For the final time, welcome back to the Daily Spin. Thank you for tuning in over the last 365 reviews. It’s been a long journey, and while I won’t say I’m entirely sad at seeing it come to a close, it’s rather melancholy to lose this part of my routine.
My favorite song from each and every album we looked at this year can be found at the playlist linked here.
Album: Alive 2007 (2007)
Artist: Daft Punk
Link:
One of the first things I’ve done both times I took on this series was to set my end-of-year album. I think it means something - carries a little more weight. We’ve done this three hundred and sixty-four times up to this point, but I think a final sign-off should have a little more meaning behind it than just “wow, this sounds good” - although that certainly doesn’t hurt, either.
I wasn’t quite cogent enough to be fully aware of just how massive Alive was at the time. Looking on eighteen years later, it feels like the mythos and impact have only continued to grow in stature - it’s difficult to think of many more impactful live records, and few have so completely reversed the fortune of an album the way Alive’s mixes salvaged Human. After an angsty couple of years where it felt like Daft Punk had gotten a little high off their own supply, it was such a refreshing - and frankly, blinding - turn to see the band come together with this, a megamix of their first three full-lengths put together in one captivating package.
Each and every track is placed nearly to perfection - the boys know when to let the beat roll, but they’re so wonderfully adept at mixing and it’s probably never been so cleanly displayed as it is here. This is a concert list without any visuals and I still see the colors, three concepts intertwined into a beautiful and entirely new vision, separate from anything I could have expected.
The end of the year is a milestone in many ways - obviously, the turning of a new leaf, but also a chance to look back, see where we’ve come, celebrate what’s been done and enjoy it from the perspective of someone who survived and advanced, granted the strength and fortitude to get through the bullshit. It’s the finish line, another lap to this grand race, and I don’t think many albums get that simultaneously retrospective and introspective feeling so wholly conveyed as Alive does - truly showing what it feels like to be alive.
Rating: 9/10
Best Tracks: Human After All/Together/One More Time/Music Sounds Better With You
Worst Tracks: Da Funk/Daftendirekt
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.