Happy birthday Secret Samadhi! Options

[swami]

For those of you who got it on the release day back in 1997, tell your story. I did, but I'm busy watching Philadelphia right now

[swami]

I can't believe it has been 27 years since the release of Secret Samadhi by Live! I remember in great detail skipping school that morning to sit outside HMV for about an hour to be the first to buy the album. I remember seeing it on display through the gate and waiting for the store to open. And slapping that bad boy into my DiscMan on the bus ride back home.....OH!!! What memories!

Secret Samadhi was dark and haunting in a way I never would have expected. But it, with the help of other albums of the time like Ultra by Depeche Mode and just Portishead in general allowed me to have the deep and introspective, and frankly necessary glimpse into who I really was. Love them or hate them, Live had a huge influence on me in so many ways. I developed musically and intellectually because of this band.

[Hoodstock]

The shop by my house sold new albums at midnight. Waited in line, got it about quarter to 12, went home and listened to the whole thing twice. Late night on a school night.

[Bob]

This was the first Live album I got to buy on release day after being re-introduced to them in 1996 and becoming a super fan and a drummer, so you bet your ass I was at Tower Records at midnight to pick it up.

It's still one of my favorite Live albums. Guess I know what I'm listening to later today.

Merica is one of my favorite Live songs and I don't care who knows it.

[JonSnow]

My mom took me directly to Blockbuster Music right after she picked me up from school. I'd been talking about it incessantly.

I remember walking around in the backyard listening to it on my portable CD player and being thoroughly disappointed that most of the rest of the album didn't sound much like Lakini's Juice.

But I started warming up to it and after reading the article in the 1997 issue of Guitar Magazine I started to understand why it sounded the way it did. Eventually it wouldn't leave my player and my love for it just kept getting bigger. TC will always be #1, but SS is essentially 1B.

[Bremang]

Huge anticipation once the lakinis juice video dropped. So hyped. Ultimately let down by the album on the first listen , as tc was basically my introduction to music. I got over it and listened to the ss cd hundreds of times and finally saw them on tour

[kingparamecium]

So I guess hardcore fans and casuals alike got hung up on not being able to separate SS from Throwing Copper.

It's understandable, every band has that one album that everything gets compared to. (Not to change subject but Swami, as a fellow DM fan I'm sure you're used to everything being compared to Violator.)

Why are people unable to separate a body of work from the ghost of another body of work? Those of us who are consumers and have never made or released a popular album in a band, is it because we expect the band set out to match, top, or mimic the previous blockbuster album? Surely bands don't start writing lyrics or music with the mindset "We gotta make this better than the last one or at the very least just as good."

This isn't an inflammatory rant, I'm just a lifelong fan, lifelong lurker since illout, but seldom poster. I've missed out on a lot of interacting with fellow Live fans.

Was it our youth that, on release day, expected SS to be TC or beyond? Did we not have the cognition to think that a band of human 20 year olds might not have had the formula to completely recreate lightning in a bottle? What ABOUT TC did we want completely recreated?

I wonder also about the casual audience. Were the singles not "love song"-y enough? Was it there was no I Alone?

Honestly, all these years later I'm tired of Throwing Copper. It's exhausting that, even if Live had managed to continue making solid albums, these hypothetical works would still get held up to TC. Great album, but seriously, how many times can you listen to it 30 years later and wish every other album was also TC?

[Chapps]

I actually didn't buy it right away, I borrowed a copy from a friend. I unlike most, was worried that the entire album would be like Lakini's Juice, and was extremely happy when it didn't. SS is easily in my top 2 Live albums and the top 2 really depend on my mood, sometimes it's SS 1 and SFBM 2 and other times it's the reverse.

[Bremang]

SS 1 and SFBM 2 and other times it's the reverse.

I cannot relate to SFBM being Live's best album. good for you but holy shit


and it's between their darkest, most avant-garde album, and their most tepid adult contemporary album

This post has been edited by Bremang: Feb 20 2024, 10:11 pm

[Chapps]

I cannot relate to SFBM being Live's best album. good for you but holy shit
and it's between their darkest, most avant-garde album, and their most tepid adult contemporary album

Yeah, most fans I've met have SFBM at the bottom of the list. Can't really explain why I like it so much, but most of the songs on it really hit home with me.