Daft Punk

Capping off this summer's most talked about tour, robo-disco duo Daft Punk descend from their towering, triangular, space-age stage and beam directly into your home stereo with Alive 2007. Culled straight from the soundboard of their hometown show in Paris, Alive 2007 plays like a seamless mashup of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's greatest hits. Funky house anthems like "Around the World" chug into playful, vocal-driven tracks like "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," while a frenzied crowd hoots, hollers and cheers their favorite masked Frenchmen on.

If anything, Alive 2007 is a testament to Daft Punk's groundbreaking vision and longevity. Classic tracks like the bass-storming "Da Funk," taken from the duo's 1997 debut, Homework , sound just as fresh 10 years on, while more recent songs from their largely panned Human After All fair far better when played on booming speakers and interspersed within the context of the group's larger discgoraphy. In fact, tracks lifted from that latter record lend Alive 2007 a much needed rock 'n roll edge, a sound that undoubtedly allowed these knob-twiddling, dance music purveyors to, um, rock stadiums and festivals all summer long.

Sadly, Alive 2007 can't capture the revelatory experience of seeing 12,000 enthused concertgoers dance their heads off to music churned out by just two robot-suited dudes. Nor can it capture the visual marvel of giant LED screens lighting up with the words "Human" and "Robot" and other Tron-like graphics. Nonetheless, Daft Punk's latest opus proves that dance music's appeal is hardly confined to clubs—during "One More Time," the vocals drop out and the entire crowd chants along—and comes as a welcome addition to the record collections of new and old fans alike.

—James Jung
12.05.07

Timed to perfection, Daft Punk's second live album landed exactly ten years after the first, and provides a fitting complement to Alive 1997, easily the best live non-DJ electronica record ever released. While the original featured only a handful of tracks (but found them transformed and tweaked ad infinitum), Alive 2007 is packed with productions, most of them short and many of them getting a big crowd response (all recorded at one show in Paris in June of 2007). As on their first two classic full-lengths, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo display excellent crowd control, pacing the record well, spacing the hits, and building the mood like the good crowd-pleasers they are. (The visuals included in the regular and deluxe editions reveal quite the stage show as well.) It has the feel of a greatest-hits-live concert, but energized by Daft Punk's talents at weaving songs in and out of each other. Even songs from the comparatively desultory Human After All sound rejuvenated in context, with "Robot Rock" getting the show off to a rousing start. It may not be better or stronger than the original Alive 1997, but it's definitely harder and faster. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide