Record Review: "Alive 2007" by Daft Punk
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Track:Around the World / Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
!http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2177/2127177398_386b83c797.jpg?v=0!Let this serve as a warning, gentle reader. A record exec acquaintance passed me a copy of Daft Punk's previous album _Human After All_ about three months before its official release. When friends visited the flat I would casually slip on the CD. I imagined they would exclaim “Wow, where did you get that?!”. To which I would reply with a knowing wink, “I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.” Sadly, that scenario didn't go as planned. The album wasn't very good and the only question my friends asked was if I wouldn't mind turning it off. Now I no longer desire unofficial releases. I’d rather wait, like everybody else, for the official internet leak._Human After All_ wasn't "harder, better, faster, stronger" like the band's groundbreaking _Homework_ and _Discovery_ albums. In fact, it was the exact opposite in every category. Worse, it attempted to be serious. The guys who never appear in public without their robot helmets were now trying to _say something_. And fans don't want Daft Punk to say anything other than "Dance, motherfucker, Dance!" Thankfully, new release _Alive 2007_ shouts this from the rooftops. It’s got no choice, really, since the album captures the Paris performance from the French house producers’ seen-to-be-believed Alive tour. On this record, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo can confidentally be described as crowd-pleasers. Not only because tracks are punctuated by the wild screams of French kids on Ecstasy, although there’s plenty of that. It's a live album that serves several different ‘audiences’. Noobs receive an exciting introduction to the band, getting to hear the music in its natural environment, casual fans will enjoy a supercharged ‘best of’, and the anally retentive DP obsessive gets new mixes and re-programmed tracks, including surprisingly good reworkings of songs from _Human After All_. Oh, and the loved-up gig goers now have a much needed _aide-memoire_. Inclusiveness is key for Daft Punk. Hip Hop’s Kanye West and Busta Rhymes have sampled _Stronger_ and _Touch It_, respectively. Bangalter and Homem-Christo go metal on _Aerodynamic_. The euphoric _Around The World_ embodies the theme. They also weave talk of technology throughout their work, both celebrating its multifacetness (_Technologic_) and warning against its ubiquity (_Television Rules The Nation_).However, as if there could be any doubt, the closing track demonstrates Daft Punk’s _raison d'être_. Melding, in what my grandpap would a call "a medley", DP’s biggest hit _One More Time_ with Bangalter’s solo dancefloor filler _Music Sounds Better With You_. Five and a half minutes in, the music shakes off its earthly trammels to fly away into the Parisian night sky.Alive? Daft Punk have never been more so.
Comments (27)
I enjoyed this too.