The reasons for Live's album disparity? Options

[AgentK7]

Instead of providing opinions for why Live's last couple of albums haven't met with the best success, I'm going to give you a breakdown of the album credits (verbatim from the cd booklet when practical):

Mental Jewelry (1991)

• Produced by Jerry Harrison for Construct Music, Inc.
• All Songs written by Edward Kowalczyk, Chad Taylor, Patrick Dahlheimer and Chad Gracey

Throwing Copper (1994)

• Produced by Jerry Harrison
• Lyrics: Kowalczyk Music: Live

Secret Samadhi (1997)

• Produced by Jay Healy and Live
• Written and Performed by Live (Lyrics by Ed Kowalczyk)

The Distance To Here (1999)

• Produced by Jerry Harrison and Live
• Lyrics by Ed Kowalczyk. Music by Ed Kowalczyk (except "Run To The Water" Kowalczyk, Dahlheimer "Voodoo Lady" Kowalczyk, Taylor "Where Fishes Go" Kowalczyk, Taylor and "They Stood Up For Love" Kowalczyk, Taylor,Dahlheimer)

V (2001)

• Produced by Live, Railo and Alain Johannes*
• Lyrics and Music by Ed Kowalczyk*
• *Forever May Not be long enough has writing and production credits to Ed Kowalczyk AND Glen Ballard

Birds Of Pray (2003)

• Produced by Jim Wirt
• Lyrics by Ed Kowalczyk. Music by Ed Kowalczyk (except "Like I Do" Ed Kowalczyk, Patrick Dahlheimer, Chad Taylor and "Lighthouse" Ed Kowalczyk, Chad Taylor)

Songs From Black Mountain (2006)

• Produced by Jim Wirt
• Songs by Ed Kowalczyk

I know my interpretation of this information, I'm curious what others think....

This post has been edited by AgentK7: Sep 13 2007, 3:48 pm

[ponzu]

I think some of their misfortune lies in PR. I never heard Live on the radio after TC, in fact, I didn't even know they were still together for the longest time. When I did catch up with them again (Magni sang TDC on Rockstar Supernova) I started looking for them. I then bought all the other albums that I did not have and ended up having to order some on line because they were not in music stores. I absolutely love V with maybe the exception of two or three songs and BoP is great too. In my car, I never am without those two albums. Right now they have a concert on the 28th in NO and no radio stations around here are promoting them - what's up with that? Get new PR people.

This post has been edited by ponzu: Sep 13 2007, 12:42 pm

[alexou]

We know Ed always wrote more than 75% of the records, even before 75%, so I don't think Ed is the only reason for the misfortunes. I also question the involvement of the other band members since TDTH because they have almost never been in the same place to record since that time and to me this doesn't help at all doing great records. Chad T. and Pat got a family and they spent time with kids I suppose.

The way Ed is involved is by composing candy pop music (SFBM and most of BOP). Maybe that is why the others don't want to put their input. So relations between the guys could be a factor as well. In concert they look like they are having a good time but we don't know about tensions in the band. They are not big enough for a biography so we could know some stuff. Besides Chad T.'scrisis in V era, I don't know any other stories.

So they are responsible for their misfortunes. The problem was V, recorded too fast after TDTh , too different, too much falsetto and keyboards despite a couple of GREAT songs. They lost their essence there, which was 4 guys together playing rock music. The keyboard erased this pure rock. There was some in TDTH (TSUFL), and other presences here and there, but once is not a crime, a whole record is another story.

Alex