Music, Community, and Daft Punk’s Drumless Album
Thinking about the Lack in Random Access Memories (Drumless Version)
Daft Punk recently released a drumless version of their magnum opus, Random Access Memories. What initially appears to be a shameless cash grab by a duo seemingly able to generate a lifetime's supply of revenue from a single album becomes much deeper when actually listened to.
Who is this for? Generally, it is fair to say that newcomers to the music likely won't start with this drumless version. This is for the fans. This is for those who are already more than familiar with the album every which way, and have now been given a new port of entry.
What fascinates me about this drumless version is, for those intimately familiar with the original album, there is not so much missing.
Perhaps naively, my reaction to the news of a drumless version was “but the drums are the heart and soul of this album!” If I am wrong here, I only became wrong once a version of the album was released without the “heart and soul.” What one discovers in this drumless version is the very rhythm of the melodic instruments and synths. You are searching for the rhythm, and you can certainly find it. This is especially true if you are used to the “drummed” versions, as you will find yourself “filling in” the drums in your own head. In removing the drums, Daft Punk has invited the listener into the music even further. You become a member of the band, playing the percussion in a perfect performance you've been training ten years for. (The album just celebrated a decade in public.) It is rather like a silent disco for the initiated. And what's more, I am sure they will make a good and decent sum of money from it, too.
This reminds me of the old joke often told in Žižek’s writings about the customer who requests coffee without cream. The waiter responds “sorry, we are all out of cream, but I can bring you coffee without milk.” It is actually the lack that we desire. The album's drumless version is not a rhythmless version, and it's not a percussionless version, but only a lack of drums. What the listener really wants is not a drumless version of Random Access Memories, but is rather the not having drums. We desire the lack, we desire the freedom to say NO to the drums.
If Daft Punk were to release a music book of their drumless album, with full notation of each instrument, there would have to be a line for drum notation, with a full bar of rest repeated over and over, rather than simply "deleting" the drum notation from the page. There must be something present to indicate the lack.
There is the famous quote, “music is what happens between the notes,” attributed to Debussy. Does this not perfectly describe the justification for Daft Punk's drumless version? In other words, Debussy is saying, music is what happens in the lack.
This idea is not original to Daft Punk. French composer Erik Satie, in his well-known (and addictive) Gnossienne No. 1, repeats the main motif three or four times throughout the song. The third time, he removes just a couple notes towards the end of each phrase. This creates just enough difference to recognize the change, but the listener also intuitively fills in the gap, provides the lack. This is very similar to the pop/rock concert tactic of singing the chorus several times, and then the singer will stop singing and simply let the crowd provide the necessary sound.
So, what can we learn from this lack? What does Daft Punk's drumless version teach us about our relationship to music? It is that the lack provides space for the Other to engage. The Daft Punk fans are filling in the drums in their head, they are "taking part," participating, in the music. Suddenly, the album has become an invitation to collaborate, it has become communal. Music is communal, and people are willing and even desperate participants, if only you give them the space.