As you surely know by now, Daft Punk's Random Access Memories is streaming on iTunes, and — unless you were expecting an entirely different album from the disco revival the boys have been promising — it's a breathtaking listen.
By turns thrilling, beautiful and hopelessly addictive, it's an early frontrunner for Album of the Year.It's also a bit of a sausage fest.
While Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are understandably in awe of the likes of Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers and Paul Williams, all of whom guest on RAM, it's worth noting that some of those guys' greatest succeses came when they worked with female vocalists. It makes sense that Daft Punk would lavish more attention on the guys with the production and songwriting credits, but c'mon — Donna Summer played as big a role in the success of disco as anybody.
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Now, we're certainly not suggesting that Thomas and Guy-Man dig up some old Summer vocals and give her a Tupac-style guest spot, but we think some of these voices might have sounded great on RAM.
Solange
Beyonce's little sis seems like a natural fit to fill the Donna Summer role, and the Frenchmen recently went on the record as fans of 'Losin' You'. Then again, she doesn't want to be known as anyone's muse...{youtube}Hy9W_mrY_Vk|560|420|0{/youtube}
Adeline Michele
Adeline provides vocals for Escort, the New York funk band who ended up on Rolling Stone's list of 2012's Top 50 albums about five years after they were first supposed to break through. Escort couldn't sound more like one of Nile Rodgers' pet projects if they tried — well, actually, they are trying, but you know what we mean — so we know Adeline is down to get lucky.{youtube}dLXEGuR2gVM|560|420|0{/youtube}
Yukimi Nagano
The Little Dragon frontwoman doesn't always provide guest vocals, but when she does, it's an event. She's lent her talents to Gorillaz, SBTRKT, DJ Shadow, Raphael Saadiq and Big Boi, and the results have never been less than impressive. There's no way she wouldn't click with the robots.{youtube}0Yeb3q5nqWA|560|420|0{/youtube}
Melody Prochet
She made beautiful music with boyfriend Kevin Parker on her Melody's Echo Chamber project last year. Not only is she, you know, French, but her dreamy pop vocals would be a perfect fit on tracks like 'The Game Of Love', 'Within' and 'Beyond'.{youtube}v29I0srhPwg|560|420|0{/youtube}
Karen O
Julian Casablancas' voice has been practically vocodered into oblivion on his RAM guest spot, 'Instant Crush', but it's hard to imagine the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman would fail to leave an impression.{youtube}3dx8aLDJrAY|560|420|0{/youtube}
It's not like these voices would necessarily improve the album — the French duo have made the record they wanted to make, and it's killer — but they wouldn't have hurt, either.
Who would you put on?
