"Woman Worldwide," an all-gold three-vinyl and two-cd containing 10 years of Justice remastered and remixed songs; De Rosnay and Auge are getting older. The "A Cross The Universe" party days are well behind them. This is the time of the band's maturity. Coming from a fan, since almost the very beginning, I'm pleasantly surprised with the direction they've taken themselves across three studio albums.
The "Justice album trend" goes a bit like this: first, you get your full studio release. This is everything they've done in the studio together, where they actually isolate themselves from the world, as most artists do, and dedicate their daily routines to composing a piece of art. To-date, we have three studio albums from Justice: "Cross," "Audio Video Disco," and "Woman". The fans that fell in love with "Cross" were likely disappointed with "AVD" and "Woman" as they took steps in a different direction, playing on progressive rock, disco-funk, soul, and pop. Point said it's true.
What Justice does do, which many bands won't, is follow up their studio release, with a live release. The live release following Cross titled "A Cross The Universe" has every possible missing element that Cross leaves behind. This includes reinventing the song "DVNO" to a newly energized and rocky feeling. The same goes for "AVD," with the live release "Access All Arenas." This album was indeed what Alive was for Daft Punk. It's the exact meshing of songs, intertwined amongst each other, in an entirely new way! In fact, Justice completely reinvents "New Lands" and from these ears, makes it even better in concert than it was in the studio. And it makes sense, considering De Rosnay shared that the studio album was produced for playing in the home, during the day. Don't ask me which interview or how I remember that. I've seen almost every interview of theirs – slightly obsessed.
Now, we move to the hopeful-live release after "Woman." The only problem, they decided not to do a "live" album, and instead recorded their entire live show in the studio to put it into perfection. Does it upset me? Absolutely. Some of the best tingles, chills, and feelings you get from listening to an album come from the crowd's roar during a song or transition between songs!
"Woman Worldwide"is still a hard-earned work of art for Justice. It's as I said earlier, 10 years in the making. The fascinating part of this album, is the start – was it going to be "Genesis" like the other two, or, would it be different? Indeed, it was an unusual start, "Safe & Sound" would lead the way. I took a drive up to Wisconsin this weekend and played "Woman Worldwide," a two-CD piece on the ride up. It brings memories from every show of theirs I've seen: Lollapalooza in 2012, The Congress Theater in Fall of 2012, Wavefront Music Festival in 2013, Osheaga in 2017, and at the Acorr Hotels Paris via live online streaming in the Fall of 2017.
We all have that particular artist or musician out there that seems to capture our hearts, in one way or another. Justice has done that for me from the moment I was first heard them in the Fall of 2008. Merci, pour 10 ans de musique, Justice!
