A reflection on live albums and the failing of this year community project

by Tarbeaux

Fri, 11 Aug 2023

Read in 8 minutes

When ferday doesn't participate, you know something's wrong

gigs

Each year, the vortex’s members are presented with a common activity to take part in and interact with each other. This activity essentially revolves around listening to music in a chosen theme. We had goat and guts, which tackled the birth of black and death metal with their most influential early albums. Or listening to Rolling Stone’s top 500 songs lists (2004 and 2021). Well this year’s goal was to listen to a list of the best or most important 147 live albums ever released from 1953 to 2020.  On paper, it looks quite good, a lot of variety, perhaps some nice discoveries here and there, and live music is enjoyable right ? Oh boy was I wrong and in insight, it was quite the mistake. 

First there was the non existent participation. There are always some people starting the projects and dropping them (those lazy fucks) or taking years to finish (those slowpokes) but this time it was extreme, only five people finished the project and only one more will make it through probably. The usual rate is around ten people finishing the yearly activity, but this time it didn’t catch on. I think most people don’t care about live albums, they would rather listen to the studio versions of the songs most of the time. ‘’I always considered live albums as studio album with crappy mix and pointless gig banter and the few I’ve heard in the project didn’t convince me I was wrong’’ said our respectable member Dr. Verinen, which I guess was fair, and an opinion that many vortexers share. 

Second was the runtime, a lot of those live albums are way too long, to the point of being ridiculous. Who needs 3 hours of Bruce Springsteen or Dream Theater in their life (or even 5 minutes to be fair). According to the very reliable and trustworthy strawberrydeluxe[citation needed], the whole runtime of this project was 85.3 hours, with an average album length of 75.6 minutes, which is ultimately quite long. 

And third was the overall quality. Even if this project made me listen to a lot of artists I never heard of, the number of mediocre albums in this project was pretty high, and ultimately I already knew the best albums of the bunch. I gathered this little top 10 if you wanted to check, objectively of course, the best albums of this project:

  1. Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East 10/10: The best of the best, one of my favorite albums ever, all the songs on it are better and faster than their studio version. It’s basically the shift between the less heavy early Judas Priest and their NWOBHM period.  The performance is spotless, the twin guitar leads are a delight and Rob Halford sounds amazing (mostly because it was overdubbed in the studio). I must mention Victims of Change that is probably one of the best live performances ever made, to the point it’s almost a new song. 

  2. Motörhead - No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith 10/10: Every time I put this album on, I have this sensation that apparently is called joy. I’m smiling, headbanging, singing along with Lemmy’s voluptuous voice. I pretty much think that you can’t experience Motörhead at their best and what they represented in the 80’s without hearing them live. It’s also short. 

  3. Daft Punk - Alive 2007 10/10: Basically a DJ set with 20 000 people, where they mashup all their best songs and improve their weaker ones. So it makes for something quite unique in their discography, that is worth a listen if you like them. Overall it’s 1h24 of happy dancing music with the usual slight melancholy twist that you can expect from them.

  4. Slayer - Decades of Aggression 10/10: At almost 1h30 minutes, this better be filled with absolute stone cold classics, well guess what, this is from 1990, so warm your neck and welcome to riff city. The performance is top notch, the heavier version of songs like The Antichrist or Dead Skin Mask, with all the usual songs makes for what is essentially an amazing Best Of that will make your scream SLLAAAAAAAAAAAAYEEEEEEEEEEEHERERERER while chugging on your Coors Light.

  5. Carpenter Brut - CARPENTERBRUTLIVE 9/10: Welcome to banger town, please report to the dancefloor. To the usual high quality synthwave, in a live set up, Brut adds a live drums and guitarist. And I must say I’m a sucker for the leads and solo on top of distorted synth. The whole show is basically the best part of a DJ set, a live show and a big party. I have seen them live, the ambiance is amazing, the performance and light show is great, and if you don’t sing the Maniac cover at the end with the whole crowd, you hate fun. The album is a 9, but as a live show it’s a 10.

  6. Blue Öyster Cult - On Your Feet or on Your Knees 9/10: I love the early occult rock of BÖC and they manage to do it justice on this live performance. Despite some misses on the playlist, it covers well the first three albums, and delivers some good ol’ rock’n roll, with the usual gimmicks of that time. The songs are lengthened, you have some guitar solo battles, and some more improvised sections. But where Deep Purple fails on Made in Japan, by making all of their songs completely boring and annoying, BÖC never lower the energy level and play with their heart out. They have fun, so it makes for a fun album. 

  7. Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison 8/10: Finally the first album I hadn’t heard before. It’s also a good lesson about banter and audience interaction. Here, Johnny Cash let the music do most of the talking and got one of the best crowds of the whole project crazy. Some well placed jokes, a glass of water and modest thanks, it’s short and sweet and makes you feel part of the show. Otherwise great voice, great guitar play and a great vibe for a special album. 

  8. Justice - A Cross The Universe 8/10: A lot of electronic music in my favorite live albums, probably because this type of show is suited to modify the songs easily and offer something original compared to the source material. There is probably some nostalgia going on, but I still enjoy this album a lot. Justice manages to be both heavy and groovy, and I quite like the crowd interaction. I feel like they recorded this show like a metal one and I must say it works well for me. 

  9. Triptykon - Requiem 8/10: We had a fair share of albums with orchestration and most of them were a failure (looking at you Metallica - S&M), slapping some violins and flutes on top of the original track is lazy and a recipe for making every songs feels schizophrenic. But what happens when you specifically wrote a show to be performed by an orchestra. Well you get the best sounding album of the whole project, and a performance that is both subtle and yet powerful. The vox sounds great, the drums are a delight and the balance between the guitars and the orchestration is absolutely perfect. 

  10. I don’t have a clear last album to put on this list, so I’m going to give a shout out to the new albums I discovered and enjoyed thanks to this project, all the following are 8/10: King Crimson - USA, Ministry - In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up (Live), Candlemass - Candlemass Live, Savatage - Ghost in the Ruins: A Tribute to Criss Oliva, Dissection - Live Legacy and Meshuggah - Alive.

To conclude this article, I wanted to give some advice on how to make a decent live albums if you ever happen to be an artist and wish to show how good of a showman you are:

With all of that you should be able to produce an album better than 90% than what we had to listen to during the last months. Will the next project have better music? Probably not. Will it be shorter? Yes. Stay tuned for what will come next and see you then.