MUSIC: Live Albums

One humiliating musical confession first: I was listening to this song on the radio I'd never heard before, and I really liked it. I loved the woman's voice, and the song was a pretty solid rocker, but I kept thinking to myself, I know who this is. I was thinking it was some cool indie alterna whatever. Grrl. Whatever.

Then the DJ comes on and says, "That was Kelly Clarkson with 'Since U Been Gone'."

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Unclean... so unclean... I keep scrubbing, and scrubbing, but the stain is on my soul.

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Anyhoo!

Yesterday, I declared The Who's Live at Leeds to be the greatest live album ever. In the comments, Chris Brown let me know that I was quite the chump and doofus (but he said it more nicely) for believing so -- that indeed, The Allman Brothers At Fillmore East reigned supreme.

He's wrong, of course; he could not be more wrong. In fact, let us all laugh at him. HA HA HA!! Actually, I don't think I've ever heard that album. It's probably very good. It's just that I'm automatically predisposed to declare anything Who-related to be the best, and ain't nothing ever gonna change my mind about that. But then he named a couple other great live albums, like Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense (from the film directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme) and the Band's The Last Waltz (from the film directed by non-Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese), and then Ian chimed in with Foghat, because he's just that crazy, and it got me to thinking about my own live album favorites.

I'd probably put Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps right at the top. It's a brilliant album from beginning to end, half-acoustic, half hard-rocking with Crazy Horse -- "Pocahontas," "Powderfinger," the quirky "Welfare Mothers," and of course the bookends "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue" and "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" -- but what makes it truly remarkable is that the entire album is all-new material, recorded entirely in concert. How many other performers have ever done something like that?

Okay, I can think of one right off the bat: Jackson Browne, who did it with Running on Empty. Well, it wasn't recorded entirely onstage (though some of it was, especially the tremendous title track), but it was recorded entirely on the road, in such unusual places as the tour bus, or his hotel room. It's uneven, and it may be cheating to include it on a list of proper live albums -- but here we are.

I've got Joe Jackson's Live 1980/86 on vinyl (a double album), and I still listen to it all the time. It's great stuff. He really reinvents his music in concert. There are three versions of "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" recorded on separate tours, and each one is so creatively, inventively different. "Slow Song" is another standout; the studio version is fine, but in concert it's overwhelming.

And let's make it an even five (counting The Who) with Barenaked Ladies' Rock Spectacle. This one captures only a fraction of the band's crazy, hysterical, unique live shows. You can always count on something new happening onstage, whether it's off-the-cuff comedic banter or an ad-libbed original song; the first time I saw them live, they improvised a rap about Boba Fett ("Boba Fett, super bounty hunter/Boba Fett, he's a bad motherfucker") that eventually led to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," which then turned into Weird Al's "Theme from Rocky XIII" (aka "The Rye or the Kaiser"). Like I said, only a fraction of that manic energy makes it onto this album, but a fraction is enough to make it a vital and endlessly enjoyable listen.

What about you peoples? What are your live album favorites? (And if this degenerates into a wild, bloody, knock-down, drag-out battle between the Frampton Comes Alive and Cheap Trick Live at Budokan factions -- well, all the better, really.)