Alive 1997 by Daft Punk
Alive 1997 is a live album by Daft Punk released in 2001. It contains a 45-minute excerpt of a live performance recorded at Birmingham's Que Club on 8 November 1997. The album was initially released online as part of the Daft Club service. Early pressings of the Daft Punk album Discovery contained a card that would allow access to the Daft Club website containing remixes and the live recording. The Daft Club service ended in 2003. The Birmingham performance was selected by Daft Punk themselves for release, as they considered it to be their favorite from their Daftendirektour. Alive 1997 prominently features elements of "Daftendirekt", "Da Funk", "Rollin' & Scratchin'" and "Alive" from their Homework album. There are also prominent elements of Armand Van Helden's "Ten Minutes Of Funk" remix of "Da Funk". The live performance also contains elements of what would later become the track "Short Circuit" featured in Discovery. Alive 1997 contains the 45-minute excerpt in one continuous track on CD. The CD and vinyl packaging included a set of Daft Punk stickers. The layout for the album was done by Åbäke, and the photography by Serge Paulet.
Few records combine sonic innovation with veneration for what came before as succinctly as Daft Punk’s 1997 debut, <i>Homework</i>. The title itself implies this duality: It’s a reference to both the bedroom studio where musicians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo recorded their early house and techno productions, and a nod to the older artists the duo studied in preparation for their dance music breakthrough. Many of those musical ancestors are name-checked on the <i>Homework</i> track “Teachers”, on which Bangalter and Homem-Christo salute the (mostly) electronic music producers and DJs who inspired their work. That includes plenty of semi-obscure Chicago house music heroes and Detroit and UK techno champions, many of whom predated Daft Punk by a decade—but who were still active in the late-1990s rave scene. By tagging their peers, the members of Daft Punk were expressing solidarity with the many BIPOC artists whom they’d obsessed over for years. It was a declaration of belonging that could have come off as appropriation, had <i>Homework</i> not so fully elevated the genre. Bangalter and Homem-Christo might wear their influences on their sleeve, but their music transcends mere tribute; it’s some of the most unforgettable hook-laden house and techno ever put to wax. When it comes to the dance floor, if a record’s hot, that record is hot. And DJs across the globe pumped <i>Homework</i>’s 16 tracks, which included everything from playful filtered disco (“Revolution 909”) to throttling acid techno (“Rollin’ & Scratchin’”). Meanwhile, radio jocks and MTV programmers on the lookout for format-friendly versions of popular rave sounds swooned over <i>Homework</i> cuts like “Da Funk” and “Around the World”, which became breakout hits, thanks to inventive videos directed, respectively, by Spike Jonez and Michel Gondry. That near-impossible confluence of talent and timing allowed <i>Homework</i> to achieve its position atop every list of 1990s electronic music. As time went on, the members of Daft Punk would prove themselves worthy of every accolade <i>Homework</i> received as they continued to evolve from students to teachers to masters—elevating the state of electronic music every step of the way.
