My Top Ablum of 2007 is Daft Punk: Alive 2007

Daft Punk - Alive 2007

Album of the year. Album of the decade.

Daft Punk's 2006/2007 tour was for me the kind of religious experience I've heard people talk and write about for years with artists like Bjork and Radiohead and Grateful Dead and The Beatles and shit like that. Seeing this music live (and much of the show is literally seeing the music) and listening to this flawless live album, I feel transcendent and totally at peace -- despite actually being insanely excited and jumping up and down and screaming like Daryl Hannah dying in Blade Runner for nearly two hours straight.

Alive 2007 features Daft Punk tracks from all eras of their career, remixed and rearranged so dramatically that in most cases they may as well be entirely new songs. As such, I find Alive 2007 eligible on this list of new 2007 music.

This record is an unimpeachable classic that I will never tire of, and neither will you if you ever just fucking listen to it. So as a belated Xmas present to you all, I'm giving it to you right here in free, high-quality mp3 format. You've no reason not to just TRY IT PLEASE!

All I ask in return -- besides your soul -- is that if you do listen, please come back and tell me what you think, even if you think it's crap.

Download Daft Punk's entire Alive 2007 album illegally from me in unusually high quality format, because I'm like Jesus and love you so much, and command that you love thy neighbor and love they (robot) God(z).

BTW H4PPY N3W Y34R!111



Track #1: Robot Rock / Oh Yeah

"Robot Rock" was the first single off the 2005 Daft Punk album "Human After All." This live version is quite different, with a lot more dynamism and filters, and features a "human human human" sample taken from the song "Human After All."

"Oh Yeah" from the 1997 album "Homework."

Track #2: Touch It / Technologic

This performance features a mash-up of "Robot Rock" and "Oh Yeah" with Busta Rhymes' 2005 single "Touch It," which heavily sampled Daft Punk's "Technologic" from the "Human After All" album. Besides the vocal sample, the live arrangement of "Touch It" is wholly different from the original Busta Rhymes version. Daft Punk also added the "FUCK IT FUCK IT" part.

When "Technologic" itself kicks in, it's virtually identical to the album version, but features funky guitar licks from Daft Punk's "Voyager," a track off their 2001 album "Discovery." This "Voyager" sample will make more appearances throughout "Alive 2007." This version of "Technologic" is also noticeably much, much louder when the beat kicks in.

Track #3: Television Rules The Nation / Crescendolls

"Telvision Rules the Nation" is a track off the 2005 album "Human After All," and is combined here with the vocal sample from Daft Punk's hit 1997 single "Around The World" to modify the lyric to "Television rules the nation around the world."

The version of "TVRTN" is largely similar to that of the "Human After All" version but, like most of the performances on "Alive 2007," is amped up a bit to be more danceable and less repetitive.

"Crescendolls" is a track from the 2001 album "Discovery," and its inclusion as part of the live set came as a great surprise to many fans, as it's considered an underrated and somewhat neglected Daft Punk classic. Mashed-up here with "Television Rules the Nation," both songs become even better.

Track #4: Too Long / Steam Machine

This is a completely new arrangement of the classic "Discovery" era track "Too Long," premiered for the first time at the 2006 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which was also the premiere of the pyramid show.

Every track on "Discovery" was relatively short for a house music album -- except "Too Long," which clocked at ten minutes. Its length and title are considered to be an in-joke for fans, as Daft Punk are often accused of producing songs that are too long.

"Steam Machine" comes from the 2005 album "Human After All," although all of it that can be heard in this live track is the vocal sample repeating the words "steam machine."

Track #5: Around The World / Harder Better Faster Stronger

The "Steam Machine" sample continues into this track, giving way to the world-famous bassline from "Around the World." This live arrangement of "Around The World" is quite different from the classic "Homework" version. It's sped up by a few beats-per-minute and features new dominant synth lines that serve to seamlessly integrate the similarly classic vocals from "Harder Better Faster Stronger," thus combing the band's two biggest hits into one mega audience-killer. After the first couple of minutes, you're hearing what amounts to a totally new Daft Punk song that happens to feature some classic vocal samples.

Some of the more familiar "Harder Better Faster Stronger" elements pop up in the track's climax.

Track #6: Burnin' / Too Long

The funky "Voyager" guitar returns to help transition into "Burnin,'" a "Homework" era single. Daft Punk added this portion to the set during the 2007 version of the tour, as they began headlining their own arena shows and thus had more time to play than at festivals. You'll notice the "Voyager" guitar remains present throughout the performance of "Burnin'".

Curiously, "Too Long" returns, but this time in its classic "Discovery" form (although still tweaked and amped up for the live performance). It would seem to be a bit lazy for Daft Punk to play extended versions of the same song twice in the same set, but as the previous version was a totally new arrangement, "Too Long's" reprisal here doesn't sound out-of-place at all. And as you can hear, the audience is more than happy to welcome it back. "Too Long" climaxes with a heavily distorted and time-stretched piece of the original vocal part.

Track #7: Face To Face / Short Circuit

Also from "Discovery," "Face To Face" was, like "Too Long," one of the more traditional, real-singer-heavy tracks on the record. Daft Punk found an ingenious way of including it in this heavily instrumental live set, mashing it up slowly with a brilliant new version of "Harder Better Faster Stronger." Again, they've made what might as well be a totally new track out of two old songs.

The track comes down softly with the gorgeous ending portion of "Short Circuit," another "Discovery" track.

Track #8: One More Time / Aerodynamic

This track begins with the bell chimes from "Discovery" single "Aerodynamic," but Daft Punk pull a massive fake out by throwing in ultria-hit "One More Time" right where you'd normally expect to hear the rest of "Aerodynamic."

"One More Time" is performed exactly as the traditional "Discovery" version is, but another fakeout occurs when Daft Punk plug in the immortal guitar solo from "Aerodynamic." The live version of "Aerodynamic" is just unbelievably exciting, with new synth lines and beats woven in and out of the classic guitar part. Vocal elements from "One More Time" are also thrown back into the mix, once again making a new version that eclipses the quality of both original tracks.

Track #9: Aerodynamic Beats / Forget About The World

Some of the older electronica acts of the '90s have done these "beats" tracks on various singles and EPs. I think it's meant as DJ fodder. Anyway, "Aerodynamic" continues here with its new extended arrangement, eventually bringing in bits of Daft Punk's remix of "Forget About The World" by Gabrielle. It's the second time in the set that Daft Punk have included elements of collaborations with other artists, the first being the Busta Rhymes "Touch It" elements in track #2.

Track #10: Prime Time Of Your Life / Brainwasher / Rollin' And Scratchin' / Alive

This is probably the most insane part of the show, a 10-minute mash-up of Daft Punk's most intense, abrasive songs beginning with the ominous "Brainwasher" vocal sample and the distorted fuzz of "Prime Time Of Your Life," both of which come from 2005's "Human After All" album. On "Alive 2007," "PTOYL" sounds as though it was always meant to mash-up with the 1997 "Homework" track "Rollin' and Scratchin,'" which was almost too much to handle at all three performances I attended.

"Human After All" track "Brainwasher" proves its worth as the dominant force in this section of the show, but Daft Punk experts will be able to hear the pounding beat of "Alive" under the "Brainwasher's" chaotic noise. Their first ever single, "Alive" builds up with a kind of synth wave that eventually rises to the top of "Brainwasher" and drives the crowd insane and carries them to the climax, where "Prime Time Of Your Life" comes back to end the track in a blanket of noize.

Track #11: Da Funk / Daftendirekt

The actual music from "Steam Machine" opens this track, but quickly gives way to the opening beats of "Da Funk," one Daft Punk's most famous songs. It's performed here as a mash-up with its "Homework" sister track "Daftendirekt," which makes sense as the two always seemed meant to be part of the other. Listening to one without the other on the original records seems unnatural after hearing this version.

The simplistic, classic nature of "Da Funk" doesn't allow for too much monkeying around, although Daft Punk find ways to inject it with more distortion, effects, tiny synth lines and other fun bits.

Track 12: Superheroes / Human After All / Rock'n Roll

At last, the climax of the show begins with the pulsing beat of "Discovery" era track "Superheroes" and its bizarrely exhilarating Barry Manilow vocal sample. 2005 single "Human After All" -- Daft Punk's best new song -- adds its disjointed beat and robotic guitars to the mix, and you're once again wondering if these tracks were always intended to fit together, even though they were written years apart?

The distorted electric filter noises from "Homework" track "Rock 'n Roll" pepper this performance with a kind of sinister sound and make the climactic track the only one of the set to feature elements from all three Daft Punk albums.

The robotic vocal "human human human human human human -- AFTER ALL" ends the show. Perfect.

Bonus Track: "Human After All" / "Together" / "One More Time (reprise)" / "Music Sounds Better with You"

If it weren't composed entirely of pre-existing elements, this Daft Punk encore track would be my favourite song of 2007. It begins with a new version of "Human After All" that actually includes elements from the Para One remix of "Prime Time of Your Life," and plays on for a while before introducing elements of "Together," which was a track Daft Punk member Thomas Bangalter made with musician DC Falcon in 2000.

The "Together" vocal sample repeats as a mash-up of "Together" and "Human After All" builds up around it. About 5:00 minutes in is where my friends and I began our New Year's Eve countdown in 2007, and we said cheers precisely at 5:26. I think you'll agree it was a great idea.

"Together" goes on to introduce reprised vocals from "One More Time," and segues into "Music Sounds Better With You," a track Bangalter made with producer Alan Braxe in 1998.

The whole mix is obviously designed to just knock you on your ass and make you never want to dance to any non-Daft music again, which is precisely what it did to me.



Sayonara, 2007. You sexy beast.