So long, Mr. Roboto – Daft Punk has exploded onto the forefront of the electronic music scene, and Alive 2007, the French duo’s latest live album, is a great example of why. Great mixing, revamped material and ingenious samples all combine to form a cohesive record that displays Daft Punk’s superb live skills – these are no studio tricks, kids.
Daft Punk reached mainstream audiences this summer with Kanye West’s “Stronger,” a track which sampled the duo’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger,” off of 2001’s Discovery. Those robots in the video? That was Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter in their trademark get-ups. Simply put, Daft Punk excel in the kind of futuristic, house-heavy sound that Benny Benassi only wishes he could emulate.
Alive 2007 is a plethora of all things Daft Punk, an album recorded during the duo’s concert at Bercy in Paris on June 14 (the group’s last live album, Alive 1997, was recorded in Birmingham, England) that features singles from all periods of the duo’s recording career – the popular “Robot Rock,” “Around the World” and “One More Time” are all here, as well as a variety of other songs from Homework, Discovery and Human After All. Each of the 12 tracks is a mash-up of two songs, with the exception of the tenth track, which features “Primetime of Your Life” versus “Brainwasher” versus “Rollin’ and Scratchin'” versus “Alive.”
Thankfully, though, they all work, especially the tracks which sample work outside of Daft Punk’s own body of expertise. For example, the second track features Busta Rhymes’ “Touch It,” pits it up against “Technologic” and layers a chorus of “f— it” over the track, creating a song that encroaches on six minutes but is an enjoyable example of little-kid voices, indistinguishable lyrics and booty-shaking beats.
And Guy-Manuel and Thomas are clever to boot, mixing up wordplay within their tracks. “Television Rules the Nation”/ “Crescendolls” features the lyrical play of “television rules the nation” juxtaposed with “around the world,” creating the image of a creepy Big Brother watching over all of us. And the song switches up tempo around the three-minute mark, switching to upbeat keyboards and synthesizers.
The overlapped musical textures of “Around the World”/ “Harder Better Faster Stronger” also succeed wonderfully, and the track stands out as one of the best on the album. For the first two minutes, the track intros a somewhat stripped-down version of “Around the World,” but then, out of nowhere, “Harder Better Faster Stronger” explodes onto the scene, layering into a complex duality that would bring Girl Talk to tears. The best part, of course, comes at the track’s 4-minute mark, when the song breaks into blippy beats worthy of any Casio and numerous repetitions of the lyric “our work is never over.” Sure, the cheering crowd gets in the way, but don’t hate the bitches just because they saw Daft Punk in their native land and you didn’t (full disclosure: Feel free to hate those singing along during “One More Time”/ “Aerodynamic,” because I know I do).
Alive 2007’s crowning jewel, though, is “Primetime of Your Life”/ “Brainwasher”/ “Rollin’ and Scratchin'”/ “Alive.” Yes, the track title may be unwieldy, but the song is a frenzied mass of 10 minutes and 22 seconds, all pulsing beats and annoyingly catchy bass. If you can stay sane enough to listen to the whole song, you’ll be pleased you did – it’s a prime slice of what Daft Punk does best, adding element upon element to make one fantastically muddled and complex end product.
It may not seem very hard to stand in front of computers and perform before rabid fans, but Daft Punk makes it all seem easier than you would expect. And hey, begrudge them some respect – Alive 2007 is wonderfully catchy, a dance party ready for you in two discs (the second features an encore and a music video). Just rent Insterstella 5555 and let the hipster-ness begin.
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RATING: 4 STARS OUT OF 5
