

There’s plenty of disco with both soul and a brain. Random Access Memories has both, but it really makes too big a fuss of how long it took to arrive at that realization.

60
Clash

This set is too malformed to detain an attention like ‘Homework’ could. Lifelong fans will need more grit, more edge to cling to than what’s offered here.

60
Time Out London

The move away from the dancefloor is telling. ‘Random Access Memories’ is far more cinematic in its scope than you’d expect, as though parts of it aren’t meant to be engaged with at all, merely absorbed from a comfy seat.

60
Record Collector
Ultimately, you don’t quite get the sky-scraping, genre-blending bangers mustered in the past, nor the negative synergy and diminishing returns of many collaboration-heavy, late-career albums.
60
musicOMH

A band as big as Daft Punk are well placed to start a movement, but this album doesn’t seem destined to become one of its classics, as admirable an attempt as it (mostly) is.

60
The Irish Times

Despite a starry cadre of collaborators, including Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams, Giorgio Moroder, Todd Edwards and Panda Bear, Random Access Memories never convinces as much as it should.

MattsReviews
90

Random Access Memories is most definitely one of the greatest albums of all time. A pioneer in nu-disco, or just electronic music in general. Arguably a masterpiece, which I feel a lot of people would agree with me on that. Today, I and 9 others decided to make a full collaborative story review, we hope you enjoy it!

Introductory Exposition (Written By @TomBejoy):

Good morning albumoftheyear.org! It’s your favorite meme reviewer, TomBejoy. First off I would like to shout out ... read more

ThePurpleIdiot
100

(Just like the last review, I’m STILL on break, I just had to get this out because of another special event. Finishing up school and almost done self reflecting though, so expect me back soon ;3 💜)

Well here I am, 700 followers in just about a little over four months! I couldn’t be more grateful for all of you guys, and your support is truly heavily appreciated. Everytime I hit a new milestone I have an overwhelming sense of joy overtake me, and that couldn’t happen ... read more

ParthanyJobtano
90

still as good as i
remember it being, their
most human album

while this is great most
throughout, its a wee bit long
cut the game of love

(its good, but not as good as the others. its like a longer, slightly worse version of something about us)

discovery is
still their best i m o but
this is not far off

dPreferNotTo
75

Slightly overrated but still great, very memorable tunes and great collabs

88

"This is the banker, this is the one that couldn't fail, this is the one that's never failed."- Gary Neville

The Baguette dance duo Daft Punk are absolute legends. This album is fucking amazing, touch puts you in a trance, the jojo lawnmower meme song, instant crush, get lucky it's simply too much to handle. As for this album.

BlackYoshi
87

It's interesting how they went around this when making this album, which is different from any other ones. However, the hard work that they put into this pays off by the way it sounded as a whole. The production sounds just as good as it had been 10 years ago. But, I do remember being firstly annoyed by the single "Get Lucky" because of how many times that song was being played on the radio. It took many years for me to have an appreciation for it. Through time, it has grown on me. ... read more

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Added on: March 23, 2013