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Daft Punk
ALIVE 1997
(VIRGIN)

Stars graphics

Live in Birmingham in November 1997, when they were riding high on fame as avatars of electronica — this is the Daft Punk one wants. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo play hard beats, thumpy riffs, goofy vocals, and brief prickly snippets of post-industrial work-the-box sounds. It’s the kind of solid soulful beat music that made their debut CD, Homework, such an avatar of funky dust beats — a style almost completely missing from Discovery, their disappointing follow-up, an album given over to thin and overpolished pop. Female-sounding Euro groups thrive on overpolished pop, but Daft Punk’s sound was quite the opposite, a push-and-pump, bite-and-spit kind of guy noise, and they were foolish to discard it. Evidently Bangalter and Christo now agree — else why release, as their first live album, this 1997 session? When you have guy music like the tipsy "Daftendirekt," "Da Funk," "Rollin’ and Scratchin,’ " the crunchy "Oh Yeah," the harsh "High Fidelity" and "Alive," and the slick and joyful "Around the World" in your live-performance set, who needs polish or pop?

BY MICHAEL FREEDBERG

Issue Date: January 24 - 31, 2002
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