Fake Live Track

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Songs that are perhaps supposed to sound live but aren't:

Bruce Springsteen - "Sherry Darling"
Jan Jelinek - "Music to Interrogate By" (brilliant use of the fake audience)
Elton John - "Bennie & The Jets

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 02:30 (twenty years ago)

KLF! UH-HUH! UH-HUH! *beepboop boopbeep* KLF! UH-HUH! UH-HUH! *beepboop boopbeep* KLF IS GONNA ROCK YOU! *dowdowdow* ANCIENTS OF MU-MU! *Dowdowdow* ANCIENTS OF MU-MU!

― j blount (papa la bas), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 02:35 (twenty years ago)

relaxed muscle "billy jack"

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 02:35 (twenty years ago)

"Arena" off Alan Braxe & Fred Falke's Rubicon single.

― Telephonething, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 02:52 (twenty years ago)

Thirteenth Floor Elevators Live, a fake live album - outtakes with dubbed on crowd noises.

― zappi (joni), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 02:55 (twenty years ago)

David Bowie - Rebel Rebel

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 02:59 (twenty years ago)

the seeds, raw & alive at merlin's music box (album)

― haitch (haitch), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:05 (twenty years ago)

Death From Above (when they were sans 1979) - "Do It! (Live)"

― sovietpanda (sovietpanda), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:06 (twenty years ago)

Pulp - "Sorted for Eeez and Whizz" (sp)
Cannonball Adderly - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy album

― PB, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:07 (twenty years ago)

Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up

― ()ops (()()ps), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:09 (twenty years ago)

Cannonball Adderly - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy album

That wasn't live? Never knew that.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:09 (twenty years ago)

I've always wondered about the second or third track on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots...

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:09 (twenty years ago)

Guns 'N Roses - Get in the Ring
Type O Negative - _Origin of the Feces_

― Michael Copeland, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:10 (twenty years ago)

Lou Reed - Kicks

― todd (todd), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 04:23 (twenty years ago)

Butthole Surfers, 'Johnny Smoke'

― mike lynch (mike lynch), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 05:56 (twenty years ago)

The two live tracks on Metallica's Jump in the fire were fakes, weren't they? Or was it just one of them? "Seek & destroy" and/or "Phantom lord", anyway.

― the todster (the todster), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 05:57 (twenty years ago)

Betty Wright "Tonight's The Night" (that intro!)

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 06:42 (twenty years ago)

Snog's entire "Live From The Global Village," hilarious for its sampling to make "acoustic" versions of Snog songs.

― Xii (Xii), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:14 (twenty years ago)

Spandau Ballet "Everybody, we got to fight for ourselves"

Bit towards the end, where music stops, crowd goes nuts, then the band come back in...

This never happened in real life.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:33 (twenty years ago)

a lot of early rave..

Utah Saints "Something Good"

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:33 (twenty years ago)

Sweet "Teenage Rampage"

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:34 (twenty years ago)

'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' was live in the studio -- it just wasn't recorded at the club credited on the jacket.

Not recorded live: about half of James Brown's 'Sex Machine' album, along with various other "live" cuts of his.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:47 (twenty years ago)

a lot of early rave..

Likewise KLF - a lot of those White Room-era singles went kerazy with the crowd samples innit?

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:51 (twenty years ago)

Oh duh, I can't read. Sorry.

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:52 (twenty years ago)

Squarepusher's "Ultravisitor" is peppered with fake applause and banter. It sounds pretty convincing in parts.

― Bill A, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 10:53 (twenty years ago)

IIRC, one of Janis Joplin's albums with Big Brother and the Holding Company is entirely fake-live. Not sure which one -- maybe Cheap Thrills.

Is Patti Smith's "Rock And Roll N****r" fake-live or real-live? It sounds pretty fake to me.

― mnra, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

The Legendary Orgasm Album by John's Children

― PaulieT, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 11:50 (twenty years ago)

'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' was live in the studio -- it just wasn't recorded at the club credited on the jacket.

So was the audience in the room with the players?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 12:05 (twenty years ago)

Modest Mouse - "Live in Sunburst Montana" (though they didn't really try to fake the live part.)

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

Hickory Wind/Cash On The Barrelhead - Gram Parsons.

― Adam Faithless (Adam Faithless), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 12:59 (twenty years ago)

Aerosmith's "Train Kept A-Rollin'," I think.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

I always wondered about Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit's first record, supposedly live in Georgia. But the applause and cheers are so astoundingly fake and then the last track is them 'shutting the door' (fading out the crowd) and playing another song that sounds the same as the previous songs just without the crowd noise. Besides, would that many people go to see this group before they even recorded a record? Was Col. Bruce that well known? The crowd didn't sound like 'Hampton Grease Band' fans, more like generic stock-sound-efx CD fratboys.

― caspar (caspar), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

I wanted to put "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" by the Swinging Medallions, but apparently the hit version was a live version, which they were forced to record after the original, raunchier version couldn't get played on the radio.

Also of note: For the version of "Heart of the City" on Tracks on Wax 4 they took the live version which had already appeared in the UK on Jesus of Cool, wiped Nick Lowe's vocals and replaced Dave Edmunds. Apparently it was Jake Riviera's idea.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

Bob Seger, "River Deep, Mountain High"
Joe Tex, "Skinny Legs and All"
The Stones' entire Got Live If You Want It LP

For some reason, this was standard practice back in the '60s - the musical equivalent of a TV laugh track - and I've never had any clue what the hell for. Was it supposed to make the music more "exciting" or something?

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

I think so. Didn't Gary "U.S" Bonds specialize in this and didn't Bruce Springsteen do it on one of his hommages to Bonds on The River?

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 14:56 (twenty years ago)

Bruce Springsteen
Oh yeah, first line on the thread. Never mind.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' was live in the studio -- it just wasn't recorded at the club credited on the jacket.
So was the audience in the room with the players?

The original liner notes read: "...the Club De Lisa was one of the swingingest spots in Chicago's South Side...[...]...the club seats 800. Cannonball drew in better than 1200 customers...[...]...Capitol Records came into The Club one night before showtimes, strung their equipment all over, and took a full evening's performance down on tape. That was one of those great and providential blessings of history. What if there'd been no publisher around to provide a type-setter when Tolstoy wrote War and Peace? No Sistine Chapel when Michelangelo got itchy to paint a ceiling?....I'm proud the club played a part in it."

BUT, the album was actually recorded -- not in Chicago in July -- but in Hollywood in front of an invited audience in October. Studio A on the gound floor of the Capitol Tower was set up w/ seats and a bar. The invited guests (plied w/ drinks) made for the live-sounding chatter and cheers, while the studio setting made for a wonderfully clear sound.

Why?

DJ E. Rodney Jones (who was credited w/ the original liner notes) had just opened The Club in Chicago that year. He was a close friend of Cannonball's, and persuaded him to advertise the club in this way. It didn't work -- The Club didn't last long at all.

So while Mercy, Mercy, Mercy - Live at The Club isn't technically a "fake live track," it's definitely not "Live at The Club."

― PB, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:03 (twenty years ago)

I keep reading this as "Fave live track".

So if i ever say "What goes on, Velvet underground", just ignore me.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

James Brown - Caldonia

It's just a hunch, though. If you're half-listening, you'll notice that they repeat the last 30 seconds of the song twice to make it longer!

― Derek Erdman (Donkey King), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

On Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons does a rendition of the Louvin Brothers' Cash on the Barrelhead leading into Hickory Wind that was recorded in the studio and "faked" to sound live.

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

Didn't that "George Michael and Queen" single (live) get remixed by DeLaSoul? I mean, what's that all about then?

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

Beach Boys' Party, was meant to sound as if it were recorded at a party. You may remember the big hit off that album, "Barbara Ann," featuring (party?) guest vocalist Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

The Premieres, "Farmer John." Which kicks ass, by the way.

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Letts - "Get Dancin'"

― Randy Reiss (undeadsinatra), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Peggy Lee and George Shearing - Beauty and the Beat! (AMG says "Upon its first release Beauty and the Beat! was billed as a live recording from a Miami convention of disc jockeys. Though Peggy Lee and George Shearing did in fact perform there (and attempts were made to record them for later release), the songs heard on the subsequent LP were recorded in the studio and overdubbed with rather obvious canned applause, announcements, and even post-production echo.")

― todd (todd), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

"Geno" - Dexy's Midnight Runners

― Yngwie AlmsteenMay (sgertz), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 17:53 (twenty years ago)

didn't a certain ILM poster do an entire album based on this kinda theme, called "live while out of fashion"?

(nb: this isn't a rhetorical question as such; i genuinely can't remember.)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

IIRC, one of the Getz/Gilberto albums was like this, but it was live sides with overdubbed vox fromAstrud done in the studio.

― Doobie Keebler (Charles McCain), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

Jay-Z 'Encore', and a couple of other tracks I think, although you're obviously not supposed to really believe that it's live.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

the Morlocks- "submerged alive" LP. states on the cover that it was recorded live in 1986 "at Berkeley", but there is now way this could be true... it sounds like a crowd of teenage girls when most of the people at their shows were a bunch of pock-faced garage punks. A great LP though!

― mike sperry (ghost nuts), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 22:38 (twenty years ago)

"Brother Rapp," "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose" and "Lowdown Popcorn" on James Brown's Sex Machine LP.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 23:06 (twenty years ago)

Divine Force-"Holy War (Live)"

― J.D. Forgang (Jonathan Forgang), Thursday, 7 April 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

Underground Resistance - Living For The Night

― mainraker (jcartledge), Thursday, 7 April 2005 23:34 (twenty years ago)

Maybe -- Shangri-Las

At first I couldn't figure out what the hell the "crowd noises" were -- at the beginning it sounds like a 747 flying right overhead and during the middle there's the ambience of a crowded cafeteria.

― Heidy- Ho, Friday, 8 April 2005 03:19 (twenty years ago)

Erasure - "Love to Hate You." (Vince pulls out a reel labelled "Crowd FX" at the start of the video.)

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Friday, 8 April 2005 03:35 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

Ooh! Just remembered Morrissey's "Disappointed":

Moz: "This is the last song I will ever sing"
Crowd: "Yeah!"
Moz: "No, I've changed my mind again"
Crowd: "Aaw..."
Moz: "Goodnight, and thankyou!"

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Sunday, 7 August 2005 10:24 (twenty years ago)

don lennon - "the boston music scene"

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 7 August 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

Der Plan "Live at the Tiki Ballroom..." was a kind of funny fake-live record. There were a couple of old Antena songs on the other side of the "Boy from Ipanema" 12" which had a really nice, fake-live-at-home-with-a-4-track sound. I read somewhere that the Iron Maiden live version of "Remember Tomorrow" on the b-side of "Number of the Beast" was the same version as on the "Maiden Japan" mini-LP but with Paul Di'anno's vocal track re-recorded by Bruce Dickinson. I haven't checked because I don't have either record any more, but apparently you can still hear Paul at the end thanking the audience at the same time as Bruce. It would be funny if it were true, which I hope it is.

― Pangolino 2, Monday, 8 August 2005 02:04 (twenty years ago)

Where does "Sergeant Pepper/With a Little Help" fall? ... "Songs that use "live audience" SFX as part of the arrangement"? Nobody took it for "live" but is there an earlier "Fake Live Track" ?

― Declan Zimmerman, Monday, 8 August 2005 03:51 (twenty years ago)

"So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star" had the fake crowd effects that didn't try to fool anyone.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Monday, 8 August 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

Cliff Richard - 'Help It Along' (1974)

An entire fake live album. Gospel songs with audience dubbed on. Quite good actually.

― retort pouch (retort pouch), Monday, 8 August 2005 04:10 (twenty years ago)

Pink Floyd had audience sounds on one of the songs from Meddle.

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 8 August 2005 04:53 (twenty years ago)

Most (but not all) albums by the Kingsmen, Johnny Rivers, and Doug Clark & the Hot Nuts (who used the exact same audience track as the Kingsmen).

Also, for a fake live recording, Rare Earth's "Get Ready" (the song, not the album) sounds pretty realistic.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Monday, 8 August 2005 21:00 (twenty years ago)

nineteen years pass...

Bobby Bare's Sings Lullabies, Legends & Lies does this for its duration and it almost ruins the album for me. It's made worse because it can't make up its mind between a fake campfire vibe where you hear like a half dozen listeners whooping it up and occasional bursts of, like, stadium level applause. Also some fucker laughing at random not-that-funny lines. Not like it's a party record like most of the examples itt either.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Tuesday, 11 February 2025 23:54 (one year ago)

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