judyonthenet

I finally got my copy from Amazon.com today. Even though I just got it, I’ve already been listening to the album at work since Kelvin bought it off iTunes last week. If you buy it online, you get the whole album in digital form along with a digital book (in PDF) of pictures in the limited edition. Here’s my opinion of Daft Punk’s second live album, along with a comparison of the physical album versus what you get off iTunes.

It’s hard for me to review music, as music tastes are so subjective and sometimes arbitrary. Oh well. I’m not Daft Punk’s biggest fan or anything, but I am a fan of their stuff. I also went to their concert at Berkeley in July, so I also have somewhere in my head the visuals associated with all the music in album. Listening to this album brings me back to when we were at their concert, and it was awesome. Even without the insane light show, the music is still engaging and hard not to dance to. Their mixing of all their best hits into a single 90 minute dance party, with the catchiest portions intertwined with each other, results in a somewhat distracting listen at work. There are some sections that are slower than others, but before you have the remote chance to lose interest, the music draws you back in. I’m not really into live albums, as I don’t like hearing the audience and sometimes the music is a bit… rougher. However, the audience noise doesn’t hinder from the music and only accentuates that giant house party feel (and also makes it easier to reminisce on the concert). And it’s electronic music, so it can’t really sound “rougher”.

I’ve listened to this album several times, but I usually just let the album go through in its entirety over and over again, so it’s hard to pick a favorite track. I think I’m partial to the first track, as I very strongly remember the feeling that came over me at the concert as “Robot Rock” transitioned to “Oh Yeah”. (I remember strong beats and the crowd uniformly rocking out.) I still can’t stop listening to “One More Time”, so I repeat that track often as well. I’m also quite fond of the encore. Weakest parts… ack, can’t pick them. This album rocks.

The physical limited edition album is basically a hardcover book, with each of the 2CDs inserted in each cover. In the middle are 50 pages of photos, most of which can be found in the digital PDF equivalent. Some of the pictures are more cropped in the PDF, others are more cropped in the book. The book has 3 or 4 pictures that aren’t in the digital PDF (including one showing the giant “FUCK” in background for Technologic), and it has liner notes including tour date and locations, list of concert production staff, and track listing. The book/case is a very nice change of pace from the typical CD case.

The limited edition also features a second CD that contains a bonus track (the encore), and it’s also an enhanced CD with a music video for the “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Live)” single off the album. The music video is basically a bunch of fan video footage from the New York City concert edited into a 4½ minute clip. The video sucks. While there’s a lot of decent footage that give you a general idea of how spectacular the light show was (at least for that song), the editing in this video is totally ridiculous. I think the longest uncut sequence is one second long. I mean, fan footage is already pretty shaky; to have it edited in this ADD-on-sugar-and-caffeine manner makes it a headache to watch. And I would like to see the what was going on the stage in its entirety, not see it from 16 different angles (at least not all in a 10 second period). And do we really need to see video clips of… video on a jumbotron? Turning upside down? WTF? And that’s it for the second CD: a 10-minute song and one music video (along with a bunch files to run the video with fancy flashy whatever on your computer). It seems like a lot of wasted space; I wish they could have added some more random junk on the CD.

Overall, it’s a fantastic album. I’d recommend getting the limited edition, mainly for the encore. I give this album 9.5/10 KPs, docking half a KP for a somewhat weak second CD. Probably my only CD purchase of the year (CDs? Psh, whateva), but definitely worth the $15.99 I spent.

By the way, did you know Kelvin and I are visible in one of the pictures on the album? That’s right, we’re in the album booklet.

Kelvin already pointed this out in his own review of the album.