Live Albums Ranked In Order By Awesomeness, Diffuser FM Options

[Voodoo Lady]

Live Albums Ranked In Order By Awesomeness~Diffuser FM

This is from December '16... don't know how I missed this until now.
You won't believe where they ranked V.

[Ram4]

I don't usually bother with ranking lists because everyone has their own. I think we know their best albums are from the 90's anyway. But my experiences with them as they were released is what I'll post.

Mental Jewelry - My first exposure to Live was seeing Operation Spirit on MTV and I hated it. Who were these idiots without shirts on? Of course later I got into them and thought this was a decent album, showing a band already starting to find their sound.

Throwing Copper - Masterpiece. One of the best albums of the decade by anyone. Even the hidden track Horse blew me away. Even the outtakes like Hold Me Up and We Deal In Dreams were great. The band could do no wrong.

Secret Samadhi - I remember when it came out on a grey February day in 1997. It definitely sounded like it looked outside. Dark, gloomy, brooding. Overall, I liked it. But it didn't have any of the brightness of TC, it was much more intense so it could have used a little balance. I remember hearing a song on the radio at the time that I thought was the new live single and I hated it. It turned out to be a Better Than Ezra tune that I must have heard from a distance, because I would have known if it was Ed. When I finally heard the REAL first single - Lakini's Juice, I was blown away and so thankful that Live did indeed deliver a WAY better song that that mediocre Better Than Ezra song. My third favorite Live album.

The Distance To Here - This came out on a sunny October day in 1999 and with it's white cover had the complete opposite feel to me of the gloomy Secret Samadhi. It felt a little more balanced like TC. I liked it, but I wasn't a fan of the snare drum sound at first. I have grown to like this album as my number 2 Live album, especially when throwing in all the outtakes and B-sides.

V - This came out right after 9/11 and Overcome was a big deal because of that. I thought Ed was trying way too hard to reinvent himself to be young and hip with a new generation. The album grew on me, but I didn't really take it too seriously.

Birds Of Pray - This was a return to the old sound and I liked a number of tracks on it. But Heaven felt so recycled to me (Dolphin's Cry part 2), and even though it's a good song, it's been done before. And when Ed sings about his daughter, he immediately ages the band 20 years. It's almost like admitting they're old and not relevant to young people. A fair album overall, I don't listen to it much.

Songs From Black Mountain - Didn't like it at all when it came out. Never really gave it much of a chance.

The Turn - Simply said, Live is Ed. I have never listened to it.

I am not a lyrics guy. I have always been into the music and the melody of the lyrics, but not usually what they mean. I am not religious at all either. So when I started to realize how many songs had religious lyrics, I laughed at my naivete. Nothing Ed says gets me any closer to being religious, but I almost welcome the change of lyrics from love songs or the other usual topics people write about. But then you get songs with "blasphemous" words or simple cuss words that religious songs would not have, so who knows.