Music

Will Daft Punk release their new album tonight?

by Tyler Munro

Daft Punk have unveiled another (and presumably final) trailer for their massively anticipated new album Random Access Memories, which hits stores next week. And while that’s all well and good, and while the trailer is visually spectacular (natch), this is worth mentioning if only because rumours are starting to circulate that the album will be streaming on iTunes as early as tonight.

The rumours started at MTV Brasil, which was the first site to announce a possible stream tonight. They only built from there. At one point, an ad popped up on Pitchfork all but confirming the stream. We haven’t seen it, but assume it was uploaded or activated by accident by the advertisers and, upon realizing it had gone public, was quickly removed.

In addition to that, redditor theyremovingit posted two days ago to say he was 99.9% certain that the album would be streaming today. He’s the same user that previously and correctly confirmed Daft Punk’s SNL/Coachella teasers as well as a few other bits of news nobody could have guessed. iTunes most recently streamed Vampire Weekend’s new album one week before its release, and Random Access Memories is due out next Tuesday, so there’s an obvious precedent for these rumours. We don’t have any indication of a time, but close to midnight would probably be our guess — so technically, maybe they’ll put it up tomorrow.

Update: About an hour or two after we made this post, Random Access Memories leaked. It’s safe to assume that it’s a result of a planned stream, but regardless of the circumstances you can check the album out early, and legally, on iTunes. If you can’t find it (since the main store page still features Vampire Weekend), head to Daft Punk’s artist page, which you can access here (click ‘View in iTunes’ if it doesn’t open automatically).