In 2005 Daft Punk dropped Human After All, one of those records that flipped from being hugely anticipated in the build-up to release, to being an album hardly anyone cared about when it was. It went down to a fiver in the chain stores a couple of months after it came out and I still couldn’t be bothered to pick it up. Allegedly bashed together in a couple of weeks as a snub to their label Virgin Records, it did what it claimed to do in the (all-too-knowing?) title, proving that the previously impeccable Daft Punk could fuck up and stick out sub-par product like anyone else.
By mid-2007 things looked a little different. Daft Punk mattered again. Ultra-repetitive, digitally in-the-red and flat-lined to the point of earbleed tracks like ‘Robot Rock’ now seemed a canny prefiguring of the nouvelle vague of indie-disco-friendly French house — Justice, SebastiAn, DJ Mehdi — spearheaded by the Ed Banger label (which was started by Daft Punk manager Pedro Winter). That recontextualisation of their worst album helped them a lot, but what really put them on top again — aside from being sampled on a Kanye West number one and making their own feature film (a noughties Barbarella: enticingly beautiful stills, a snooze to watch) — was what every ambitious band needed this year: a heavyweight festival set. As a festival-phobe I never caught it but going by the ludicrously large amount of wide-eyed and mind-fucked Facebook updates I received it must have been pretty impressive. A pair of robots at the centre of a pulsing neon pyramid firing lasers from their giant priapic penises, et cetera; the whole Jean-Michel Jarre tonguing Pink Floyd deal.
Alive 2007 is the inevitable, lushly packaged live album version of the experience. And whilst I don’t doubt how great it must have been in person — I’ve heard about it too often — as a listening experience it’s rubbish. This is an endless, vibeless dry hump that grinds to a halt every time it’s in danger of building up a head of steam. After just about every pair of artfully blended tracks everything stops and the crowd cheer a lot. Granted, at those points multi-coloured strobes are probably bouncing off a thousand glowing healing crystals and that would have looked very beautiful, but as an album this has more jerky stops and starts than a 17-year-old learner driver’s first lesson, which given the raw forward motion of Daft Punk’s previous, excellent live album (of course called Alive 1997) is a real disappointment. When they play ‘Da Funk’ the crowd sing along with the synth riff, it’s that type of record.
If you were there and want an audio-postcard of the night when noise and flashing lights broke your brain then add four to the given mark. Otherwise this is like pretty much every live album: pointless and skippable.
This review is awful
"It went down to a fiver in the chain stores a couple of months after it came out and I still couldn’t be bothered to pick it up"
+
"And whilst I don’t doubt how great it must have been in person — I’ve heard about it too often — as a listening experience it’s rubbish"
=
Pathetic
Try and get somebody objective to review it next time, yeah?
Reviews? Objective?
What?
'Otherwise this is like pretty much every live album: pointless and skippable.'
wrong wrong wrong
I haven't heard this album yet, but lots of other sources say it was good, and the fact that this review was ended with THAT statement made me doubt even further whether or not this review is worth paying ANY attention to.
Fair enough, alot of live albums are a bit poitnless, but that doesan't render them 'bad'. There are also alot of live albums that are far from pointless, and definately far from bad:
Radiohead, Wilco, Life Without Buildings, that neil young one (the good one yknow), Animal Collective, Jeff Mangum (oh so essential), Bob Dylan (numerous), DJ Shadow, Bright Eyes (sure some will disagree)...
there are loads more real good, non 'pointless' live albums out there, but these are the offthetopofmyhead essentials. yeah?
by a 'bit pointless'
i mean non-essential to understand more about the band, but still perfectly valid as a good album.
I wouldn't say
that live albums are completely pointless, they serve as a makeshift "best of"/ a good introduction to the band.
review = 1/10
I mark the review 1 out of 10.
I mark alive 2007 9 out of 10.
The review tells me nothing about what to expect on this recording.
Fortunately I went to one of the daft punk live shows over the summer and it told me everything about what a real show at a festival should be.
Maybe this recording is one for the fans but it's been treated in the review like it should have been some kind of ground breaking work.
Take it for what it is - a live recording of a brilliant show.
When shows are brilliant crowds do occasionally clap, cheer and sing along.
Also all this tosh about healing crystals and flashing lights is unwarranted.
God forbid an act would want to put on some kind of special show and do something mind blowing live.
I'll remember to be fulfilled completely by the new/next crack addled waster with an acoustic guitar who cant be arsed to sing in tune next time.
Good album, bad review...
I downloaded this album the other day and it's brilliant - and that's coming from someone who only likes Daft Punk a little bit from vaguely enjoying 'Around the World' ten years ago. The mixes are pitched well, the beats are full, the synths full-bodied. Momentum builds up and relaxes, as you'd expect and want from a dance album; complaining about 'jerky stops' is nonsense.
Of course it pauses and has crowd noise, it's a live album, but it doesn't do this too often with many songs blending into one another. And they shouldn't be punished for failing to audibly record inherently silent visual tricks - which is what the reviewer seems to have done. Maybe I could forgive him if he spent more than half of this critiquing the music rather than discussing how relevent the band are, but he doesn't, and that's just lazy.
A fitting tribute to a truly amazing show
This reviewer's simply too cool for school. Too cool to listen to Human After All and presumably now thinks Daft Punk's live show is passe after receiving a lot of attention on YouTube.
Alive 2007 is a great listen. The choice of tracks is spot on, some of the mixes are stunning and the addition of the crowd brings back a lot of happy memories.
Regardless of these sentiments, the album stands up admirably as a single piece of work and will no doubt become regarded as a classic live album.
To me, it's one of the albums of the year.
The point about Ed Banger reviving interest may be valid, but Daft Punk have always been relevant to those less easily swayed by passing trends.
christ
did someone post a link to this on the daft punk forums or something?
deadly album
might be one of my favourites this year.
One more time/aerodynamic is brilliant whether you were at the gig or not
Are you kidding me
It is clear that the reviewer has no knowledge of electronica music or what a DJ set is. Why bother reviewing something you don't understand? Rollingstone just called this album one of the top 25 of all time so go figure what opinion matters. For sure not this one where the author is more focused on accusing all Daft Punk concertgoers as druggies and freaks. Typical resentment talk of someone that doesn't know how to live or feel ALIVE :)
Okay, who posted a link onto a DP messageboard...?
Come clean.
i
think its brilliant. But I say this as a person who loves most of daft punk's previous albums and have experienced their liveshow, which will go down as one of my gigs of the year, if not ever. The mixes of harder better faster stronger/around the world and superheroes/humanafterall/rock and roll are fantastic. I'm not usually a fan of live albums but I really do think its good.
*favourite gigs