member since November 2009
Robbie Daw's Posts
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We're Short-Circuiting Over This One
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Why, no — apparently the whole 8-bit craze did not take the dirt nap once Black Eyed Peas hopped on the bandwagon with whatever that last album of theirs was called. For you see, YouTube star Joe Jeremiah‘s series A Bit Of 8-Bit is still going strong, and he set his sights on Daft Punk‘s Random Access Memories for his latest clip. Yes, the whole album. “Get Lucky.” “Giorgio By Moroder.” “Contact.” All of it, in one, five-plus-minute clip.
We’re guessing that this is the exact type of cheap-and-dirty electronic trickery Daft Punk were looking to avoid when they recorded their LP with live instruments. (Hell, this is probably exactly what they hear whenever a Justin Bieber/Nicki Minaj/Ke$ha/Macklemore, etc. song comes on the radio.) More »
Picture all the big clove-smoking early-to-mid-’90s crunchy girl guitar groups colliding with Sly & The Family Stone for a midnight jam session at the coffeehouse, and the results would surely be something akin to “Fixurlifeup,” the cool, weird new song Prince and his protege’s 3RDEYEGIRL dropped last month. Actually, I take that back — it’s not weird at all. It sounds straight-up like something out of a time capsule that was buried in 1993.
The video provides another flashback moment, as we see the Purple One himself looking not unlike he did during his rocked-out Billboard Music Awards performance this past Sunday (May 19): ageless, lithe and ever the star. The ‘fro suits him well, too. More »
The last time Pharrell Williams featured on a Top 10 single in the US was in 2006, when Ludacris‘ “Money Maker” hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100. And the last time Daft Punk landed in the Top 10? Well, sorry to slam the wrecking ball into your LED-lit pyramids, but that never really happened…until this week. Buoyed no doubt by the anticipation for this past Tuesday’s (May 21) release of the duo’s fourth album Random Access Memories, the Pharrell-featuring “Get Lucky” inched its way up to #10 on the Hot 100, thus making Daft Punk’s first Top 40 hit on these shores also their first Top 10.
All of this is to say that when it comes time for the Internet to begin carting out the inevitable Song of Summer lists shortly, the Robots will no doubt be dancing among the contenders. More »
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Does This Intro (& Do These Helmets) Seem Familiar?
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Okay, despite their ambitions to circumvent sampling and aim for a flawlessly beautiful analog listening experience with Random Access Memories, you may have read by now that Daft Punk did lift from another song — Aussie band The Sherbs‘ 1982 synth-rock jam “We Ride Tonight” — for spacy album-closer “Contact.” And one glance at the Sherbs’ original video proves to be somewhat of an eye-opening experience with regards to French duo Daft Punk and just one of the many corners, we’re sure, they’ve drawn inspiration from over the years.
For instance, in the first 40 seconds alone, we see a black-clad biker slip on a motorcycle helmet. We see dark, cloaked figures standing in a road. There’s a creepy guy in makeup banging out dramatic chords, the same ones you hear after Eugene Cernan‘s dialog in “Contact.” But all the while, you never catch any of these character’s faces full-on. More »
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These Artists Give Digital Love To The Robots
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Daft Punk‘s fourth album Random Access Memories was released yesterday, and, for the most part, is garnering rave reviews. Given all the lead-up hype surrounding the LP, and the global success of “Get Lucky,” everyone has been buzzing about the duo — including artists who came in to pay Idolator a visit in recent weeks.
In the clip above, an eclectic array of talent — including Wyclef Jean, Little Boots, Jason Derulo, Capital Cities and Betty Who — weigh in on Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, and give their thoughts on the French pair’s music and legacy within the pop world. Their comments may surprise you, especially in the sense that they perhaps mirror your own views on the duo.
Watch above, and get a take on Daft Punk from others in same music game! More »
In our own review of Daft Punk‘s much-hyped and uber-buzzed-about fourth album, we noted that “Random Access Memories is many things: a gamble, a Genesis scroll of Daft Punk’s musical DNA, a mesmerizing summation of their career to this point and a dynamic jumping-off point for the next phase of their creative evolution. Oh, and also, it’s fun.” And for the most part, online critics seem to agree that by abandoning the use of samples and digital technology this time around, the arbiters of French electro-pop have presented us with sonic, cerebral journey through time that is as thrilling as it is ambitious.
Head below for our roundup of what the Internet at large had to say about Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. More »
The 2013 Billboard Music Awards are now behind us, but the winners, performances and crazy, neck-breaking moments will live on the Internet forever, for us to dissect. Online critics had plenty to say about Billboard‘s annual shindig, this year staged at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. From Miguel‘s stage jump to Madonna‘s acceptance speech to the surprisingly audible heckling Justin Bieber faced when he stepped up to receive his Milestone Award, the Internet had its choice of topics to cover. More »
The most talked-about producer on the planet right now isn’t one of the many crafting new material for Britney Spears, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake. It’s Giorgio Moroder, the 73-year-old Italian musician whose synth-heavy work influenced more artists than you can fill on a sheet of paper and soundtracked at least two generations.
Giorgio’s longtime collaborator and close friend Donna Summer passed away one year ago today, at the age of 63. The disco queen kept her battle with lung cancer private, but it’s Summer’s enduring legacy of revered songs like “I Feel Love,” “Last Dance,” “MacArthur Park” and “Bad Girls” that lives on. To commemorate the first year since the passing of Summer and celebrate the extensive work of Moroder, we reached out to the producer, who turned out to be as thoughtful as he is candid.
“The thing I miss most about Donna is the vitality with which she surrounded herself,” Moroder reflects. “She was always ready for a joke, even in the last months, never indicating that she was suffering. She even tried to convince me to lose weight with the special diet [she was on].”
Rest assured, Giorgio is a man whose calendar in 2013 is getting busier by the week. Still, he offered many insights regarding the classic tracks he produced throughout the ’70s and ’80s — not to mention a certain song recently recorded for Daft Punk‘s upcoming LP Random Access Memories. Head below as Debbie Harry and Blondie‘s Chris Stein, Terri Nunn of Berlin and Moroder reminisce about the music of Donna Summer and some of Giorgio’s biggest milestones. More »
Season 12 of American Idol premiered on January 16, and four months later to the day, Candice Glover was crowned the winner. The 23-year-old Beaufort, South Carolina native’s smooth, soulful vocals helped propel her to being a favorite among this year’s Idol pack early on, and her performances were more often than not praised week after week by judges Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban.
Last week saw the elimination of third-place contestant Angie Miller, leaving only Candice and Season 12 runner-up Kree Harrison standing in the finale. Texan hopeful Kree, also 23, also emerged as a viewer favorite thanks to her heartfelt, countrified take on her musical selections over the past four months. More »
Kenny Chesney‘s Life On A Rock gets bumped off the #1 position on the Billboard 200 chart by another country release this week, in the form of Lady Antebellum‘s Golden. The latter sold 167,000 out of the gate, enough to force the all-star soundtrack to The Great Gatsby (137,000) into the runner-up position. Country fans also helped Pistol Annies‘ Annie Up debut at #5. Miranda Lambert‘s girl group sold 83,000 copies of their sophomore album, which matches the peak of their 2011 debut, Hell On Heels. More »
