Music Review - Daft Punk “Alive 2007″
Daft Punk’s latest release, a live recording from their latest tour, is a lot of things to a lot of people. For most, it’s the latest DP offering since Human After All was released in 2005. It’s much more for fans of the group in Paris, Daft Punk’s hometown: it’s the first live show performed in the city in a decade- sort of a strange fact. Either way, the album release is from their (naturally) well-received Paris performance.
I’ll get into the actual album shortly, but first I want to gush over the design of the actual stage and setup at the live show, simply because it is so badass:
The main stage is a pyramid, with the pair in robot-ish costumes seated at the top, where they mix, loop, deconstruct, merge, filter, and pretty much do whatever the hell they want to do with their wide assortment of songs. According to the flawless, highly-reliable Wikipedia, the duo used Ableton Live software on custom super-computers to do the mixing on the fly.
But simply recreating their music live wasn’t really enough. XL Video handled the visuals of the performance. To produce the show’s lush visuals, eight-core Mac Pros running Catalyst v4 and Final Cut Pro were used. The head of XL Video, Richard Burford, said :
“They wanted to mix live video with effects. Using the eight-core Mac Pros, we were able to take in eight digital sources and treat them as video streams. Then they could use Catalyst to coordinate the video with lighting effects and add their own effects in on the fly. The final digital video streams ran to LED screens.”
So, they are remixing all of their music, using those tracks as video streams, and also remixing and editing that. Live. In a giant pyramid. In robot suits.
These guys rule.
Okay, so all that is fine and good, but you aren’t experiencing any of that visual mish-mash listening to the album. So what is the music like? Alive 2007 is a live performance, remix album, and a best-of album all in one. And it excels at all of these things. You’ve got the iconic songs that pretty much define Daft Punk like Around the World, Technologic, Crescendolls, and more. What makes this performance so unique is the way they are all mixed together. They do not simply take the beat from one song and fade it into the next track. Lyrics from multiple songs are tweaked, filtered, matched and mixed together over beats and hooks from others, forming what can really only be called an orgy of music that is constantly flowing from one set of songs to the next. The way elements of completely different songs are deftly pieced together into new-sounding amalgamations is nothing less than masterful, creative, and a lot of fun to listen to knowing it’s essentially all on the fly (how each performance differs in other cities is unknown to me). Regardless of how preconstructed it may be has no effect at all on how well it is done and how entertaining it is.
Naturally, the way to get the most out of this album is to be a fan of Daft Punk in the first place- recognizing single, subtle elements from a random song while elements from two other songs dominate the performance heightens the enjoyment, and you can tell the crowd enjoys it as well (an uproar of cheers occurs when the lyric “around the world” is spliced into a song a good four tracks before Around the World actually dominates the performance). But even if you aren’t a previous fan and can’t tell how many Daft Punk songs are being cut apart and pasted back together, the album remains entertaining, simply because everything fits together in a way that is aurally pleasing. You could have no idea the songs sound completely different from their previous versions, have no idea that it’s actually three songs being cut together and still be dancing in your seat as you listen. Basically, I’m saying that the performance does not rely on the fact that this is a massive remix performance; it’s just a lot of fun to listen to, period.
Now is a good time to capitalize on Amazon’s awesome MP3 download service, which kicks iTunes’ Music Store in it’s smarmy, uppity balls and doesn’t pull the foot away. It does require a software download (to enable automatic syncing with such shit programs like iTunes), but the good outweighs the bad: You can download the entire, high-quality, DRM-free 13-track album for $8.99. iTunes can suck it.
Final Verdict: w00t!
If you enjoyed Daft Punk in the past, this is an instant purchase. If you enjoy techno/house music, this is an instant purchase. If you enjoy music at all, this is something to strongly consider. It might just be the best album of the year.
If only a live DVD was coming out. Alas, it is not, and all we have are from-the-rafters bootlegs on Youtube and Stage6 with French guys singing along. Still gives you a good idea of the visuals in motion (especially at the 10 and 13:50 minute marks).
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4 Responses to “Music Review - Daft Punk “Alive 2007″”
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You know, I had the exact same impressions. As I’ve been listening, every time I hear some new underlying beat from another song. It’s usually ever so subtle, but it weaves a tapestry of their old music into something entirely new and refreshing.
Thursday’s Child- Definitely. It’s been a long time since I’ve been addicted to a single album, but I really can’t get enough of this one. It’s so sad that there won’t be a live DVD…
I’m glad that every person in the world decided to write the exact same review about this album. I couldn’t have assumed any of that. JK, but I did make my own blog because my room mate had to make one for an alternative media course and I thought that I should have one too, at this day in age. So I have one now, and it’s really good. Unlike your fancy asses I’m just using blogger, but I linked you like, waaaaay at the top of my links list so expect a lot of new traffic. Maybe hire a traffic cop or a snowman or something.
Also, I want a practical list of your complaints about iTunes (the program, not necessarily the music store). I think you’re just hating
You can’t tell me what kind of list to make! I’ll make an impractical list if I feel like it. Stay tuned, bitch!