Live or Memorex?

My friend Sean asked in a comment about the Kid Rock post if I feel that all live albums are pretty much time-filling sucktitude. Not as such, no… but I do have some serious opinions on the subject.

As a matter of fact, we had a good long conversation at work today about the whole live album thing. Our new hippie help made an interesting point I wouldn’t’ve otherwise heard, in that live albums are a major part of the whole jam band scene. Sites like Archive dot org, to say nothing of the dozens- if not hundreds- of BitTorrent sites devoted solely to live show trading. She stated that most bands play songs that stretch out to half-hour jams, and it seems really weird to her when she hears a studio take of it “that’s like five minutes and done.”

And that’s a good point. Live bootlegs have long been a great way to hear new material, covers, and songs that might end up discarded: i.e., stuff that might not make it to a studio for months, years, or even ever. The sound quality can run anywhere from near-studio to barely discernable fuzz, but there’s a certain cachet in having something in your possession that might have otherwise only been heard by one audience ever.

However, that’s how bootleg live albums work. We’re talking about legitimate, label-released live stuff. There’s a pretty good Wikipedia list of what might be called definitive or essential live albums. And there have been some good ones.

Cheap Trick‘s At Budokan turned “I Want You to Want Me” from a Tin Pan Alley ditty to a major rocker, and probably one of the few songs to which damn near everyone in the world knows the words. To say nothing of the immortal “This next song… is the first song… off our new album…”

“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” is yet another amazing statement, of course issuing from the Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash, on Live At Folsom Prison. “Folsom Prison Blues” just doesn’t sound quite right without that intro and all the inmates hollerin’.

KISS‘s Alive!, the Allman BrothersAt Fillmore East, and James Brown‘s Live at the Apollo? All fucking classic. The hardest working man in show business earned that fucking title with his album. He recorded it himself, and it ended up being so fucking good that radio stations would play the A side, do some commercials, and then come back and play the B side.

However… these albums were recorded at least two decades ago. This was when bands honed their chops on the road, and really didn’t make albums unless the stuff had been tested. Acts knew how to play live, which is why the albums I’ve mentioned are so classic. Do we need Pearl Jam to release a disc of every fucking show on their tour? No. Does Dave Matthews Band need to release eight live albums commercially? No. Why? These bands haven’t even been around twenty years. One is just fine, thanks, and it better not just be a greatest hits record. And don’t even get me started on new bands putting out greatest hits…

The fact of the matter is this: live albums are, for the most part, greatest hits packages. All the songs you know, maybe a few oddballs and a cover. That’s it. I want more bands to do like Neko Case. She put out a live album that was all new material. A couple tracks had made it out on comps or singles, but not one track had been on one of her previous releases. That’s fucking cool. If you’re good, give me some new stuff- I want a reason to buy a bunch of material I already own. And if it rocks enough, I’ll probably buy your new studio release when it comes out, too.

Sadly, most bands’ rationale as to live records is that “our studio stuff doesn’t capture our energy.” Well, it’s like my boss said today- “That energy is from everybody experiencing something at one and sharing that energy.” You can’t get that on tape, no matter how good you are.

Cheap Trick – “I Want You to Want Me
Neko Case – “Train From Kansas City