Daft Punk: Alive 2007

Daft Punk - Alive 2007
By Ben Hawling

Have you ever been listening to an album and suddenly found yourself smiling? I don’t mean in a crazy way but as a silent sign of true appreciation for what you can hear. In the past year only a few albums have managed to have this effect on me, namely DJ Yoda’s ‘Fabriclive .39’ album, Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ and Soulwax / 2 Many DJ’s ‘As Heard On Radio Soulwax’, (an album that I only discovered in the summer of 2007 but has remained a favourite throughout). But one that has stood out from all those in terms of deriving a feeling of true happiness that you are witnessing and experiencing something magnificent, and perhaps unrepeatable, has to be Daft Punk’s ‘Alive 2007’. Recorded live in Paris, Daft Punk take the audience and the listener on an epic journey through their superb back catalogue via some simply genius and technical mixes. From the opener ‘Robot Rock’, the thrill and excitement held by the audience is apparent and shared by the listener as the tracks intro builds and builds to it’s infectious thumping central beat. The album continues to build and captivate through tracks like ‘Technologic’ and the fantastic mix of ‘Television Rules The Nation/ Crescendolls’ which displays perfectly how easy it seems for the group to gel their work together, despite both tracks
coming from different Daft Punk albums. Like any good dance collection album, ‘Alive 2007’ rises and falls in the right places ensuring moments of pure euphoria when the essential bass kicks in after a mellow yet well constructed slower mix. One such moment arrives around the middle of the album with the ‘Around The World/ Harder Better Faster Stronger’ mix where the listener can’t help but smile out load. Further highlights include the driving and pumping rhythm of ’Prime Time Of Your Life/ Brainwasher/ Rollin’ And Scratchin’/ Alive’, the hypnotic groove of ‘Da Funk/ Daftendirekt’ and the album closer ‘Superheroes/ Human After All/ Rock N Roll’ which all seem to appear separate from the beginning part of the album, but in turn provide perfect individual dance tracks that put the listener right in the dancing mood. For me, this album has completely changed my view of both Daft Punk and how effective live albums can be. Before ‘Alive’ I tended to focus all my attention on the groups fantastic 2001 album ‘Discovery’ and fell in love with that albums opener ‘One More Time’ (incidentally another example on ‘Alive 2007’ where the bass lifts the listener up out of the chair and onto the dance floor), but have since heard Daft Punks other work which led me to appreciate the awesomeness of the work on ‘Alive 2007’. In terms of live albums, this is a great and influential one. I have always held live albums in the lowest regard as I believe that many lose the true and delicate impact of the original track recording amongst annoying crowd noise. However, ‘Alive 2007’ creates the inverse affect as the crowd noise draws you in and even makes the listener jealous that they are not also at the gig experiencing the ecstasy of the spectacle of Daft Punk and their defining soundscape. The only flaw that this writer could find with the album as a whole was that like all great things, the album must end, but not without leaving the listener with an everlasting buzz and the urge to dance!