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The Songfactors' Choice "Top Live Albums of All Time"


Lucky

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okay since you asked so nicely ;)

[big]The Songfactors' Choice: Top Live Albums of All Time[/big]

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1. How The West Was Won - Led Zeppelin

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2. MTV Unplugged in New York - Nirvana

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3. 'Live' Bullet - Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band

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4. Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! - The Rolling Stones

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5. Live at Leeds - The Who

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6. Frampton Comes Alive! - Peter Frampton

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7. Live Rust - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

:guitar:

Note:

Just like the usual the results from The Songfactors' Choice will get posted in a blog entry on the SF mainpage. For that purpose we'd like to ask the nominators of our seven great albums to write a couple of lines about how and why these albums are the best live albums and thus are deservedly featured in our list.

(of course you will be given credits for that ;) )

:headphones:

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Frampton_Comes_Alive.jpg

6. Frampton Comes Alive! - Peter Frampton

"Exqueese me? Have I seen this one before? Frampton Comes Alive? Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide." ~ Wayne's World

This is the one that propelled Peter Frampton into megastardom. It was my first Frampton experience, and easily slipped right into the annals of music history for me. There is something about the songs on this album that play so much better live than on studio albums, and the talk box Frampton used on some songs made them seem a whole different dimension.

Now for the technical drivel (From Wiki): Frampton had minimal commercial success with his early albums. This changed with Frampton's breakthrough best-selling live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, in 1976. The album was recorded in 1975, primarily at Winterland in San Francisco, California and the Long Island Arena in Commack, New York. Released in early January 1976, it debuted on the charts at 191. It stayed at the top of the charts, at number one, for 10 weeks, stayed in the Billboard's Top 40 album chart for 55 weeks, and stayed on the Billboard 200 charts in total for 97 weeks. It was the top selling album of 1976, beating Fleetwood Mac's Fleetwood Mac for the top spot, and was the 14th best seller of 1977.

The album became the biggest selling live album at the time of its release and sold over 6 million copies in the US, and 16 million worldwide. As of 2008, it is the fourth best selling live album of all time.[

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I'm not very good at writing things like this, but I'll give it a shot... :P

#3 Live Bullet ~ Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band

Alot of the music I was exposed to in my younger day was all due to my sister, who is 3 years older than me....When she bought this album, which she played constantly I absolutely loved it!..I never got a chance to see him in concert, but from what I've heard, he puts on quite a show....

And now for the technical stuff:

From Wiki: In April 1976 Seger and the Silver Bullet Band had an even bigger commercial breakthrough with the album Live Bullet, recorded over two nights in Detroit's Cobo Arena in September 1975. The album stayed on the Billboard charts for 168 weeks, peaking at #34 which was Seger's highest charting album at the time. It also contained Seger's hit rendition of Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits" (#69 US) as well as Seger's own classic take on life on the road, "Turn the Page", from Back in '72. It also included his late 1960's successful releases — "Heavy Music" and "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man".

Critic Dave Marsh later wrote that "Live Bullet is one of the best live albums ever made ... In spots, particularly during the medley of 'Travelin' Man'/'Beautiful Loser', Seger sounds like a man with one last shot at the top." An instant best-seller in Detroit, Live Bullet quickly began to get attention in other parts of the country. In June 1976 he was a featured performer at the Pontiac Silverdome outside Detroit in front of nearly 80,000 fans. Only three nights before in Chicago, Seger had played before 50 people in a bar.

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#7 Live Rust - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Well what can I say about Mr. Neil Young & Crazy Horse....I probably could go on and on, but basically he is just one cool talented guy, who has been around for quite awhile and has done it all...I'm not real big on buying live albums, but this one was a must....Whether it's "one note Neil" on the electric guitar, or the mellow Neil on acoustic, it's all good...And he definitely can play the heck out of one note that's for sure!...And lyric wise, he's one of my favorite singer/songwriters....I did get a chance to see Neil Young & Crazy Horse in '79...Excellent concert.

And now from Wiki:

In 1978, the band released its fourth album Crazy Moon before rejoining Young for his classic albums Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust, both appearing in 1979. The groups's oft-criticized sloppy garage-band approach fit in well in the post-punk rock and roll world of the late seventies, with Young and the Horse running through songs old and new with fire and abandon. Hailed as two of the best in Young's career, the exuberant drive of the Rust albums owed greatly to the presence of Crazy Horse.

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Whoa I got a number one? Ok here goes...

Led Zeppelin was the greatest hard rock band on the planet. The term "heavy" was invented to describe them, and any band that has come since that dares to call themselves "heavy" must still bow to the mighty Zeppelin. Nothing exhibits the heaviness of Led Zeppelin like their live performances in their prime, and this is captured perfectly on their triple-disc live set "How The West Was Won". You can hear them at their loudest (Immigrant Song), their folksiest (Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp), and their most ridiculously self-indulgent (Whole Lotta Love and Dazed and Confused), and it will all make your jaw drop. Hard rock bands, this is the level you aspire to, but don't bother trying to reach it. You won't.

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Great Top!! :thumbsup:

"Get Yer Ya-Ya´s Out"

The Rolling Stones

When "Get Yer Ya-Ya´s Out" was released in September 1969, the bootleg album "Liver That you´ll Ever Be" (from the same tour, in their Oakland concert) was already a hit among the Stones lovers. An official live album was a must, as well as for the fans or as for the record company and the Stones themselves. They made a little gem. It was the first tour with Mick Taylor.

The album was recorded in the Maryland and New York shows and it reached #1 in the UK and #6 in the US charts. By then, they were already preparing the "Sticky Fingers" album and you can find on this live record some their best performances: "Stray Cat Blues" (thrilling version), Johnson´s "Love In Vain" or the all-times classics "Sympathy For The Devil", "Honky Tonk Women" or "Street Fighting Man". As well as some rockings "Carol" or "Little Queenie".

At least, The Rolling Stones had their official live and excellent album; "Get Live If You Want It", live LP released in the US in 1966 was a bit tricky; recorded live but with some screams and special effects added in the studio)

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If someone asked me to define rock for them, I'd hand them a copy of Live At Leeds and send them on their way. Firstly, there’s the songs themselves. Half of them may be covers, but after they’ve been given this distinctive Who treatment, you’d think they were written just for this performance. And the songs written by Pete Townshend take on a life of their own – My Generation, which was split into six different tracks on the Canadian release, manages to reprise almost the entire career of the band in fifteen minutes, and Substitute and Magic Bus don’t have that much in common anymore with the comparably tame studio recordings.

Then there’s the sound. This album manages to blow you away with the sheer loudness and power that’s being created by only three instruments – The Who were not the loudest band on the planet for nothing. Manic drumming that doesn’t seem to follow any rules and a bass that makes the floor vibrate and drowns everything else out may be out of place in other bands, but together with Pete Townshend’s guitar playing it works a magic that almost never fails. And amazingly enough, Roger Daltrey can definitely hold his own and make himself heard over this ongoing explosion of sound – you really don’t want to be an ‘old man’ crossing his path when he belts out the lyrics to Young Man Blues.

But rock is also about fun. Listening to later versions of the album which feature many more songs, you get treated to a lot of band and audience banter, but even listening to Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend trying to negotiate the price of the Magic Bus on the original version, you can tell that they're not just doing this because they have to.

And that’s what makes Live At Leeds such a great recording. Do you need any more reasons for why this is the greatest live album of all time?

I think I got carried away a little. :P Is this too long?

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