ON SOME DAYS this summer, the robots would rise, get into their cars and pull onto Sunset Boulevard or Melrose Avenue-streets that, with their sun-sloshed vistas and waving palms, seem engineered for windows-down, volume-up music listening. Yet no matter what radio station they turned to, the robots were greeted by the same song, one they recognized right away. There was the supple, shoulder-lifting guitar lick; that sturdy, urging drumbeat; and the aerial chorus that functions as a brag, a mission statement or both: We're up all night to get lucky. And though Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo -the two French musicians better known as the robo-attired duo Daft Punk -usually make a point of never listening to their past creations, they'd always let the music play. Despite having lived with the song for more than a year, even they weren't sick of 'Get Lucky.'
今年夏天的某些日子里，两位“机器人”起床，上车，开上日落大道(Sunset Boulevard)或梅尔罗斯大街(Melrose Avenue)。街道的两旁，是沐浴着阳光的景色，和摇曳多姿的棕榈树，好像就是为了要让人们摇下车窗、调高音量听歌。然而不管调到哪个电台，两位“机器人”听到的都是同一首歌，他们马上就能辨认出来的那首。有那轻快的、让人不由得耸起肩膀的吉他过门，有那厚实的、急切的鼓点，还有那空灵的副歌──是一种炫耀，或者说是一句使命宣言，或两者兼有：我们整夜不睡，为了成为彼此的幸运儿(We're up all night to get lucky)。托马斯?本高特(Thomas Bangalter)和盖-马努尔?德霍曼-克里斯托(Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo)这两位法国籍音乐家──即机器人打扮的二人组合“傻朋克”(Daft Punk)──通常特意不去听他们过去的作品，但碰到这首歌的时候，他们总是让它播放下去。《走运》(Get Lucky)已经问世一年有余，然而他们自己也都没觉得厌烦。
'It's an unexpected, simple, very cool surprise,' says de Homem-Christo. 'Seeing the next car is listening to it, and people are nodding. Or the other day, at a restaurant, seeing kids and mothers having a birthday party, and they're all dancing. I know it can be annoying, having it everywhere like that, but it seems to have spread.'
德霍曼-克里斯托说：“此曲是一场始料未及的、简单的、非常出色的意外。看到旁边车上的人在听，在点头，或者是另一天在某家餐厅，看到孩子们和母亲们在开生日派对，大家都在起舞。我知道到处这样可能很烦，但它好像已经传开了。”
It's a midsummer afternoon, and Bangalter and de Homem-Christo are sitting in a control room at Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles, the city that serves as their stateside headquarters. The space is dominated by a gargantuan console teeming with hundreds of buttons and knobs. It looks like the kind of device that, were you to flip the wrong switch, would accidentally launch a drone strike on Palm Springs.
那是一个仲夏的下午，在两人的美国大本营洛杉矶，本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托坐在洛杉矶康韦录音室(Conway Recording Studios)的一个控制室里。房间里矗立着一台布满了几百个按钮和旋钮的巨大控制台，那架势好像一弄错开关，就会不小心对棕榈泉(Palm Springs)发起一场无人机打击一样。
A little over a year ago, the two men were working out of this room, overseeing the final mixes of not only 'Get Lucky'-a song so huge, it would sire endless remixes and remakes-but also much of Random Access Memories, their fourth studio album. Bangalter and de Homem-Christo describe their creative process as 'research and development,' and for Random, they worked without deadlines or budgetary constraints, with the hope of capturing the scope and sound of mammoth studio-crafted records from the '70s and early '80s-a time when cost was not a key consideration, and when a hit album had the same reach and life span of a hit movie.
一年多一点时间之前，两个人就是在这个房间里忙碌，监督《走运》以及他们第四张录音室专辑《超时空记忆》(Random Access Memories)里很大一部分作品的最后混音工作。《走运》成为大热门，衍生了很多重混和翻唱作品。本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托将其创作过程称为“研发”，对于《超时空记忆》，他们没有限制时间也没有限制预算，希望呈现出70年代末80年代初大录音室专辑的那种广度与音质。在那个年代，成本不是关键的考量因素，一张热门专辑的走红范围和时间不亚于一部热门电影。
As they were finishing up, Bangalter says, 'We had a very strong sense of happiness. It was like a weird fantasy: Let's make a record like it's the '70s. But we were very puzzled by the way it would clash with today's world.'
本高特说，收尾的时候“我们有一种强烈的幸福感。就像是一场奇异的幻想：让我们像70年代那样来录一张专辑吧。但后来它与当今世界的碰撞方式让我们感到非常不解”。
This is understandable, given that, on paper at least, the album would seem like a potential disaster-a record that found the duo turning away from the type of sound that's made Daft Punk one of the most memorable and unpredictable acts of the last 20 years. Ever since their 1997 debut, Homework, Daft Punk's been at the vanguard of electronic music, creating one sample-jacking, endorphin-morphing hit after another. And the group's ultrarare, mega-elaborate live shows helped set the standard for today's lucrative, spectacle-driven electronic-dance music festivals.
这种不解是可以理解的，因为至少从表面上看，这张专辑似乎将要败得一塌糊涂。让傻朋克成为过去20年最难忘、最变化莫测搭档之一的那种声音，在这张唱片里已经消失不见。自从1997年发行第一张专辑《家庭作业》(Homework)以来，傻朋克一直走在电子音乐的前列，一首接一首地推出让同行抄袭、让听众或痛或喜的热门歌曲。这个组合极其少见而又超级精妙的现场演出，又从一个方面为今天利润丰厚、以盛大场景为追求的电子舞曲演出设定了标准。
On Random, though, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo moved toward live instrumentation and a big studio sound. And, after years of working largely on their own, they brought in a raft of collaborators that ranged from strikingly of-the-moment ( Pharrell Williams ) to blatantly anachronistic ( Paul Williams, the former Muppets collaborator and writer of such Nixon-era classics as the Carpenters' 'We've Only Just Begun').
但在《超时空记忆》里面，本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托转向了现场器乐与大录音室音质。在基本上独自运作多年之后，他们请来了一系列的合作者，既有红得发紫的如法瑞尔?威廉姆斯(Pharrell Williams)，又有完全过气的如保罗?威廉姆斯(Paul Williams)。后者参与了《大青蛙布偶电影》(Muppets)的音乐创作，也是卡朋特乐队(Carpenters)《我们才刚刚开始》(We've Only Just Begun）等尼克松时代经典作品的词作者。
The resulting album features not only the lushly produced disco of 'Get Lucky,' but also a career-recapping spoken-word history lesson from 73-year-old Italian producer Giorgio Moroder ; an eight-minute power-ballad featuring Paul Williams, a choir and a 65-person orchestra; and a handful of downer synth ballads that sound like they're being performed by a GPS device that's gone off its Wellbutrin. Sonically and culturally, Random resembles nothing else produced in 2013.
由此形成的专辑中不仅有《走运》这首华美的迪斯科，还有73岁的意大利制作人乔吉奥?莫罗德尔(Giorgio Moroder)概括其从艺生涯的一段口述史，一段有保罗?威廉姆斯参与的八分钟动力民谣，一段搭配65人管弦乐团的合唱，以及一些沉郁的合成民谣（像一台安非他酮抗抑郁药吃完了的GPS导航仪在演奏一）。不管是从声学角度来是从文化角度来看，它都不同于2013年的其他任何专辑。
Yet it's turned out to be the biggest album of the group's 20-year career, aided by a past-forward marketing campaign and, of course, the inescapable 'Get Lucky.' At a time when audiences for everything in the mass-culture continuum-from summer blockbusters to top 10 TV shows-have fractured and dwindled, 'Get Lucky' proves that, every once in a while, a song can transcend being merely an affable sing-along hit and become an omnipotent force across all ages and genders. It's like 'Hey Ya!' or 'Crazy in Love'-a song we'll pretty much be hearing until we die.
然而借助于一轮贯通过去与未来的营销，当然还有走到哪里都能听到的《走运》，《超时空记忆》成了傻朋克20年从艺生涯当中最火爆的专辑。在各种大众文化类型──从暑期大片到前10大电视节目──的观众都已瓦解、萎缩之际，《走运》证明，每隔一段时间都能够有那么一首歌，超越脍炙人口的热门歌的范畴，成为一种跨越年龄、跨越性别的全能力量。它就像“Hey Ya!”、《疯狂的爱》(Crazy in Love)一样，是一首我们差不多会一直听到老死的歌曲。
This was, in some ways, Daft Punk's hope all along. Ever since the early '90s, when they were teens in Paris, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo have rarely settled on living in one era at a time, instead interrogating the past, the present and the future all at once. 'When we first met,' says Bangalter, 'we were already listening to music that was 20, 30 years older, or watching movies that were 50 or 60 years older. I think that's what we tried to do with Random. The only objective was to create something that could have a certain kind of timelessness.'
从某种意义上讲，这正是傻朋克一直以来的希望。自从90年代还是巴黎的毛头小伙时，本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托就很少一次停留在一个时代，而是同时拷问过去、现在与将来。本高特说：“第一次见面的时候，我们已经在听二三十年前的歌，或者是看五六十年前的电影。我想这也是我们希望在《超时空记忆》里面实现的。唯一的目标，是打造出某种可能拥有一定永恒性的东西。”
BECAUSE THEY'VE TAKEN great pains to obscure their identities over the last two decades-with goofy masks or elaborately opaque robot helmets-a somewhat tenuous mystique surrounds the duo. Earlier this year, a photo of the two men, taken during what appeared to have been a booze-pong party at Columbia Records headquarters, found its way onto Gawker and the Huffington Post. The incident appears to have only mildly irked Daft Punk, but not for the reasons you'd expect. 'We didn't play beer pong,' Bangalter says, laughing. 'I don't even know what beer pong is.'
怪怪的面具，精心设计成不透明的机器人头盔──傻朋克在过去20年里不遗余力地掩盖自己的身份，因此他们身上笼罩了一层淡淡的神秘感。今年早些时候，两人的一张照片出现在新闻网站Gawker和《赫芬顿邮报》(Huffington Post)上，拍摄场合似乎是哥伦比亚唱片公司(Columbia Records)总部的一场“booze pong”（扔乒乓球喝酒游戏，又称beer pong）活动。这一事件好像只给傻朋克造成了一点小小的烦恼，但并不是因为你所以为的原因。本高特笑着说：“我们没有玩beer pong，我都不知道beer pong是什么东西。”
As anyone who saw that photo knows, the members of Daft Punk pretty much look like dudes who would listen to Daft Punk. Bangalter, 38, is tall and lean, with a light beard and an easy smile; on the day we meet, he's dressed in a gray H sker D T-shirt, light gray jeans and slip-on sneakers, his hair hidden beneath a blue-and-red Patagonia hat. De Homem-Christo, 39, has shoulder-length hair and heavier scruff and is wearing white sneakers, tight black pants, a dark T-shirt that says 'Bad Attitude' and a wishbone pendant around his neck. He has a reputation for barely talking in interviews, but after initially appearing to doze off on the sofa, he becomes nearly as talkative as his longtime friend and partner.
看过照片的人都知道，傻朋克成员的相貌跟傻朋克的普通听众没有什么两样。38岁的本高特又高又瘦，留着短茬络腮胡，带着从容的笑意。我们见面的那一天，他穿着一件印有Husker Du乐队图案的灰色T恤、浅灰色牛仔裤和一脚蹬帆布鞋，头发则隐藏在一顶红蓝相间的Patagonia牌帽子下面。39岁的德霍曼-克里斯托长发齐肩，颈背较厚，穿着白色运动鞋、黑色紧身裤、印有“Bad Attitude”（态度差）字样的深色T恤，脖子上挂着一件Y型吊坠。很多人都知道他很少在接受采访的时候说话，这次采访开始的时候他好像还在沙发上打起了瞌睡，但过后他就差不多跟他的老友兼搭档一样地健谈了。
The two first met in 1987, as eighth-grade art kids at Paris's Lyc e Carnot, where they were surrounded by aspiring bankers (both come from creative backgrounds: de Homem-Christo's parents ran an ad agency, while Bangalter's father was a successful songwriter). It didn't take long for them to find one another. '[The school] was a factory for making businessmen,' says Bangalter. 'Anybody who had a certain aspiration for something creative, whether it's movies or music or design, would stand out.' They struck up a conversation about film-The Lost Boys being the first of many movies they'd watch and discuss together. Later, they'd produce their own fanzine, Banane M canique (Clockwork Banana), the first issue of which featured a mash-up of the poster for A Clockwork Orange and the cover of the album The Velvet Underground & Nico.
两人第一次相见，是1987年在巴黎Lycee Carnot学校，彼时他们都是八年级的艺术生。在这所学校，他们周围都是渴望进入银行业工作的同学，而两人都来自从事创意行业的家庭：德霍曼-克里斯托的父母开了一家广告公司，本高特的父亲则是一位颇有建树的词曲作家。两人不久便发现了彼此。本高特说：“（那所学校）像是一家制造商人的工厂，任何人只要怀揣从事某种创意行业的理想，不管是电影、音乐还是设计，都会引人注目。”他们开始谈起电影，《捉鬼小精灵》(The Lost Boys)成为他们一起观看并讨论的众多影片中的第一部。后来他们出版了自己的同好杂志《发条香蕉》(Banane Mecanique)，其中第一期是把电影《发条橙》(A Clockwork Orange)的海报和专辑《地下丝绒乐队与妮可》(The Velvet Underground & Nico)的封面糅在了一起。
And though Bangalter and de Homem-Christo both obsessed over vintage acts such as the Doors and Jimi Hendrix -and would spend hours at the library, looking at microfiche of old rock magazines-it would take years for them to make music together. Their first song was a short loop of drum machine and bass, recorded at Bangalter's home. 'We were ripping off this bass line, thinking we were doing something extraordinary,' says de Homem-Christo now, smiling at the memory.
虽然本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托都痴迷于《大门》(The Doors)和《吉米?亨德里克斯》(Jimi Hendrix)这样的经典影片，并且会在图书馆连坐数小时观看旧摇滚杂志的缩微胶片，但多年之后他们才开始一起做音乐。第一首作品是鼓机与贝斯的循环短曲，是在本高特的家里录制的。忆起往昔，德霍曼-克里斯托脸上露出微笑，说：“我们是在压榨这条贝斯声线，觉得是在做一件非同寻常的事情。”
Later, they'd form a ramshackle guitar band, Darlin', before immersing themselves in the growing rave movement, regrouping as Daft Punk and releasing a series of singles, finally culminating in Homework, which was recorded in Bangalter's bedroom. It's a buoyant, grabby debut, anchored by the underwater thump of 'Around the World' and the prowling, glitchy bass of 'Da Funk.' The album was a critical hit, even in the states, and established Daft Punk as madcap dance-floor alchemists.
后来他们组建了一支松散的吉他乐队，名叫“Darlin’”，然后又全身心投入到当时正在壮大的“rave”运动，重组为“傻朋克”乐队，发布了一系列的单曲，最后有了《家庭作业》这样的巅峰之作。他们这首张专辑在本高特的卧室里录制而成，风格轻快而撩人，以《周游世界》(Around the World)的水下敲击声和“Da Funk”低沉而吵哑的贝斯声压阵。它是一张至关重要的热门唱片，即便在美国也是如此，并且奠定了傻朋克舞曲界的狂妄炼金术士的地位。
It also earned them a reputation as reluctant semi-stars. When they'd play gigs, de Homem-Christo would hide behind equipment or turn his back, Miles Davis -style, to the audience. 'I was too shy to be confronted by any kind of audience,' he says. 'Going to the blackboard at school was the worst torture.' To promote Homework, they wore goofy animal masks, kept a safe distance from the press and didn't appear in videos, preferring surreal clips directed by the likes of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry.
这张专辑还为他们赢得了一种不愿抛头露面的名声。要做现场表演的时候，德霍曼-克里斯托就会躲在乐器后面，或者是像迈尔斯?戴维斯(Miles Davis)那样转过身去背对观众。他说：“我太怕羞了，不管哪种观众都不敢直接面对。在学校上黑板是最痛苦的折磨。”为了推销《家庭作业》，他们戴上怪怪的动物面具，跟媒体保持着安全距离，并且不在视频中亮相，也更喜欢斯派克?琼斯(Spike Jonze)和米歇尔?冈瑞(Michel Gondry)等人导演的超现实镜头。
For 2001's Discovery, Daft Punk introduced a new look, in the form of impenetrably sleek robot getups. They also debuted a new sound: a mix of soft-rock haze, guitar-shredding rock and meticulously coordinated goofiness. The record yielded Daft Punk's then-longest-charting hit, 'One More Time,' a new millennium ode to unyielding good times that, considering how the rest of the decade turned out, now sounds equal parts ebullient and poignant.
为录制2001年的《发现》(Discovery)，傻朋克推出了一副新的装扮：光滑?亮而又密不透风的机器人服装。他们还推出了一种新的音质：慢摇滚的迷茫、撕裂吉他的震撼和精心设计的痴颠混合在一起。这张专辑有傻朋克当时在音乐排行榜上盘踞时间最长的歌曲《再一次》(One More Time)。它是对即将呈现的好时代的又一次千年赞颂。考虑到后来10年发生的情况，现在它听起来既热情奔放，又五味杂陈。
Daft Punk's music would continue to mutate over the coming years and albums, from the aggro Human After All (2005) to the swelling, orchestra-aided Tron: Legacy soundtrack (2010). With each new release, the robot masks would undergo some new iteration. For Bangalter and de Homem-Christo, the masks function as a way to ensure privacy: They like being able to go out without being harassed, and they strive to keep their personal lives as undocumented as possible (neither cares to discuss his family, though both have children, and Bangalter is married to French actress élodie Bouchez ).
在接下来的年头和专辑里面，从2005年激愤的《毕竟还是人类》(Human After All)到2010年激情澎湃、有管弦乐辅助的《创：战记》(Tron: Legacy)配乐，傻朋克的音乐在继续变异。每发一张新专辑，机器人面具都会有一些新的演变。在本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托看来，面具起到一种保护隐私的作用：他们喜欢出门的时候能够不被人骚扰，而且都尽量保持私生活“无据可查”的状态。（两个人都不喜欢谈论自己的家人，不过他们都有孩子，本高特的妻子是法国演员艾洛迪?布歇(Elodie Bouchez)。）
In later years, as the duo got more famous-their legendary 2006-2007 tour found them playing gargantuan arenas-the helmets let them avoid all the insincere glad-handling that comes with being recognized, especially in the music industry. 'You feel it's not real when people are, like, petting your back all the time,' says de Homem-Christo. But, perhaps most importantly, being cloaked in head-to-toe suits-the most striking iteration of which was designed, with glittery sleekness, by Saint Laurent's Hedi Slimane -and voice-altering electronics grants the members of Daft Punk the ability to disappear from even themselves. 'It allows you to forget what you've done and what you are,' says Bangalter. 'For us, the idea of always starting from scratch is really interesting.'
在之后的年头里，随着傻朋克的名气越来越高（2006年到2007年的传奇巡演期间，他们已经在超大的演出场地演出），头盔让他们逃掉了被认出来之后不得不面对的各种虚情假意，特别是在音乐行业。德霍曼-克里斯托说：“比如说别人一直在抚摸你脊背的时候，你会感觉不真实。”但最重要的恐怕还在于，躲藏在从头到脚的戏装（最惹人眼球的版本是 罗兰(Saint Laurent)的赫迪?苏莱曼(Hedi Slimane)设计的一套闪闪发光的服装）和改变音色的电子乐里面，使得傻朋克的两位成员隐遁于人前，甚至是隐遁于自己。本高特说：“它使你能够忘掉自己做过什么，忘掉自己是谁。在我们看来，总是从零开始这一点真的非常有趣。”
It's an ethos that goes all the way back to their early days, right after they came up with 'Da Funk.' The track was such a crowd-pleaser that Bangalter and de Homem-Christo set out to make a soundalike sequel. It would have been an easy hit, but the song was such an obvious unsatisfying self-homage, they decided not to release it. 'That was a big change of direction,' de Homem-Christo says. 'We said, 'Let's try something totally opposite,' and from that day, we never did the same thing.'
这种气质发端于傻朋克的早期，即他们推出“Da Funk”之后。由于这首曲子非常迎合大众口味，本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托决定推出一首相似的续篇。如果面世的话，它将很容易走红，但这首歌是一种明显的自我崇拜，他们很不满意，所以决定不予发布。德霍曼-克里斯托说：“那是一次很大的转向。我们说，‘来做点完全相反的事情吧’，从那天开始，我们从未做过同样的事情。”
BANGALTER, QUICK AND SPRINGY, is leading me around the room at Conway, where they worked not only on Random, but also on several tracks for Kanye West's Yeezus album. He shows me a gorgeous Steinway piano in one corner, and a booth where they oversaw the Gary Glitter-gone-tribal drumbeats of West's hit 'Black Skinhead.' In their early years, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo preferred to do much of their work at home studios, but Random opened them up to 'stuff we couldn't really do at home,' says Bangalter, gesturing around a large recording area. 'We were like, Okay-clap-let's experiment.'
身形轻快敏捷的本高特带着我参观康韦录音室的那个房间。在这里，他们不仅录制了《超时空记忆》，还为坎耶?韦斯特(Kanye West)的专辑“Yeezus”录制了多首曲子。他带着我看了屋角一架漂亮的斯坦威(Steinway)钢琴，还有一间隔音室──韦斯特热门歌曲《黑色光头》(Black Skinhead)里面类似狂野版盖瑞?格利特(Gary Glitter)的鼓声，就是两人在那间隔音室里监制的。早年的本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托更喜欢使用家里的录音室，但本高特指着录音室里一片宽阔的录音区说，《超时空记忆》让他们看到了“无法在家里完成的东西。我们就像是：OK，试验一下吧”。
Random began in earnest in 2008, when Bangalter and de Homem-Christo moved their gear into a giant studio and began playing around. Inspiration came from Tron, which they were still in the midst of scoring, and which required them to work with a full orchestra. Though they'd collaborated with other musicians in the past-most notably on the 2007 West single 'Stronger'-as Tron progressed, they found themselves energized by the prospect of incubating a more open-ended creative community. They started to see their role on Random less as musicians and more as filmmakers, shepherding a large group of disparately talented people and uniting them behind a single vision.
《超时空记忆》的录制工作在2008年正式开始。本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托把他们的装备搬到一个大型录音室，开始试音。灵感来自于《创：战记》，当时他们还在为这部电影配乐，而电影的配乐要求他们跟一个完整的管弦乐团合作。虽然过去也曾跟其他音乐家合作（特别是2007年录制韦斯特单曲《更强》(Stronger)的时候），但随着《创：战记》配乐的进行，他们看到孵育一个更开放创意共同体的可能性，并为之感到振奋。他们开始觉得，在《超时空记忆》里面，他们的角色与其说是音乐家，倒不如说是导演：带领一大群各怀禀赋的人才，把他们团结在同一种想象之下。
So Bangalter and de Homem-Christo ditched their samplers and began a years-long series of recording sessions, traveling to Los Angeles, Paris and New York. As with any project they undertake, Bangalter says, making an album 'is so day-to-day. We don't have a road map or a master plan.'
于是本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托抛弃了采样器，前往洛杉矶、巴黎和纽约一期一期地录制，耗时数年。本高特说，跟他们做的任何项目一样，录制专辑是一种日常工作，“没有路线图也没有总体规划”。
Perhaps no track exemplifies their calculated capriciousness better than 'Get Lucky,' which took more than a year to record. Bangalter and de Homem-Christo had been working on the track since 2008, but the song's sparkling guitar lines weren't in place until they met with legendary guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers. At first, the three men just talked.
恐怕没有哪首曲子比录制耗时一年多的《走运》更能体现他们精心设计的反复无常。本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托从2008年就开始创作这首歌，但直到他们遇上传奇吉他手兼制作人奈尔?罗杰斯(Nile Rodgers)，这首歌闪耀的吉他声线才开始成形。起初三个人只是在口头上谈。
'Their discussions with me were holistic discussions,' notes Rodgers, who provided 'Get Lucky' with its spiky backbone riff. 'It was like, we're treating this record as if the Internet doesn't exist. And I interpreted that as, we're approaching this record the way we approached records in the pre-digital era. Which meant performances had to have a linear life: a beginning, a middle and an end. And those performances had to be played pretty damn good.'
为《走运》贡献了核心连复段的罗杰斯说“他们与我的讨论是原则上的讨论。我们对这张专辑的处理就像是互联网根本不存在一样。我的解释是，我们要像对待前数字化时代的专辑一样对待这张专辑，也就是演奏必须是一条线性的生命：有开始，有中间部分，有结尾，而这些演奏又必须做到一流。”
After some discussions about what the group was trying to achieve, Rodgers took out his guitar and started playing. The riff for 'Get Lucky,' Rodgers says, came 'right there on the spot. When I first started playing, it was a little too complicated. You could see this look on Guy-Man's face, which was not so approving but respectful, and I knew I wasn't in the right place yet. But that's how all my stuff starts out. I do complicated things first, simplify it, then work backwards.' Rodgers would wind up contributing to three songs on the album, including the most recent single, 'Lose Yourself to Dance.'
在讨论要实现什么样的目标之后，罗杰斯拿出吉他开始弹奏。罗杰斯说，《走运》的连复段“完全是即兴演奏的。我开始弹的时候还有点过于复杂，从盖-马努尔的脸上就可以看出，虽然不是很赞同，但还是充满尊重，我就知道我还没有做到位。但我的所有作品都是这样开始的，先把复杂的做出来，然后予以简化，倒着回去”。到最后，罗杰斯为这张专辑里面的三首歌曲出了力，其中之一是最晚出的单曲《迷失自己于舞蹈》(Lose Yourself to Dance)。
Months later, after shaping the track on their own, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo summoned Pharrell to their studio in Paris. Once again, they didn't start playing right away. Instead, they listened to a few singles Pharrell had been working on and talked music. 'They were feeling the same way I was,' Pharrell says. 'That everything now is so programmed, it's missing the human element.'
几个月后，本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托在自己定好《走运》大体框架之后把法瑞尔叫去了他们的巴黎录音室。这一次他们也没有马上开始弹奏，而是听了法瑞尔之前正在创作的几首单曲，并谈论音乐。法瑞尔说：“他们跟我的感觉一样，就是现在什么都通过编程编好了，缺失了人的元素。”
'They're very methodical, but at the same time very sensitive with how they make their music,' Pharrell continues. 'Not sensitive in a negative way, but very open. And their music is always in a constant pursuit of feeling. That's a recurring theme in every piece of music they make, and that's not a human trait to me; it's more characteristic of a robot.'
法瑞尔接着说：“他们非常地有条不紊，但同时对自己如何做音乐又非常地敏感。不是那种消极的敏感，是非常地开放。他们的音乐一直是在不断地追寻感觉。这是他们每一件音乐作品里反复出现的一个主题，在我看来它并不是人的特点，勿宁说是机器人的特点。”
After giving the jet-lagged Pharrell a superstrong over-the-counter French stimulant, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo cued up a rough draft of 'Get Lucky' and asked if he was interested in working on it. 'For the most part, they let me roam free,' he says. 'They introduced it as a blank canvas: What are you hearing; what are you seeing? We did so many takes of different parts, because they like to capture something perfect. And perfect doesn't mean that every syllable is sung correctly. Perfect means it touches the soul.'
在给倒时差的法瑞尔吃了一剂超强的法式非处方兴奋剂之后，本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托准备弹唱《走运》的一个草稿，问他有没有兴趣参与创作。法瑞尔说：“他们基本上是让我自由发挥。他们把这首曲子当作一张空白画布呈现给我：你听到了什么，你看到了什么？我们对各个不同的环节做了多次尝试，因为他们喜欢捕捉到某种完美的东西。完美的意思并不是每一个音节都唱对，而是每一个音节都触及灵魂。”
When it was all over, Pharrell got back on a plane. He was so exhausted, he could barely remember what he'd sung.
全部完事之后，法瑞尔坐飞机回去了。精疲力竭的他差点都想不起自己唱了什么。
HERE ARE A FEW oft-spoken truisms about the music industry in the year 2013: Pop songs, even big ones, are lucky if they can dominate the airwaves for more than a few weeks; the major-label system is a slowly smoldering empire in decline; the best way to ensure a chart-topping, culture-conquering album is to shake the tendrils of some deep-pocketed mega-corp (Samsung, Bud Light) that has as much to with music as it does with, say, llama husbandry.
关于2013年的音乐行业，有几句常常被说起的老生常谈：流行歌曲（哪怕是热门流行歌曲）在电台上播放的时间如果能超过几个星期，那就算运气好了；大唱片公司制度是一个正在慢慢焚化的衰落帝国；确保一张专辑登顶排行榜、跨越文化界线的最佳办法是摆脱一些实力雄厚的大财团的羁绊，比如三星(Samsung)、百威(Bud Light)等，这些大财团不仅做音乐，还做羊驼养殖之类的业务。
These are all, sadly enough, pretty much well-founded realities at this point. But the release of Random, and its ensuring success, has proved to be, at the very least, a temporary rebuke to the way music has been sold in the last decade.
可悲的是，这一切在当下基本上都是有根有据的现实。但事实证明，《超时空记忆》的发布及之后取得的成功，再怎么说也是对过去10年音乐发售方式的一种暂时的批判。
Bangalter and de Homem-Christo had funded the record's production, but instead of releasing it independently, they turned to Columbia Records, one of the oldest major labels in the world-and also one of the last. 'Before we'd heard the record, we met with them to talk about their philosophy,' says Columbia Chairman Rob Stringer. 'Their attitude was, records do still sell, if they have quality and imagination behind them. We talked about campaigns that were really based on the golden age of the record industry, in the '70s and '80s, when the Sunset Strip was as much about music as it was about movies.'
唱片的制作经费由本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托提供，但他们并没有独立发行，而是求助于世界上第一批成立、也是最后一批存在的大品牌之一：哥伦比亚唱片公司。哥伦比亚公司董事长罗伯?斯汀格(Rob Stringer)说：“听这张唱片之前，我们跟他们见了面，谈起他们的理念。他们的态度是，只要有足够的质量和想象力，唱片还是可以好卖的。我们谈起推广计划。这些计划其实是基于唱片行业在70年代、80年代的黄金时期，那个时候日落大道不仅关乎音乐，同样也关乎电影。”
Random was introduced using a mix of retro showmanship and new-media cunning. Instead of announcing the record online, the band teased it with a brief, vague ad on Saturday Night Live, a clip that featured little more than their helmeted visage and a quick snippet of 'Get Lucky.' That was followed by billboards in cities like New York and London; a series of YouTube interviews with the likes of Pharrell and Rodgers; and a reveal of the album's track-listing on the video-sharing app Vine.
《超时空记忆》的发布将怀旧表演技巧与新媒体技巧融合在了一起。傻朋克并没有在网上发布这张专辑，而是欲擒故纵地在《周六夜现场》(Saturday Night Live)发布了一则简短而含混的广告，镜头上除了他们戴着头盔的形象和一小段《走运》之外基本上就没有别的了。之后专辑的广告又打上了纽约、伦敦等城市的广告牌，然后是YouTube上法瑞尔、罗杰斯等人接受采访的视频，以及视频分享应用Vine上发布的专辑歌曲列表。
The buildup to the record was so steadily intriguing that, as Random's release date came closer, its success felt like a fait accompli-which is strange, given that, for all their success, Daft Punk had never broken into the top 40 in the U.S. So when the album finally debuted at number 1, no one was surprised-in part because of its persuasive marketing, but also because, by that point, 'Get Lucky' was beginning to lodge itself in the country's collective hippocampus.
造势活动稳步吊人胃口，所以当《超时空记忆》的发布日期日益临近的时候，它的成功感觉已经像板上钉钉。（这一点很不寻常，因为傻朋克尽管很成功，但也从来没有进入到美国销量排行榜前40名。）所以当这张专辑最终实现上市首周便取得销量第一的成绩时，谁都不觉得奇怪，这既是因为它的营销说服力很强，也是因为到那个时候《走运》已经开始融入美国人的集体记忆。
And though it never actually reached the top of the singles charts in America-denied entry by Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines,' also featuring Pharrell-it's hard to think of another song this year that proved as joyfully egalitarian, or as reliably escapist, as 'Get Lucky.' 'People are in a time or a place when they wanna feel again,' says Pharrell, when asked why the song took off. 'The Internet has brought on so much ubiquity. When you can get the news real-time, and with 7 billion people on the planet, odds are, there's gonna be bad news. I think we're all ready to hear music that takes us away and allows us to have a good time again. Most people just want to be happy.'
《走运》事实上从未登顶美国的单曲排行榜（被罗宾?西克(Robin Thicke)的《模糊线条》(Blurred Lines)挤出，这首歌也有法瑞尔参与），但很难想到今年有哪首歌像它一样地充满了快乐的平等主义和确切的逃跑主义。法瑞尔在回答这首歌为什么走红的问题时说：“人们想再次感受曾经处过的时间或空间。互联网带来了如此多的无处不在现象。地球上有70亿人口，当你随时能够读到新闻，读到的很可能就是坏消息。我觉得我们都乐意听到一些带我们远走高飞、让我们能够再次享受好时光的音乐。大部分人不过是想感到快乐。”
There's another music-biz axiom that Daft Punk's flouted this year, much to the chagrin of its fans: Namely, that when you've got an album as big as this one, you've got to get out and play it live.
傻朋克今年还鄙视了另一条音乐行业的公理，让其信奉者大为懊丧。这条公理是：推出这样盛大的一张专辑，你必须亲自出马搞现场演出。
The group's last tour-during which they performed in a massive light-up pyramid-ended in 2007. The shows have become legendary: Like Woodstock, they're the kind of gigs people remember fondly, even if they weren't actually there. Daft Punk never had a problem selling out huge venues, but the group's scarcity has only increased their fans' demand for more stage time.
傻朋克的最后一次巡演在2007年结束（期间他们曾在一个灯光璀璨的巨型金字塔里表演）。那几场演出已经成为传奇：像伍德斯托克音乐节(Woodstock)一样，它们也属于那种被人津津乐道的演出，尽管实际上并不是在伍德斯托克进行的。傻朋克的大型表演从来不愁卖，但这个组合很少演出这一点只会让歌迷更加希望他们多在舞台上演出。
As proof, witness the group's only live appearance this year, at the MTV Video Music Awards. They were originally supposed to appear on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, but after what host Stephen Colbert later claimed was interference from MTV, the duo pulled out. (MTV, Colbert and Daft Punk all declined to comment.) As it turns out, the VMAs wound up being Daft Punk's only strategic misfire of the year-after all the buildup to their appearance, it was deflating to watch two guys in robot suits simply help hand out an envelope onstage.
作为证据，不妨看看这个组合今年在MTV音乐电视大奖(MTV Video Music Awards)颁奖典礼上唯一的一次亮相。本来他们要在喜剧中心频道(Comedy Central)的“科尔伯特报告”(The Colbert Report)中表演，但后来还是退出了，据主持人斯蒂芬?科尔伯特(Stephen Colbert)后来称，这是因为MTV方面的干预。（MTV、科尔伯特和傻朋克均拒绝置评。）事实证明，MTV音乐电视大奖颁奖典礼成为傻朋克今年来唯一的一次失策：在有关他们将要亮相的各种造势活动之后，看到两个穿着机器人外套的人在舞台上只是帮忙递出一个信封，实在让人泄气。
As of now, the group has no plans to play live, even though the electronic-dance field they've inspired has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry, and despite the fact that there are no doubt millions of fans (and certainly a few business associates) who would love to see them hit the road.
尽管在傻朋克激发下诞生的电子舞曲已经成长为一个庞大的产业，尽管肯定有数百万的乐迷（肯定还有一些商业伙伴）期待看到他们走上巡演之路，但到目前为止，这个组合还没有现场演出的计划。
'We're not sensitive to any kind of pressure, because the most valuable thing we have is our own freedom and creative dreams,' says Bangalter. 'There's less value for us in a big bag of money than in a creative idea we want to fulfill. The world we live in today is slightly off because money makes the world go. So we've had the freedom to always pick the thing that makes us the most happy.'
本高特说：“我们不在意任何压力，因为我们拥有的最宝贵的东西，是我们自己的自由和创作梦想。一大袋子钱对于我们的价值，比不上一个我们希望实现的创作构想。我们今天生活的世界有些偏离正轨，因为金钱能让地球转动。总之我们有自由去挑选最让我们感到快乐的东西。”
Still, it seems a given that at some point Bangalter and de Homem-Christo will decide to reimagine their live show, in the same way they rewired their sound. After all, a song like 'Get Lucky' only comes along once or twice a career, and as much as the robots love watching our reactions to it from the safety of their cars, it's hard to believe they won't want to see that joy amplified, illuminated and shared, and among thousands of faces all at once. After all, they're only human.
但本高特和德霍曼-克里斯托似乎肯定会在将来的某个时候重新想象他们的现场演出，就像他们重新设计自己的声音一样。毕竟像《走运》这样的歌曲在艺人从业生涯中只会出现一两次，而且，既然这两个机器人喜欢舒舒服服地坐在车里看我们对这首歌的反应，很难相信他们不想看到这种快乐被放大、被点亮、被分享，一瞬间呈现在数千张脸孔之上。他们毕竟还是人类。