live v studio albums

Siouxsie and the Banshees' Nocturne is pretty damn great, and many of the takes on it I prefer to the studio versions. Doesn't hurt that Robert Smith is playing damn well throughout. ;-)

The Who's _Live at Leeds_ leaps to mind. Accept no imitators. The recently mentioned elsewhere _Live 1969_ by the Velvet Underground, too.

Stop Making Sense actually. Also...ahem...Under A Blood Red Sky. Lest we forget If You Want Blood You Got It.

the descendents' Liveage

Primus's Suck on This.

"Live at Leeds" is one of the best albums ever made, live OR studio.

Throngs of FM radio fans in the 70's loved "Frampton Comes Alive", and to this day, have not even heard any of his studio albums.

King Crimson - "The Great Deceiver" is superior to the originals...

And although the musicianship is pretty weak, the Kinks' "One for the Road" has a quality about it.. I much prefer those versions over the originals.

...I can hardly even think of any current live albums.... Nirvana's "Unplugged" and Pretenders' "Isle of View" were both great, though not neccessarily better than their studio works.

Ministry's In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up was probably the best of their hard guitar side.

VU's live 1969 is pretty great, but I wouldn't say it's better than their studio stuff. A couple others I can think of, Spiritualized's live albums (Albert Hall and All Fucked Up...) are as enjoyable to listen to as their studio stuff, and I have this semi-legit Verve bootleg (Voyager 1) that is great, back from when they were decent (up to their 1st album or so). And someone's gonna say Cheap Trick at Budokan...

Generally I guess most live albums are a waste of time, some are even fakes with dubbed in crowd noise (this practice may have stopped in the 70's though).

ELO - The Night the Lights Went Out in Long Beach.

IT'S ALIVE by the Ramones -- first three albums in louder, sloppier, rawer fashion. Ditto for NO SLEEP `TIL HAMMERSMITH by Motorhead.

Of course No Sleep Till Hammersmith!!! Obvious choice.

Tons of 'em, I've always liked live albums.

James Brown 'Love Power Peace' for sure. Maceo Parker's 'Life on Planet Groove' is one of the best funk albums ever.

Coltrane 'Live at Birdland' and the Vanguard stuff, and even Newport '63 w/Roy Haynes. The Miles electric live albums (Pangaea is glorious) as well.

I like the Doors live stuff on 'In Concert' far better than any of the studio stuff, sound included. 'Live on the Fillmore East' is definitely my favorite Hendrix album.

'Toward the Within' is probably my favorite Dead Can Dance album.

The Roots live album is as good as most of their studio material in its way.

etc...

Albums are shite. Same frozen argument, spinning around in circles, like you're a fucking magician who can raise the dead with a flip of a switch. "live", not live, what's the difference? One sounds sterile the other just sounds crap.

The Clash "From Here To Eternity is " is fantastic!

On a Ramones tack, the live set on the re-issue of "Leave Home" is ace. ("G'evnin we're da Ramones an' yurra loudmouth baby yabetta shuddidup")

fleetwood mac's 1980 live album is a triumph of treading-on-eggshells fraughtness, fracturing every aor pop classic with the sense of a post-tusk mac fast imploding (a number of tracks on the lp were recorded at soundcheck, which suggests how poor the actual shows must've been... but 'landslide' and 'never going back again' are impossibly fragile and beautiful, while 'over and over' is just perfect cheese rock, with an amazing ringing guitar solo at the end. and 'i'm so afraid' is just really fucken creepy and intense and menacing... and 'farmer's daughter' is this weird, creepy beac boys cover, just ambling tribal drums, an edgy bassline and the most chilled-out harmonies from nicks, mcvie and buckingham... sure, some of it sucks as, but a lot of it cuts to the heart of these songs, too often suffocated by overproduction...

not really, unless bootlegs count

as for official live albums, Dead Can Dance's Toward The Within comes pretty close

UFO live album. Maybe better than a studio album.

oooooh, and i prefer the ramones covers on sonic youth's 'hold that tiger' to the originals...

Oingo Boingo's "Farewell" beats anything they ever put out in the studio. Plus, it is a good solution to the problem of selecting the one Boingo album to own. They have, I think, five different greatest hits records and one "introspective" type double album. Go with Farewell.

There are a few...
Bob Dylan 'The Bootleg Series vol 4 - Live at Royal Albert Hall'
Morrissey 'Beethoven Was Deaf' - actually my favorite Morrisey album (possibly tied with Vauxhall & I)
Crust Brothers 'Marquee Mark' - 'cause thats all they've got. Silkworm (the trio version) + Steven Malkmus covering Dylan & The Band. Lots of fun.

Of course, yes--James Brown! _Live at the Apollo 1962_ (not to be confused with the lesser '67, '72 and '96 live-at-the-Apollo records) is not only fantastic as a whole, every song he does on it smokes its studio equivalent.

And actually the '72 one (_Revolution of the Mind_) has some fine stuff too, notably the "Get Up, Get Into It and Get Involved"/"Soul Power" medley...

Seconds Before The Accident by Archers of Loaf is a terrific live album that summarizes their career quite nicely and the Ramones' Greatest Hits Live is a SMOKING album (despite the lame-ass title.) The Seattle and Vegas shows of Pearl Jam's last tour (10/22) and (11/6) are much better than any of their single albums.

Can I second The Kinks' "One For The Road", Spiritualized and, er, Stop Making Sense.

Bob Marley's Live at the Lyceum is an important historical document for many Brits and arguably the only one of the original Island records Wailers albums you really need.

Elton John's "17.11.70" (or "11.17.70" if you prefer) was striking at the time - his early studio albums painted him as an earnest singer-songwriter. This piano- bass-drums only recording rocked. John/Taupin went on to write better songs, but this is the best representation of Elton's early career.

I prefer the live versions of many of Hendrix's classics (Red House, Stone Free, Fire) to the studio recordings. I'm not sure what the definitive Hendrix live album is. But I'll mention the various Monterey Pop albums for the hell of it (cf. also Otis Redding in this connection)

I too am struggling to think of anything recent (save for one or two of the Unplugged series) - the examples already given in this thread notwithstanding. Probably two reasons for this: the stigma of all those horrible 70s stadium rawk double live albums, and the advent of the VHS video retail market. Now, most artists release live videos (and presumably DVDs?) rather than live albums.

Mayhem, 'Live in Leipzig'

Grand Funk, 'Live Album'

Black Oak Arkansas, 'Raunch'n'Roll Live'

Elvis Presley, 'Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite'

Journey, 'Captured'

live seeds is great, b ut i don't know whether i'd listen to it over say boatman's call. elvis definetely esp boxsets, and some dylan ie albert hall

The only MC5 album that i listen to with any regularity is Kick Out the Jams. I have not adjusted to the fact that the live band is the same one as the studio band. Aside from the Who Live at Leeds and Tom Waits Big Time i cannot think of any other live albums that i enjoy very much, as they all seem substandard tot the studio.

Ani Difranco

I hated Ani Difranco until I saw her live. "Living in Clip" is the only thing I own from her and it's as if she's a different person than the chick who made all those other albums under the same name.

Misty In Roots 'Live At The Counter Eurovision' is a fantastic live LP.

'The Blow Up' by Television is at least as good as 'Adventure'. Probably better.

Yep to the Misty In Roots

James Chance and the Contortions "Live In New York" is way better than any of his studio recordings