Random Ambivalent Listenings

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The "Albums of the Year" articles are trickling in, including this one from the Guardian on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. In it, there's a wonderful quote that really hits the mark on how I feel about the album - originally from Sasha Frere-Jones in the NYT: 

 "The duo has become so good at making records that I replay parts of Random Access Memories repeatedly while simultaneously thinking it is some of the worst music I've ever heard … This record raises a radical question: does good music need to be good?"

 This hits home on the interplay between composition and production / performance, a wonderfully delicate balance. Of course, a terrible performance can wreck even the best composition - but for me, it's better to find nuggets of a great composition in the rubble of a poor performance than to be able to appreciate an amazing performance of dross.

André Rieu and Daft Punk on the same side of the spectrum? Harsh, but one to think about.

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