World's Most Successful G££tar
05/06/2013
by Ellie Ross
IT’S the £1.3billion guitar that continues to earn its owner a fortune.
Funk legend Nile Rodgers is the genius behind disco giants Chic but has also produced and played on some of the biggest-selling albums of all time by artists including Madonna, David Bowie, Duran Duran and Diana Ross.
And on each track he has played his white 1959 Fender Stratocaster, known as The Hitmaker.
The total value of music to flow through the instrument was once valued at $2billion — that’s £1.3billion — and Rodgers has once again proved the instrument is a force to be reckoned with.
He and his trusty Fender provide the riff for Daft Punk’s anthem of the summer Get Lucky, which is top of the UK singles chart for the second week running. Last month the track hit No3, despite being available for just over 24 hours.
Then music site Spotify announced it had become the most streamed song over a 24-hour period in the UK and US in their five-year history.
Rodgers, 60, said he felt “wonderful” about the track’s success, adding: “For it to come together in this fashion is just great.”
Referring to when Chic stormed the charts with Le Freak, he added: “It’s like the summer of ’78 has been duplicated.” French duo Daft Punk wanted to write and record Get Lucky the old-fashioned way.
They went to Electric Lady — the studio designed for Jimi Hendrix in New York — and Rodgers’ Fender was plugged directly into the mixing board.
Rodgers said: “They chose to go the difficult route. They don’t believe in shortcuts. They allowed me just to write and play. Then we chipped away at it. By the end of the night — woah! It’s a smash.”
Rodgers has now sold more than 100MILLION records, having taught himself guitar as a teen to impress a girl.
Get Lucky becomes biggest hit of Daft Punk’s career
05/05/2013
There’s just no stopping this track!
Daft Punk remain firmly locked at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart for a second week as sales of Get Lucky accelerate yet again, shifting a staggering 163,000 copies since last Sunday.
The disco-drenched Get Lucky featuring N.E.R.D’s Pharrell Williams and Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers not only extends its title of the fastest selling single of the year, but in just a little over two weeks the lead single from upcoming album Random Access Memories has notched up UK sales of 369,000, to become the biggest hit of the French duo’s career, overtaking 2000’s club smash One More Time.
Daft Punk "Get Lucky" feat. Pharrell & Nile Rodgers Now on iTunes
1. Get Lucky (Radio Edit) [feat. Pharrell and Nile Rodgers] :: (4:07)
$1.29 :: View in iTunes
"Random Access Memories" Album due out May 21, 2013
Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” Video Shown At Coachella: Watch Pharrell & Nile Rodgers Jam With The Duo
New Daft Punk music has appeared in the form of a video shown at Coachella festival last night.
The 'Get Lucky' trailer features Pharrell and Nile Rodgers and was aired before Yeah Yeah Yeahs came onstage.
It features the French robots on drums and bass with Pharrell on vocal duties and Rodgers on guitar. It's an expansion of the snippet of music used on the band's website since the start of the campaign promoting their new 'Random Access Memories' album and is the longest amount of audio they've given away so far.
Pharrell looks to be on fine vocal form, providing a super smooth performance ending in the refrain "we're up all night to get lucky" – it's so infectious that it's likely to be the hook that soundtracks the summer.
The video also confirms the list of collaborators that was leaked last week and comes days after it was revealed that the band would premiere the album in the tiny Australian town of Wee Waa.
See article at mixmag.comAnd see a view from the fans seat!
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