Took me a while to process the graph, since Random Access Memories was not where I expected it to be - based on my own experience, I expected it to be strongly disappointing.
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> was not where I expected it to be - based on my own experience,
The disconnect happens because you're comparing your individual taste to a metascore -- an aggregation of other critics' reviews.
Everybody will dislike or be disappointed in something that the majority will like.
I find critic reviews to be of minimal value. My personal likes and dislikes are not correlated to critics ratings.
Music reviews can be very political or based on popularity of the artist(s). In gaming a very low score can almost always mean a very flawed game. In music a low score can just mean that artist didn't progress enough or wasn't what is in fashion right now.
I think that long term, the influence of Random Access Memories will be in the reduction of the use of compression (aka the Loudness War). Daft Punk specifically told the engineer to not compress it as much, and people who bought the album were surprised at how listenable it was.
It did win best album of the year at the Grammies, which is probably as strong an indicator that you can get that critics liked it.
I was surprised that their earlier albums weren't better received by critics though.
I know what you mean, but it does kind of make sense. Discovery is amazing, but I'd consider it pretty far outside the mainstream, not something that's going to get much radio play. The fact that no one in this thread is talking about Human After All tells you what you need to know about it. RAM brings in much more pop influence on top of being a stellar album, and is accordingly played much more often.
Where have you heard RAM played out of curiosity?
One of the weakest aspects of the album in my opinion was the utter lack of relevant situations where the album could be played. You can't play any of the tracks at a club, party, or even just casually hanging out with friends. It's an introspective, needy album, unlike Homework and Discovery.
I haven't heard any RAM tracks played anywhere after the initial Get Lucky phase wore thin.
On the radio. Get Lucky and Lose Yourself got lots of play on my local independent radio station (The Current in St Paul, MN), and I still hear them fairly often. I also heard Get Lucky at a water park last summer, and I hear it in restaurants now and then. Just two songs from the album, but I think that's average.
I love Human After All
I really didn't like it. It feels too much like an album intended for remixing; I don't think the songs stand up on their own. As a result, Alive 2007 turned out to be amazing, as they mix songs together and produce really good results.
Homework feels similar, I have a hard time just listening to the plain album. There's good stuff there, it's just too "raw". I don't have a good word.
That's such a weird case. IMO, the leap in rating is nothing more than critics finally catching up and understanding what they were doing. If the RAM master tapes got magically timetravelled back to 2006 they would have gotten the same middling ratings.
Conversely, I'd argue that the most disappointing album was also a product of critic quirks more than anything - they vastly overrated the mopey indie rock of The Antlers during the last years where that was fashionable.
Though I have a neutral opinion of RAM, the graph is tricky to be read, maybe because it's vertical and not horizontal
contour lines of performance difference are equal spaced diagonals. To properly convey this the chart should be rotated 45 cw and labeled with the axes, improvement over previous and average of previous.
Homework and Discovery were massive in the uk/Europe but maybe not America. When you add in some of the collaborations on that album I would always have expected it to be massive. Not sure what the American perspective is on this though?
One thing to keep in mind is that overall music critics were not all that good at being impartial critics until recently. There was a lot of taste making, some of it even profit driven, until blogging made them more honest.
It was perhaps disappointing to long time fans, but the general public liked it. And Human After All got pretty bad reviews, which brought the average down.
I really disliked Random Access Memories.
I have always thought Daft Punk was an acquired taste. RAM was very much a 70's disco throwback, which probably threw a lot of their EDM fans for a loop.
I agree though, overall the album was not that good. They were all over the map on this one.
Same for me! and I remember the critics weren't exactly good when it came out?
I heard that when their following live album came out (Alive 2007) people actually started appreciating the RAM album more. Could that be a factor?
RAM is their latest album. Alive came out before it.
Ooh yes my mistake. I had "Human After All" in mind.