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

[SecretInsomnia]

I agree that I sometimes didn't understand the single choices. But the main point I see in comparing all those album stuff is: bring back Jerry Harrison, damned!
MJ, TC and TDTH. There you have it!

This post has been edited by SecretInsomnia: Sep 13 2007, 5:08 am

[Costakoui]

I agree that I sometimes didn't understand the single choices. But the main point I see in comparing all those album stuff is: bring back Jerry Harrison, damned!
MJ, TC and TDTH. There you have it!

Jerry Harrison did not produce SS but the album was great. He did not produce BoP but half of it was great too. TDTH is not very well produced, it could have been much better with more raw sound.

What Live needs is not Harrison, but write good rock and catchy songs with solid lyrics.

[sellingthdrama]

He did not produce BoP but half of it was great too.

That's debatable.

What Live needs is not Harrison, but write good rock and catchy songs with solid lyrics.

I say both - Jerry Harrison and improved lyrics, rock, and songs. All I see is that my fav albums (except for SS) have Jerry Harrison's name on them and had 'Live' as the music credit, not just Ed.

[Costakoui]

That's debatable.

Everything is debatable here anyway.

[soccerbock]

everything is up for debate. i don't think any of us truly know how they put their music together no matter what the credits say. but who knows? I just don't think the rest of the band would agree to record music with ed if they didn't believe in it. do you? do you think the rest of the band would let crappy music come out? even if sfbm performed below selling matters, it beats any american idol record or any record produced for 'musicians' who just play what people tell them to play. i believe in live and they music they create. they create music when they want to and to the standards they want to create, not us. that is what makes them LIVE. I wouldn't want them asking us what we wanted. That would be like asking Simon Cowell what he wants to hear, and f-simon cowell.

[AgentK7]

everything is up for debate. i don't think any of us truly know how they put their music together no matter what the credits say. but who knows? I just don't think the rest of the band would agree to record music with ed if they didn't believe in it. do you? do you think the rest of the band would let crappy music come out? even if sfbm performed below selling matters, it beats any american idol record or any record produced for 'musicians' who just play what people tell them to play. i believe in live and they music they create. they create music when they want to and to the standards they want to create, not us. that is what makes them LIVE. I wouldn't want them asking us what we wanted. That would be like asking Simon Cowell what he wants to hear, and f-simon cowell.

Sadly, it's funny that you mention American Idol, that's the last place Live really had real national exposure

Obviously, the band is behind what Ed does, no one's disputing that. I just pointed out that when you look at the song credits, typically the albums/songs are stronger when there is more collaboration.

One thing I didn't point out was that Ed probably does all the lyrics/music now because the band is scattered all over. The first three albums they were all basically living in Pennsylvania still. That started changing and therefore since Ed already wrote all the lyrics he started writing pretty much all the music as well.