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Giorgio Moroder came marauding back into the electronic music mind-set in 2013 with the release of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories and the track Giorgio by Moroder, which was a sort of homage but also fantastically constructed narrative of arguably the Godfather of Electronic Music.
It’s only fair that he release his first album in over 30 years then; backed by a big record label in the form of RCA, but how does it stack up against the modern titans of EDM?
To start, Deja Vu has a wide variety of acts… Well sort of, what it has in famous names and voices, it lacks in originality. I really hesitate to call this a Moroder record, this is an album made by record label executives with a hint of signature Moroder thrown in.
While songs such as 74 Is the New 24 (By far the best song) give us a glimpse of what we known Moroder can do, he isn’t given the opportunity to stretch his legs, because by the time you’ve digested the signature vocoder sound, you’re thrown into a world of pop stars who have clearly been chucked onto the album to give it some star power, quite possibly even at the last minute.
Featuring appearances from the likes of Kylie Minogue, Kelis, Charli XCX, Foxes and Britney Spears, you really do wonder how much thought was given when making this album. Spears’ cover of Tom’s Diner is interesting enough but to tell you the truth, it’s the only notable thing I can come up with, the rest just mushed together as bland, boring electro-pop with a bit of nu-disco sound thrown in for good measure.
It’s a shame because Giorgio Moroder deserves better than this, and I’m sure after the immense praise sent his way by Daft Punk, fans of Electronic Music will be expecting much more. Even 4 U With Love, which doesn’t even feature a singer, sounds unfinished and goes absolutely nowhere. I imagine this was the case for a lot of this album, and so on the executives poured some vocal nonsense on it to liven it up; ala Oliver Heldens.
It’s a lazy album, with minor showcases of classic disco and old school electronica, but ultimately forgettable electro-pop rules this album and is not something you’ll probably listen to once, and say ‘meh.’
2/5