A programming note: I’m going to be on the WNYC show Soundcheck at 2 p.m. ET today; I’ll be discussing the live album, and whether it will last through the YouTube era or be stamped out by thousands of people with cameraphones–not to mention whether it should survive in the first place. On the other side of the table will be the British writer Simon Hardeman, whose gloomy feelings on the format were noted by Dan a few weeks back. So, a question for you that will help me with prepping for the show: What was the last live album you bought? Mine was the CD commemorating Rufus Wainwright’s Judy Garland show at Carnegie Hall, which I purchased as much to remember my attendance of said event as I did because I’d foresee myself listening to Rufus’ take on “San Francisco” again. [WNYC]
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Whither The Live Album: The Debate Continues
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I think that saying the live album is dead is a bit obtuse. It’s probably more accurate to say that the since fewer people actually buy CDs, the obligatory live album cash cow is dead. Because the potential market is so much smaller, a potential live album is held to a much higher standard before an artist and their label invests any time and money in releasing it.
My Morning Jacket’s Okonokos is, in my opinion, their best album. So much so that after hearing it a few times, the original studio versions of the songs didn’t sound anywhere near as good to me. I would say the same thing about Wilco’s Kicking Television: Live in Chicago. Although, to echo Rob Murphy’s point, Okonokos is also available as a DVD.
I think another thing to consider is the Live Session EPs that keep popping up on iTunes. To an artist who would have released a cash cow live album ten years ago, this sort of release makes a lot more sense, because it requires so much less investment and risk than a physical product.
the last one i bought was Trouble Funk Live, since go-go is one of those genres where you don’t really get a sense of what it really is if you’ve only heard studio cuts… before that it was probably Cheap Trick Live at Budokan - The Complete Concert close to ten years ago. But i’ve never been a big fan of the live album generally.
Last live album I bought was the Old 97’s “Alive and Wired” double disc set, well worth the price.
Now if Prince ever wanted to put out that AMAZING live set he did at Coachella, I’d pay through the nose for it. As is, I’ve got a decent soundboard recording. But man oh man, if he ever put out that set, maybe just maybe as a CD/DVD combo, I’d wet my pants.
I wouldn’t even necessarily require the “pick it up at the merch table after the show” kind of recording; I agree those are a logistical nightmare. Making the shows available to download or order through the band’s website a week or two after the show seems much more reasonable.
And as far as quality control goes… that’s definitely what prevents most bands, I’m sure, but (a.) for bands that already have the resources to do this and have been performing live forever, how bad is the average “off night” really? And (b.) the people you’re selling these recordings to aren’t impressionable types — they’re die-hards, the people who have already made up their mind to love the band. They’re not going to be all that disappointed; and if they are, hell, you’ve just built a new motivation to get better into how you do business. Time to schedule more rehearsal!
Curtis Mayfield’s Live album, from the early 70s. It’s goregeous.
I have to admit, I can’t think of a single contemporary artist whose live work I’m dying to go out and buy. Very strange….
Last live album I bought? “HAARP” by Muse.@JDR:
Yup that was the last one I bought too.
I often prefer live albums–I think that, when they are recorded well, they tend to be more engaging for me. I, too this day, have no love for Signals Calls and Marches (for example), but couldl isten to The Horrible Truth About Burma until the cows came home. Weld is the same way, and the only albums by The Who I have any interest in owning are Live at Leeds and their BBC Sessions. The list goes on and on. If the album is made well enough, I even prefer it to actually seeing the band live.
I’ve always been a fan of live albums and have collected quite a few, both vinyl and CD, over the years. I’m willing to argue that there are still some great live releases coming out courtesy of today’s artists but I’ll also suggest that too many people have jumped on the live album bandwagon and kind of saturated the genre. There was a time when, years into a band’s tenure, a live album would come out with much anticipation. Now, bands are tossing multiple live releases in a short amount of time. Some are guilty of offering them after only one or two proper albums. For me, the big draw is collecting live relics of classic bands - stuff from Led Zeppelin, The Who, Miles Davis, Ramones, etcetera that I never had the opportunity to witness in person.
@JDR & DocStrange:
Another one for Muse’s HAARP. And I agree that the setlist for the CD was a disappointment compared to the DVD. Still need to get around to ripping the audio from the DVD….
Last official live album I bought was Robyn Hitchcock’s Robyn Sings, but that wasn’t a live album in the traditional sense.
The last live album i bought “Live” by the Police. The last one i downloaded was the Paramore Live CD that came out last month. I am quite frequently downloading live music through torrents, however. I have to believe that there is a decent sized subset of people who embrace live albums in the form of torrents who were previously not involved with traditional tape and cd bootleg trader groups.
A couple of weeks ago at Terrastock I picked up a live, tour-only CDR by United Bible Studies. Great stuff!
Drinkypuss’s comment re: torrents is extremely OTM.
@drinkypuss: I can definitely see that, yeah. So maybe that’s killing the need for the live album more than YouTube, etc–also someone pointed out this morning that a lot of commercially available live albums have sweetened bits, which takes away from the authenticity of the album.
@Maura Johnston: What torrents have also done is completely destroyed the once-thriving CD live bootleg market — anyone remember Kiss The Stone?
@Maura Johnston: true, but then in the sixties there were people like the 13th floor elevators who recorded studio albums and then added applause to make them sound live.
not that it’s the sixties anymore or anything.
the last one i bought was, oh, 1997 i think. actually, no. i bought the deluxe version of the last knife album (which had their new york concert as a bonus cd) after i already owned the regular version of the cd. so i definitely paid $32 for the live album, because i never watch dvd bonuses.
had it just been a standalone live album, though, i probably would have passed on it.
I know about a year or so ago I purchased a few tracks off iTunes for that Leonard Cohen “I’m Your Man” tribute concert. But I think the last full-fledged live album I bought was that “I Might Be Wrong” EP from Radiohead back in like..2001.
@Ned Raggett: Yeah. I remember going to the one cool record store YEARS ago to pay through the nose for Smiths bootleg shows. Oy.
And kick ass on the radio, Maura!
I mentioned before, I really don’t see the modern age endangering the Live Album so much as it endangers the Compilation Album. I don’t think anyone, these days, wants to actually buy a Playlist put together by anyone but themselves or their friends.
The last live album I bought was a collection of about 20 Bootlegged Teenage Fanclub shows, which I never even listened to once. This was back in, like, 1997 (i.e. before anything you could possibly imagine could be downloaded blazingly fast, on a whim, at any time).
@bcapirigi: i bought the deluxe version of the last knife album (which had their new york concert as a bonus cd) after i already owned the regular version of the cd. so i definitely paid $32 for the live album, because i never watch dvd bonuses.
Last live album for me was The Wreckers’ Way Back Home: Live At New York City. It also came in CD-only and deluxe-CD-plus-DVD editions. I would’ve bought it in CD-only form but I wanted the DVD, which I have put on more than I have heard the audio-only version.
Buy? Well, none, but I DLed a rip of most of the Jay-Z set in Glastonbury that was done professionally by someone in the Live Nation camp and available free on a blog.
How about Daft Punk’s Alive????? I can’t imagine trying to find a better recent case for live albums than this absolute gem, which is better than any of their recorded albums.
Wow, a live album? For reals?
I don’t think I’ve EVER bought one, save Joni Mitchell’s Miles of Aisles. (No, really.) I’m not a fan of live recordings at all, I’d rather go to a show, build my own memories. This may be why I don’t take pictures at shows either.
That being said, I will fess up to downloading live Mountain Goats tracks (but never whole shows). Oh, and I still give HEAVY play to Ben Gibbard’s ancient “Complicated” cover on my iPod. In fact, I’d say I’m mostly only ever interested in live covers. Yes! Wait! I downloaded that Radio One Live Lounge compilation with all the covers last year, but didn’t keep it because there were like, three worth hearing.
Oh dear, I’m so compartmentalized.
Last live albums for me were Live From Mars (Ben Harper) and Set List (The Frames), both sometime in the early 2000s. My problem with live albums is that no one knows how to produce them properly anymore. Too much ambient background noise (applause and crowds are fine, but not at the expense of the music). And they need to edit them to feel like a cohesive experience, a singular event, not just a collection of songs played live. When the quality of a live CD isn’t much better than a camera-phone show, what’s the point?
@PenguinSwim: OMG, thank you for that memory-jog. I too loved Alive 2007 - way, way more than I thought I would. (I wouldn’t go so far as to agree that it destroys Daft Punk’s studio albums - I love Discovery too much for that - but it’s a surprisingly effective animal all its own. I do enjoy it more than the still-slightly-overrated Homework.)
Actually, full confession: I received Alive on disc for free from one of my old EMI contacts who for some reason still sends me the occasional promo. So to answer Maura’s original query: Someone had to give me a freebie even to hear a live album I ended up loving. So…yeah, I’d say I’ve been rather “off” the official live-album-buying for quite some time now. And I am still an old-school CD buyer 80% of the time (vs. the 20% of albums I buy digitally or torrent).
Then again, even in the heyday of the CD, I maybe bought one, tops two live CDs a year. So I dunno how useful I am.
The last live album I bought was the double disc Van Morrison record from the late 70’s (copped it like six months ago), but I’ve downloaded about 20 Warren Zevon concerts of rather high quality from Archive.org
@Rob Murphy: Sorry, but I meant to point out that since The Wreckers’ live CD/DVD came out just in December, or eight months ago, I guess at least I am still buying “live albums”.
May I suggest an additional topic for debate: is it YouTube/cameraphone/Bittorrent etc. that is “killing” the live album, or was the live “album” “killed” many years ago by the DVD — the live concert DVDs put out by the artists themselves.
I suspect most people who are interested in live music are interested in the audio+visual performance of the artists, and the feeling of a communal enjoyment experience provided by the other members of the audience. This experience is enhanced significantly by the video that DVD provides.
I’ve always been a fan of “live” albums, but now I can’t imagine being interested in a “live” album that wasn’t / didn’t include a DVD of the concert.
When you ask if the live album was killed by the kids and their YouTubes, do you include the “live DVD”? Because the answer to “have the internets killed the live DVD?” has to be no. The YouTube videos won’t ever compare in quality to the DVDs, and can’t give you either the intimacy or the anti-intimacy (big huge arena crowds) of the DVD experience.
I suspect people who say, “Hey, how come there are no ‘Frampton Comes Alive’-s anymore???” are simply not walking over to the DVD Music sections of their Best Buys and Targets.
@Rock You Like An Iracane: Wasn’t his set amazing? Christ, I love him.
Bought R.E.M. LIVE, Knife’s SILENT SHOUT LIVE, Daft Punk’s ALIVE 2007, and Kylie’s SHOWGIRL (on import) last year.
As far as my thoughts on live albums go… there is no reason whatsoever for major touring acts to not be offering recordings of every show they play for sale. None. I’d buy a $10-$15 CD or download of most shows I attend without even thinking about it, and I doubt I’m alone. Overhead on this kind of production has to have come down significantly in the last few years, yes? Why has this practice not exploded?
@Rob Murphy: I suspect people who say, “Hey, how come there are no ‘Frampton Comes Alive’-s anymore???” are simply not walking over to the DVD Music sections of their Best Buys and Targets.
Yup to all that. Especially now that a number of bands release a new DVD of each big tour by default, as well as going the whole souvenir-of-the-show-you-attended route as well — Depeche Mode and Dead Can Dance immediately come to mind, there are plenty of others.
What I think it all boils down to is that the live album isn’t dead, but the ‘epochal’ live album is, for lack of a better term.
@SomeSound-MostlyFury: Oh hey, The Frames’ Live Set — I forgot about that one! It is really good. Also, a friend let me rip her copy of Max Raabe at Carnegie Hall a few months back (I was there! You can see me and my pals in a picture in the liner notes!) that she had to order from Amazon.de because it wasn’t released in the US. At all.
Addressing some of the other comments, sort of: Part of the problem is that so many performers today are so … lackluster, why the heck would you want a live album from them anyway? And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m definitely not running out to buy live hip-hop (never mixed quite right, you know?) or live pop albums. The best live albums have, and probably always will be put out by performers and bands that BRING IT live — like Rufus Wainwright or The Frames. It’s an arbitrary thing, though. What I may think is rad live, someone else might find showy or cheezy; and vice versa.
That being said, what to do with Hannah Montana and The Best of Both Worlds Tour here? Or the fact that the Jonas Brothers’ latest smash features live footage in the video? Is Disney, of all things, going to rejuvenate (I’m not going to say “save”) the live album, since it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get into the shows? Or is it, as Rob Murphy suggests, all about the live DVD now?
I definitely buy more live dvds than cds. I know I bought the Live Primus cd from the Aragon Ballroom because it was awesome and I was there… Most recently I had to replace my copy of the live Nine Inch Nails DVD “And All That Could Have Been”.
Before that, as far as CDs go: Dave Chappelle’s Block Party Soundtrack… does that count?
I don’t see the point in buying live concert CDs unless I was there. It just makes me jealous and angry otherwise.
@NeverEnough: I’ll hit you with a link later in a PM if you need it.
Just got a copy of Bowie ‘Live In Santa Monica ‘72′ and it’s most excellent. That’s an interesting case since it’s a boot that got the official release treatment from EMI. Never would’ve bought the boot (though I might have downloaded the show) had it not been released officially.
@dyfl: I know the Allmans have done this through Instant Live over their last few tours. It’s a logistical nightmare - you have to capture a great recording and then churn out a few thousand copies of the show within minutes of the final notes. I recall a line of folks waiting for their copies at Jones Beach that went on for days. I also recall hearing lots of complaints about the quality of the shows and widespread defective discs and things along those lines. So it’s definitely a good idea but hasn’t been perfected yet (though Gov’t Mule - http://www.muletracks.com - has a pretty good system).
My hunch is one of the big reasons is that many/most artists don’t want fans listening to every show on tape, for quality control reasons. You have to be damn sure that every night is a great show if you’re going to do this.
What I’d like to see is all fans getting a few mp3s from the show in their email the next morning, with a link to buy the show on CD or FLAC or whatever. I won’t hold my breath though.
@GhostOfDuane: Just got a copy of Bowie ‘Live In Santa Monica ‘72′ and it’s most excellent. That’s an interesting case since it’s a boot that got the official release treatment from EMI.
Wait, so that finally come out via EMI? My copy from the mid-nineties was on NMC — cleaned up from the earlier bootleg I had but not perfect by any means.
Oh! How could I forget! I picked up Darren Hayes’ Time Machine Tour. Never liked Savage Garden, but his recent solo album really tapped into Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel something fierce. Great DVD, too.
@dyfl: Newbury Comics was doing that for a while, selling CDs of people’s Boston shows. I think it should’ve done pretty well (since people looking to buy the album might have been at and liked the show)–no idea if it actually did well or not, though.
@Rock You Like An Iracane: Thanks so much for the offer but I already downloaded it and have been listening to it non-stop.
Muse: H.A.R.R.P. is the last live album I bought. Came with a DVD that was much better than the CD.
The Brakes’ “Tale of Two Cities”. Full disclosure, I manage the band. We felt that since the band has built it’s rep on live shows, we’d mix a couple of great shows and release them. Hyena Records agreed. I won’t leave a link so you won’t think I”m just here to hype…it was ultimately a lot cheaper than recording a studio album, and sounds just as good. Radio plays it, the fans buy it.
I worked a live album by a pretty prominent indie band not all that long ago, and I have to tell you that no one in the press really gave a shit. Like somehow a live album is not a “real” album, and no one wanted to cover it. So that could factor into this whole equation, as well.
I just DL’d a bunch of old Metallica shows for free from their website. Which is indicative of why the live album is obsolete.
I wrote a long dissertation on the death of the live album a few years ago, cleverly disguised as a review of Lucinda Williams’ “Live at the Fillmore.” And, oh, hey, here it is: [tinyurl.com] (Please disregard the weird formatting typo in the last paragraph.)
@Ned Raggett: It’s out in England now, out in the States on July 22. The quality is good, by all accounts better than the boots, but still not exactly perfect. I have a boot from Universal Amphitheater ‘74 (no Ronson though) that sounds much better (if anyone’s interested hit me up).
Straight-up bought, as in not found online via a website specializing in concert bootlegs? James Brown, Say It Live and Loud, from 1968. This is going to prove a pretty unpopular opinion (to which I attribute my general bias for late ’60s/early ’70s JB over any other period), but I figure it’s the best body of work he recorded in the ’60s — yeah, including Live at the Apollo (though maybe Douglas Wolk’s 33 1/3 will reassert its greatness to me when I get around to reading it). It’s completely full-throttle and berserk once it gets rolling, but really, really tight, and the fact that the set seems to revolve around this certain energy that manifested itself with “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” and would continue throughout the rest of the decade and the better part of the ’70s makes it pretty pivotal for me.
I bought “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads,” or whatever that finally-released-to-CD live/etc. collection is last Christmas.
I agree being surprised that the “buy-the-show-you’ve-just-attended” thing hasn’t taken off more. The Pixies were going to do it when they first started their series of reunion tours, but it sorta faded away. They Might Be Giants do that with most of their shows.
I guess I’d rather pay $20 for a set of mp3s or physical CD of one of the relatively few shows I’m able to drag myself to these days than for a rock ‘n’ roll t-shirt since clearly I have passed the days where I heard of them first.
There are a couple of used Dick’s Picks purchases in my near future. I’m trying to round out the collection. I bought that Hold Steady Live at Fingerprints EP about 9 months ago or so.
I’ve been a boot collector for since college, but I’d rather buy a live album than buy a boot (sound quality, liner notes, at least theoretically some of the money may eventually get near the artist). What I think is awesome is bands that offer downloads of their shows for a reasonable price (and often in a lossless format like FLAC). This can be a great revenue stream for bands if their contract allows it as they only pay for the bandwidth used and can collect a large chunk of the profit if fans buy directly from them rather than from some third party distributor.
A couple of live albums I’ve picked up in the last few years (either physically or digitally): Flickerstick, R.E.M., half a dozen live shows from Barenaked Ladies.
I wish Prince would release some of his concerts. The live at the Aladdin or Rave un2 the Year 2000 DVDs were OK, but there are DVDs circulating of some of his truly classic shows (some pro-shot) like Lovesexy Live 88 that really should be available through legit channels. Hell, I’ve got that show on CD, mp3, VHS, and DVD and I’d *STILL* buy it if he released it.
Oh, one more thought: one of the great things about youtube is that I can see if a band is actually any good live before a) buying tickets to the show or b) buying a live album by them. If it’s going to sound just like the album with a half-assed light show and not much stage presence then I’ll save my money.
I think Einsturzende Neubauten nailed the future of the live album some years ago - buy a recording of the show you just saw at the merch table afterwards.
Last truly great general release live album IMHO was K’Naan’s “The Dusty Foot on the Road”. Which, I suspect, is indicative of the fact that for a live album to be taken seriously nowadays, the artist’s gotta be doing something radically different to his regular studio sound.
@ Ned Raggett: Yeah, I remember KTS. Great stuff, the top purveyor of quality boots throughout the 90s. People really oughtta spare a thought for the destructive effect downloading has had on the once-flourishing commercial bootlegging industry…