Long before I'd gotten a full page's worth of recommendations for The Live Album Project, I realized that I couldn't just post the list of albums. I was going to have to write something about the various recommendations as I worked my way through the now evolving list.
I've since archived the list as it grows in the new Live Album Project tab at the top of the blog, setting up yesterday's post as the first entry in what ought to be an ongoing series.
The best thing about The Live Album Project so far is that it has -- finally -- broken me out of the musical funk that Spotify's playlist recommendations system had long since thrown me into. I mean, for fuck's sake, stop trying to play my favorite songs for me every five minutes on repeat. I like those songs, sure, but I also felt like I was losing my mind from all those relentless repetitions.
By contrast, The Live Album Project has a bunch of different shit -- by design. We're getting full-length musical statements, and not to put too fine a point on it, but I actually think it's been good, or even very good, for my overall mental health.
Breaking: Heavy rotation radio playlists did no one any favors.
Anyway, here are some thoughts on the initial selections from this project. I started listening to these early in the week and am only now getting around to writing about them, so this list is probably going to be a little longer than it ideally ought to be.
Recorded in 1980, this album obviously can't feature a decent number of the band's later hits. It's interesting as a period piece, though, because they built the show largely around Lindsey Buckingham as the band's leader, and here, thirty-some years later, we can see that the band's biggest hits were almost uniformly ones where Stevie Nicks took the lead.
Great album overall, though. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's not like those Buckingham-led b-sides are bad. They're just not the ones we hear on the radio here in the 21st Century. Bonus points because this is a recording of a single performance, not an amalgamation of a concert series's best moments.
In which The Police sound like a ska band. I never would've said, "Y'know, the 90s-era band No Doubt was heavily influenced by The Police," but having heard this album, that's clearly true.
I'm not the world's biggest ska fan, alas. The album definitely has its moments, but I didn't like it half as much as I expected that I would.
This is another album that has its moments, but that isn't as good as I wanted it to be. Worse, it's an amalgamation of not just a bunch of different performances but of different performances on wholly different tours.
Ugh.
Sally and I saw Journey live a few years ago at the Hartford XL Center, and I came away thinking that the venue had shitty acoustics. We talked about natural sonic distortion in the first entry in this series. I heard it at this particular concert and knew it for what it was right then and there. If I'd been a D&D Character, I'd have had to make a Constitution Saving Throw or take 5 Thunder Damage every quarter hour.
This recording doesn't feature that kind of sonic dissonance, thankfully, but it does make me think that maybe Journey is a better studio band than performance band. Contrast that with Fleetwood Mac, and you can really see what I'm talking about.
Taylor Swift - Live from Paris
Live From Paris isn't technically an album. It's a series of singles, which were then collected into a Spotify playlist.
Leave it to Swift to come up with a 21st Century solution to the live album problem.
Magnificent performance. You don't think of Swift as an outstanding performance artist because she's mostly known as a songwriter, but man, she is really, really on here.
This is a must-listen. No really. Queue this up right now. It's that good.
Probably my favorite live album from Rush, and that's saying something because 1) they have a TON of live albums, and 2) this one doesn't have MOST of their biggest hits.
Working Man? Nope.
Tom Sawyer? Nope.
2112? Nope.
Spirit of Radio? Nope.
And on and on. Subdivisions is here, and they close with Closer to the Heart, but it's mostly a bunch of awesome b-sides. Notably, too, they released Mission as a single off this album. I don't know that I've ever heard a studio version of that song, but I love Mission. It's one of my go-to's.
Anyway, I love this one. It's a long-time personal favorite.
The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over
The Eagles in their long-awaited reunion tour. It's fine, but it sounds more like business than love. I mean, the Eagles are brilliant, but I found myself wishing they'd play some singles from Glen Fry and Don Henley just to show how much everyone had grown as a person.
Spoiler alert: that didn't happen.
Triumph - Live at the Us Festival
Like Rush, Triumph is a Canadian rock trio from the late 70s and early 80s. This similarities are obvious, but Triumph is more of a power guitar act. They are decidedly hair metal, while I don't think you'd necessarily say the same of Rush.
I don't love Triumph, but they've got a couple of songs that I like a lot, and this particular album is TERRIFIC. The second half, from Lay It On The Line to Magic Power is absolutely outstanding.
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid (Live at Abbey Road)
This wasn't really my jam. I'll explain it like this:
Elbow : The Police :: Triumph : Rush
If you want a more British take on The Police with a kind of big-band sound, this one might be for you. I thought it was okay but definitely not more than that.
I probably still have that Journey live album. It is pretty hit-or-miss, which is what happens when you cherry pick from different tours instead of recording just one.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but yeah, it drove me CRAZY! Like, I get that there are gonna be mistakes but still 100% prefer a single concert recording.
Delete