If "Alive" Was A Live Album Options

[LiveFan92]

Forget all of the recent crap for a moment... If "Alive" was a Live album and all of the boys had played their parts, etc... where would you rank it? Obviously not in the band's top 4, but what about in comparison to the post 2000 stuff? Better? Worse? The same?

[Infrequent Poster]

Eh, hard to say where it ranks. Below V and BoP for sure but deciding whether it ranks above or below SFBM is hard. SFBM had higher high points but also lower low points. Alive is a more consistent experience. I could listen to Alive straight through and only skip one song, whereas I'd skip three or four on SFBM. However, Sofia, Show and Night of Nights were (in my opinion) very good songs and only Grace compares well to those.

I think I'd have to rank SFBM slightly higher if only because Sofia is a great song and it carries the weaker songs. Regardless, if Alive was a Live album I'd have probably left the band behind. It comes off better as an EK solo experience then it would have if it had the Live name on it.

[Merica]

Eh, hard to say where it ranks. Below V and BoP for sure but deciding whether it ranks above or below SFBM is hard. SFBM had higher high points but also lower low points. Alive is a more consistent experience. I could listen to Alive straight through and only skip one song, whereas I'd skip three or four on SFBM. However, Sofia, Show and Night of Nights were (in my opinion) very good songs and only Grace compares well to those.

+ Zioooooooooooon. Zion is on par with Grace, possible maybe better.

I think the difference between SFBM and Alive's high points are negligible. Also, the lowest point of both albums is the opening line to Just In Time. Or whichever song it is where he talks about "in the form of my two kids." That's just cringeworthy to the absolute max. Horrible clunky wording and far too upfront.

I think if you mix the two together you have a decent adult contemporary album. Apart, they're both a little bit half baked.

[Infrequent Poster]

+ Zioooooooooooon. Zion is on par with Grace, possible maybe better.

I think the difference between SFBM and Alive's high points are negligible. Also, the lowest point of both albums is the opening line to Just In Time. Or whichever song it is where he talks about "in the form of my two kids." That's just cringeworthy to the absolute max. Horrible clunky wording and far too upfront.

I think if you mix the two together you have a decent adult contemporary album. Apart, they're both a little bit half baked.

Agreed for the most part, though the more I listened to album Zion the more I liked acoustic Zion better. Something didn't jam right in the full band version for me. It's a good song, don't get me wrong, but it's not a "gotta listen to it!" like Grace is. The acoustic clip on youtube I think is just the definitive version of it. That's a song I can spin often.

Apparently we share the same 3 favorite songs from SFBM. Though I do have a slight quibble with Night of Nights which is enough for it to be pushed to #3 for me. It's the way the timing of the songs seems to slow down when they get to the chorus. Every single time I hear it, I keep thinking "Man, if they had just cut loose right there." But, it's a minor quibble.

I like the drop in tempo for the chorus, it makes the song more interesting when juxtaposed with the more driving verses. However, having listened to so much TGF recently I wish Live would have done what TGF does and flip the song not once but twice. As in, you'd have the driving verse, then the slow down chorus, then flip it up to a wicked instrumental heavy bridge/solo lead.

[ItchyTriggerFinger]

I like the drop in tempo for the chorus, it makes the song more interesting when juxtaposed with the more driving verses. However, having listened to so much TGF recently I wish Live would have done what TGF does and flip the song not once but twice. As in, you'd have the driving verse, then the slow down chorus, then flip it up to a wicked instrumental heavy bridge/solo lead.

Ooooh, yeah, I could get behind that idea. My issue with the chorus, as is, is that the tempo change almost makes it seem anti-climactic.