Get Lucky is a song by French electronic music duo Daft Punk. It was the leading single off their highly successful album Random Access Memories which was released on 17 May 2013.
Writting/Recording Process
The single was written by the duo and with help from the songwritter and member of Chic - Nile Rodgers. The duo met Rodgers at the reveal of their first album Homework in 1997. Rodgers was a great influence to the duo, yet was unable to collaborate due to the busy schedule of both parties. They all pulled together and met at the Electric Lady Studios in New York to finally record songs together.
The base of the song was written by Daft Punk, and was later filled instrumentally by Rodgers on guitar, Nathan East on bass, Chris Caswell on keyboards and Paul Jackson on the second guitar. Niles stated: "In my way of composing, of feeling if something is grooving, it's got to hit me in my soul. It doesn't have to be overly intellectual or some complicated thing, it just has to be cool. I can't explain it but I know it when I arrive there." Engineer Mick Guzauski also recalled: "I experimented with balancing and other positioning, and working other stuff around it. He didn’t have to be processed – Nile just sounded great the way he is."
The song was completed, yet it needed vocals. Fortunately, singer/rapper Pharrell Williams heard the prototype of the song from the duo at a party hosted by Madonna. Upon hearing the track he offered the duo his vocals for the song. They all met in Paris, where Pharrell showed the duo some of his own vocal material, which was later reworked into the vocals of the song. Amazingly, Pharrell said he was listening to alot of Nile Rodgers records, yet he didn't know that the duo had already made guitar tracks with him for the song. The recording of the vocals took a while, as the duo was very perfectionistic, making Pharrell do several tracks of only short phrases. The project fit together perfectly as Pharrell had already worked with the duo with his band N.E.R.D. and was also a big Nile Rodgers fan.
The Lyrics
The lyrics of the song were regarded as sexual by the critics, until Pharrell explained that the lyrics were refering to meeting a person you immediately connect with. He further explained in an interview with Rolling Stone: "I was trying to slice a really good moment and keep it on repeat. 'Up all night to get lucky' means you don't want the night to end. You want that golden moment on repeat, like the music repeats."
Release/Reception
The song was first teased on the show Saturday Night Live. Shortly afterwards, Rodgers and Pharell announced their involvement in the single. Few days before the official release, the song leaked to several radio stations such as BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 6. Since the official release of the song on Spotify, it was streamed more than 64 million times.
Upon the release the song received very positive reviews. The review from The Guardian said the single "eschews the crunching electronics of their last album and the vocoder-lead [sic] future-disco of Discovery". Pitchfork listed the song as the Best New Track, and Rolling Stone magazine described it as "an old-school disco jam". The reviewers mostly praised Niles Rodgers performance and also Pharrell Williams vocals. The single reached number 1 on the charts in over 40 countries around the world and won the Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. There were over 1.300.000 units sold in the UK and over 3.500.000 units sold in the US.