Daft Punk and the Legacy Album

A Vision of Ambition

Dr. Sébastien Lebray (Teaching Fellow, University of Strasbourg, France)

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Academic USA
12 June 2025

Theory of music & musicology; Music reviews & criticism; Rock & Pop music; Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups

While much has been said about the nostalgia and historic references of Daft Punk's final album, Random Access Memories, this book reveals its ambition and future-focus, and claims these aspects do not necessarily contradict.

Random Access Memories will remain the very last Daft Punk album. Often understood as an expression of nostalgia towards the music of the 1970s-1980s, this work should not be reduced to a simple tribute to the masters of disco. Beyond their ‘retro’ airs, their interest in old studios and their preference for analogue equipment, Daft Punk invent new creative approaches in the continuity of the history of electronic music, leaving more room for humanity and collective performance.

The band claims audacity and ambition in a way that is reminiscent of the spirit (more than in the style) of 1970s progressive rock, with characteristics such as the expansion of the instrumentarium, experimentation in the recording studio and the development of structures. Concerned with opening up new ways without giving in to a technicist headlong rush, Random Access Memories appears to be a work of its era, much more than a pastiche of the past.

By: Dr. Sébastien Lebray (Teaching Fellow University of Strasbourg France)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 540g
ISBN: 9798765121634
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 12 June 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Foreword Introduction 1. The crowning achievement of a career 2. Performing musicians and ""collaborators"" 3. An expanded instrumentarium 4. From Paris' apartment to Hollywood studios 5. Inventive structures 6. General conclusions Bibliography Index"

Sébastien Lebray teaches popular music history, electronic music, music theory and analysis at the University of Strasbourg, France, where he also received his doctorate in musicology. His research concentrates on popular music and ‘DJ culture,’ with a focus on compositional processes, technologies of creation and musical analysis.

Reviews for Daft Punk and the Legacy Album: A Vision of Ambition

Around, inside and at the very heart of the musicality of the most beloved French band of all time, Sébastien Lebray’s book is a precious analytical tool. With Daft Punk and the Legacy Album, Lebray reveals many secrets behind the making of Daft Punk’s last album, including how the music has played with codes of DJ culture from the past and present to produce the music of today. * Guillaume Gilles, Musician and Musicologist, Paris 8 University, France * A welcome addition to the slowly (but surely) growing body of academic literature on the band who reconciled, in Laurent Garnier’s terms, rock and house music. Two decades after Martin James’s seminal French Connections, Sébastien Lebray uses an innovative approach combining musical analysis with spectrograms to explain how Daft Punk’s final album contributed to the reinvention of electronic music in the early 2010s – a music that was locked, back then, in “digital habits.” * Olivier Julien, Associate Professor of Popular Music, Sorbonne University, France * Daft Punk and the Legacy Album provides an in-depth and comprehensive examination of Random Access Memories that demonstrates the album’s and Daft Punk’s significant contribution to the structural and cultural elevation of electronic dance music in particular and popular music in general. * Ciro Scotto, Professor of Music Theory, Ohio University, USA *