Listeners of Planet Rock radio recently voted for the Top 40 live albums of all time; the results were as follows.
01. THIN LIZZY - Live & Dangerous
02. DEEP PURPLE - Made In Japan
03. UFO - Strangers In The Night
04. THE WHO - Live At Leeds
05. AC/DC - If You Want Blood, You Got It
06. IRON MAIDEN - Live After Death
07. PINK FLOYD - PULSE
08. PETER FRAMPTON - Frampton Comes Alive
09. KISS - Alive
10. GENESIS - Seconds Out
11. STATUS QUO - Live!
12. YES - Yessongs
13. JETHRO TULL - Bursting Out
14. HAWKWIND - Space Ritual
15. CHEAP TRICK - At Budokan
16. WISHBONE ASH - Live Dates (1973)
17. LED ZEPPELIN - The Song Remains the Same
18. QUEEN - Live Killers
19. RUSH - All The World's A Stage
20. RUSH - Exit Stage Left
21. LYNYRD SKYNYRD - One More From The Road
22. MOTÖRHEAD - No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith
23. HUMBLE PIE - Rockin' The Filmore
24. URIAH HEEP - Live 1973
25. LED ZEPPELIN - How The West Was Won
26. QUEEN - Live at Wembley '86
27. ASIA - Fantasia
28. RORY GALLAGHER - Irish Tour '74
29. WHITESNAKE - Live in the Heart of the City
30. ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND - Live at Fillmore East
31. SLADE - Slade Alive
32. METALLICA - S&M
33. THE ROLLING STONES - Get Yer Ya Ya's Out
34. FREE - Live
35. RUSH - Rush In Rio
36. THUNDER - 20 Years And Out: Hammersmith Apollo July 2009
37. RAINBOW - On Stage
38. "Woodstock" soundtrack
39. DAVID GILMOUR - Live in Gdansk
40. JUDAS PRIEST - Unleashed In The East
There's a lot that can be said about these results - like, "wow,
Rush fans are friggin'
nuts" and "where's
Ted Nugent's
Double Live Gonzo?" and "
Asia?
Really?
Asia?!?" - but the real point is that other than
David Gilmour's
Live in Gdansk, Rush's
Rush in Rio,
Metallica's
S&M and the
Thunder disc, all of these albums are from the '70s or '80s. Which makes me question whether the live album has any value in the 21st Century.
There was a time when live albums served a clear purpose. They showed that bands could reproduce their songs live, which was somewhat important in the case of prog-rock groups like
Genesis and
Yes, with their lavish arrangements and super-deluxe production. Heavy blues and hard rock bands like
Free,
Humble Pie or
Status Quo, whose songs were more bare-bones and basic, didn't really need to prove their case on that score, so their live albums became a showcase for extended jamming and solos. Live albums were also great if you lived in a town that never got bands coming through. New Yorkers and Californians didn't need 'em, but if you lived in rural Nebraska,
If You Want Blood You Got It was as close as you were probably gonna get to seeing
AC/DC.
But...but...now we have the Internet. And cell phone cameras. And YouTube. Pretty much every gig a band plays is uploaded online, in whole or in part. Some bands, Metallica most notably, record every concert and put them online in CD quality for purchase - not only can you own a Metallica live album, you can own the exact show you were at, if you choose. (Supposedly, Metallica are working with
Greg Fidelmann, who engineered
Death Magnetic, on an "official" live album. The question is, why? If all their concerts from the World Magnetic Tour are already available, couldn't fans just make their own? Maybe we're expected to pay for the effort the bandmembers and Fidelmann have put in, listening to version after version of "Broken, Beat & Scarred" and "That Was Just Your Life" to pull the best ones.)
Of course, there's also the idea, worth pondering, that there are very few bands big enough to "deserve" a live album these days. Half the point is to hear the roar of a sold-out stadium crowd behind the band, and which bands are still playing stadiums or even arenas?
Judas Priest's recent
A Touch of Evil - Live and
Iron Maiden's
Flight 666 were like relics left behind by old gods, bands taking victory laps knowing that nobody's coming up behind them. Similarly,
Slipknot's
9.0: Live, released before their somewhat disappointing fourth studio album
All Hope is Gone, felt like a combination of contract-filler and something they had to do to prove themselves more than just music for pissed-off kids at the mall, like a live album was something "real" bands did.
What do you think? Is the era of the live album over?
