Daft Punk Score Two Grammys with Alive 2007
French Duo Win Best Dance Recording & Electronic Album of 2008
Shutting out all competition including Madonna, Moby and Rihanna in both categories open to dance and electronic music, Best Dance Recording, for singles, and Best Electronic/ Dance Album, Daft Punk walked away with a perfect score with their double win.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
In the Best Dance Recording category, the live version of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” beat Hot Chip’s “Ready For The Floor”, Lady Gaga & Colby O'Donis’ international number one smash “Just Dance”, Madonna’s “Give It 2 Me”, Rihanna’s number one “Disturbia” and newcomer Sam Sparro’s “Black & Gold”. Not bad for a live re-recording of a seven-year-old track.
While “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”’s appeal remains strong - the track burned up clubs all over Europe in 2001 and was the base of Kanye West’s number one hit “Stronger” in 2008 - the live rendition of the track hardly sums up the Best Dance Recording of 2008 or signifies any indication of what electronic dance music had to offer in those 12 months.
Alive 2007 Wins Best Electronic/Dance Album of 2008
Destined for vocal or instrumental albums, in this album category Daft Punk went up against newcomers the Brazilian Girls with New York City, Cyndi Lauper’s brilliant dancefloor revival Bring Ya To The Brink, dance diva Kylie Minogue’s X, Moby’s ode to partying in New York City, Last Night, and Sweden’s dance vamp Robyn for her self-titled release that has been burning up dancefloors and charts all over the world for the last 2 – 3 years.
Daft Punk’s double win is nothing but remarkable, and put in perspective, Coldplay, who were nominated for seven awards, walked away with only three Grammy awards for number one album Viva la Vida - making them one of the night’s biggest winners.
Daft Grammy Awards
The problem with Daft Punk’s 2008 Grammy win stems from them being for a live recording of their material and not truly representative of the music made in 2008. Daft Punk have been making cutting edge electronic music albums for years which were much more deserving of these awards.
Their wins sadly offer further proof that the Grammy Awards, the most prestigious music award in America is largely out of touch with reality. The Academy, it seems, continues to play it safe rather than award artists who truly made a dent in popular music and the dancefloors of its respective year.
Taking a look at other categories, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss walked away as the biggest winners of the night with five awards, including the most important awards of the night and year, Album of the Year, for their collaborations on the "Raising Sand" album as well as record of the year for "Please Read The Letter." That folksy album of mostly hillbilly covers beat out strong completion from Coldplay, Lil Wayne as well as Radiohead.
While every album nominated has its own merits, awarding dinosaurs has become a trend among the Grammy Awards - who can forget the upset at last year’s awards when Herbbie Handcock took best album beating out Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, arguably the most important album of 2007.
Daft Punk should have won these awards back in 2001 when the music was still fresh. Their wins, though remarkable, are somewhat bittersweet.
Daft Punk Alive 2007
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