Random Access Memories Turns 10

“Give Life Back To Music” is a funny name for that first track. From the title to the guest list to the retro subgenres revived throughout, Random Access Memories is expressly about nostalgia. Released 10 years ago today, the album was Daft Punk’s tribute to their forebears, to the glory days of disco, funk, and prog — a voyage back to a time when androids were as likely to look like C-3PO as those helmets worn by our guys Thomas and Guy-Manuel. At the bloated peak of dial-up-modem brostep drops and Electric Daisy Carnival untz-untz excess, the French house superstars — who’d done more than most to invent bombastic stadium EDM — were now adopting the position that popular song ain’t what it used to be, a posture usually reserved for those whose own musical instincts are too calcified to be vital anymore.