Alive 2007

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