Clown sent me this.
Top 100 greatest live albums of all time. Before I start yelling, let me go through the list for you and compile the list of albums where I give the dude kudos.
- 2. At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash
- 10. The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett – very nice pick…70 minutes of solo piano completely improvised on the spot in glorious execution. This became Jarrett’s calling card (along with his trio, which is the greatest trio of all time in my opinion) and while sometimes it worked spectacularly, like at Koln, often times it failed. He did one of these in Cleveland, came out on the Severance Hall stage, played for five minutes, got up and announced, “sometimes you just don’t have it.” Then he proceeded to lecture the crowd for 75 minutes about why the term “world music,” is bullshit. I knew there was a reason I love Keith Jarrett.
- 12. Live In Europe by Otis Redding
- 13. Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads
- 14. MTV Unplugged In New York by Nirvana
- 22. At Carnegie Hall by Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane
- 23. Concierto De Aranjuez by Paco De Lucia – I’d say classical albums shouldn’t count…but that’s just me. This one rocks.
- 30. Live Killers by Queen
- 46. Muddy Waters Live At Newport 1960 by Muddy Waters
- 51. Live: P Funk Earth Tour by Parliament
- 52. Europe ‘72 (Expanded US Release) by Grateful Dead
- 58. Sunday At The Village Vanguard [… by Bill Evans Trio
That’s it. After 58, the list turns to nothing but garbage.
After the jump…the worst entries as well as the sole reason I’m writing this.
Bad entries:
- 5. Judy At Carnegie Hall by Judy Garland
- 8. How The West Was Won by Led Zeppelin – Studio Zepplin: good. Live Zepplin: not so good.
- 9. Kick Out The Jams by MC5 – I understand the importance, but punk music, in general, is a slap in the face by the artist if you simply listen to it. Would you hear a man talk if all he did was yell and scream at you non-sensically in 3-word sentences without a grasp of any language whatsoever? No. Punk music is like listening to the most offensive retarded person in the world tell you you’re a fucking asshole and not worth any effort in actaully TRYING to communicate in 90 second clips. If you listen to punk, just by listening, you have given me lisence to come up to you and bash you in the skull with a MagLite.
- 18. Live At Leeds (25th Anniversary … by The Who – what says awesome live recording like a group without it’s most important member playing 25 year old songs with the grace of a end-of-his-career Franco Harris collecting a bloated paycheck while delivering a quartile of the performance?
- 28. Alive! by Kiss – KISS sucks. The author couldn’t even capitalize their name right. This author sucks. Much like KISS…who sucks.
- 37. Toward The Within (Remastered) by Dead Can Dance – the fuck is this?
- 42. Miles Davis At Fillmore: Live At… by Miles Davis – yay heroin!!!
- 56. Pulse by Pink Floyd – see reasoning for no. 18 above.
- 64. Live At Luther College by Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds – “Bro, did you hear that new live Dave CD? Lets see if spencer has any chronic he can sell us for $50 more than he normally charges because he thinks we’re faggy frat boys with terrible music taste.”
- 77. It’s Alive by Ramones – if you listen to the Ramones, you are a bad person.
- 88. The Wildlife Concert by John Denver – I thought the Rocky Mountains would be rockier than this…god damned John Denver’s full of shit.
- 91. Rush In Rio by Rush – I have this DVD and CD. It’s nothing special. I mean, it’s Rush, so it’s good, but when the coolest thing about the DVD is the crowd shots of the estimated 110,000 sea of Brazillians, well…
- 93. Alive 2007 by Daft Punk
So, by this point, you may be asking, “why did you write this, spencer?”
Because there’s the omission of the single greatest live album ever recorded in history. And this pisses me off.
The Allman Brothers At Fillmore East is the unquestioned greatest live album. Not only does it capture one of the most scintillating live performances from a band chock full of geniuses operating on the same wavelength, it was a landmark effort in the recording technology world as well.
If you haven’t heard the album, no matter what your musical stylings are, go out, download or do whatever you need to, but get it, spark a J, throw on the 2nd disc of the 2 disc set and settle in for some kick assery. I mean, it’s just flawless. The two guitarists are different in style, but mesh perfectly, and both take their solos to outrageous heights that only a truly great moment could produce. The rest of the band is fantastic as well, but I’m not going to waste any more time describing it…just get it and enjoy.
But here’s what pisses me off…
The engineer on the project, Tom Dowd (a recording engineer credited with the invetnion of 8-track recording who also was a child prodigy and worked on the Manhattan Project in addition to being the engineer on pretty much half of every classic album released between 1965 and 1980) broke new ground on the execution of recording live performances. At Fillmore East is a recording engineer’s equivalent of Tiger Woods’ 2000 season, and ever since, live recording has moved from sounding like a poorly recorded bootleg to giving you a window into a performance taking place miles and miles away.
Upon first listen, you’ll be shocked at how REAL everything sounds. You’re not distant, you’re not buried in crowd noise or other bullshit, it’s just…perfect. You hear the crowd when you’re supposed to hear the crowd, you hear each instrument, including both drummers, I mean, if you didn’t know that this was recorded in the early 70’s using primative equipment and heard the crowd noise at the end of the songs, you’d never know it was a live recording, it’s THAT good.
So lets see…transcendent live performance by one of the greatest live bands in history, new technological ground broken that 80% of the albums on that list employed and being THE iconic album by which all other rock live albums are judged isn’t enough to even GET on the list? Good to know.
Side note: The album cover artwork wasn’t even from Fillmore East…it was from the band’s headquarters in Macon, GA, the band’s hometown. The band was feeling tired and hungover beforehand, mulling around like a bunch of assholes who needed a pick me up…enter Duane Allman.
He goes over to one of the roadies who was also a friend, gets a suspicious looking bag containing a white powder, the band huddles around for a second, then comes out, ready for their picture (the one at the top of the post) looking like they just got off of a roller coaster.
Moral of the story…cocaine rocks.
I can’t believe “I Might Be Wrong” came in at #83. Great album and the final track is absolutely brilliant.
/BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
//Cubs fan’d
hef…im just hoping that the author was doing a general list and not actually ranking them. that thing was chock full of abortions.
james taylor live should be a lot higher than #94 as well.
The Judy Garland pick was FAAAAABULOUS!!
/Hef
How about Frampton Comes Alive being #66? I am not a big Peter Frampton fan, but his studio work is not even popular. His live Album was his most popular and is the stuff that is played on the radio and else where. It made him. Everyone knows about the damn thing. It was the highest selling Live album ever and was the highest selling Album PERIOD until Thirller. How is that 66th?
the same reason at fillmore east isn’t on there. the author is a dickbag.
/doesnt give a shit
You know what all the bands on this list have in common, right? That’s right, all were inspired by NFG.
Okay, the Allman Brothers Band…
I’d guess they’re there because Yanni was the only other option.
The Jarrett album is awesome. I listen to it once every 2 weeks or so.
/No Death Cab?
You don’t seem to have a very good conception of what “punk rock” is (was) all about. Although it is psychologically interesting you yourself feel to be the subject of “who” punk songs are addressing and therefore feel offended, as opposed to siding with the voice doing the singing in the first place. VERY interesting…
but then again, why would expect a profile different from someone who gushes on about golf all the time?
/takes a dump on a bible, american flag, and a Titleist ballcap.
i have a great idea of what punk rock is “about.” it’s about being as shitty as possible on your instruments and making a “statement” despite not actually doing anything.
also, as a music major, it shits on everything i hold musically dear. so there’s that.
+1
leave the titleist hat out of this.
You just don’t get it, man. You’re the man, man.
thanks!
spencer’s a suit!
Ok, see if you can follow me here, but ‘greatness’ in music, just as in sport, requires not only a mere recognition of technical skill, but perhaps also a qualitative feature we may define as ’spirit’, ‘attitude’, or a vague subjective dimension that engages emotive processes that appeal to human beings beyond canoodling on a keyboard or a guitar and calling it ‘music’. This is why some people like(d) punk and not, say, Emerson Lake & Palmer in the 1970s, just as some people enjoy actual sports, and not golf. This is why, while people may admire music majors for devoting their life to their passion, do not feel the need to grant them any ‘authoritative’ stance on these matters whatsoever.
feel to further to discuss these issues amongst yourselves.
ween, live in chicago, is also the tits
All this time when Spencer has used the physical action hashmark “/sits back in chair and takes a puff of cigar”, little did we know that he was actually sitting back in his chair and puffing on a cigar.
/sits back in chair without a cigar
//runs away crying because I want to be a suit like Spencer
It’s total bullshit that “Debt Sounds” didn’t make the list.
/nods at Roman
Where’s the Fucking “Band of Gypsies?”
Hendrix’s Machine gun is the best sex anthem since “Rod Stewart’s Tonight’s the Night.”
what does this have to do with college basketball?
Am I the “Dan Patrick” of major league jerk?
/doesn’t comment enough, so no
//doesn’t care
Glad someone said it.
ELP sucks.
but in regards to that first part, yes, i agree to a certain extent. and im not begruding you personally for liking punk (making an assumption here), but at the same time, it’s an affront to you as a person just by listening to it.
take the ramones for example…they simply don’t care about their audience. they don’t. otherwise they’d actually try instead of just writing the most basic bullshit and singing about absolutely nothing.
do i have respect for early punk? sure, mc5 is ok and i like the clash and sex pistols, but that was that watermark of the genre. punk is like a jackson pollock painting…there’s not much in terms of substance and anyone can do it, but only the guy (or in this case, bands) who were at the forefront matter.
that’s fine…the only person i demand respect from is tampa bo in rap arguments anyways.
but seeing as i was a music major, and love every aspect of musical theory and harmony, something as intentionally stupid as punk makes my ears bleed.
however, i don’t have to respect punk’s “underlying message” or whatever ambiguous element you were talking about because, in the end, every genre has people trying to make a statement of some kind…from jazz guys in the 60’s fighting for civil rights to david allan coe openly encouraging racism…just because punk dumbs it down to the lowest musical denominator doesn’t mean i have to show respect for it as a genre because of its “attitude.”
You’re not being the ball, Danny.
I have the Allman Brothers live at the Fillmore. I need to break that out tonight.
damn straight.
I love Chocolate and Cheese. The Stallion is my shit.
Wait that was Pure Guava
i always put poison interlaced with the meat.
Where is Hot August Night?
up my butt.
/spits
spencer’s a ghey suit!
better than a gay fish.