Live - Rank The Albums, You Asked For It! Options

[Hoodstock]

When was the last time there was a post where everyone ranked the Live albums in order?

Ask and you shall recieve!

If you are inclined rank Live's albums from favorite (#1) to least favorite. If you want to go big time include it all!

Feel free to throw in any commentary.

Live Studio Albums:

- Mental Jewelry
- Throwing Copper
- Secret Samadhi
- The Distance To Here
- V
- Birds of Pray
- Songs From Black Mountain

Other Live Albums (If You Want To Include):

- Death Of A Dictionary
- Radiant Sea
- Live At The Paradiso
- Awake

Other Works By Live Members (If You Want To Go Big!):

- Alive
- The Gracious Few

[Pokey]

ok i'm gonna give this a shot, the number 1 spot is the hardest because it can honestly on any given day be either Throwing Copper or Secret Samadhi.

1. Throwing Copper. But I'm going to say Throwing Copper, normally my favorite album by a band is not the most popular with the masses, it also is generally not my favorite because the songs on it are generally overplayed and I get a little annoyed with them, Lightning Crashes for example. But my theory is the fact that all of this generally works against the most popular albums by my favorite bands (The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead being another exception) but I'm still tossing up whether it's my favorite or not here means that it probably is.
I know that a lot of TC was played to death in concert, but the thing is by the end the songs were just such pussified versions of themselves (vocally at least) that when I stuck the album in to play it still sounded fresh and different to what you hear live. And the songs that weren't played often like Iris, TDAOC, Top, TBD etc are all just A+ songs. White Discussion is still one of this most amazing rock songs ever recorded as far as I'm concerned capture a pure intensity that is so powerful. So for me, TC is number 1.

2. Secret Samadhi. Very close number 2, SS has the sound of Live that I really love .. brooding, dark, rough around the edges rock. It has great memories for me attatched to the first big live music act I saw when my Dad took me to see them in 97, the opening moments of Rattlesnake always make me think of that moment when I was a kid sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the gig to start. The relentless bass of Heropsychodreamer, the epic weirdness of Gas Hed, the psychedelic tinge of Unsheathed and the beauty of Ghost and Turn my Head just make for such an atmospheric album. Its an album I love to listen to in the dark, in bed with the headphones on at night, or blasting out loud in the dark, its one of those intense "lights out albums" like maybe along with Tom Waits' Bone Machine.

3. The Gracious Few. Putting this one before Mental Jewelry, it's pure rock'n'roll, it taps into the best bits of 70s rock and grunge but modernised enough to sound fresh and not like they're relying on an old sound. Honest Man is one of the best rock songs I've heard, I'm a sucker for guitar riffs like that in a song that you can stomp or head bang to. I love The Few, another fast paced forward propelled rock song like the Live days of old ala Iris or Heropsychodreamer. I love the fact that every musician gets a time to shine and no one is hidden in the shadows. Just such a great album to blast loud and rock the hell out to. I think lyrically it misses the brilliance of the first 4 live albums, but to me this one is more about the music and the voice itself as more of an instrument rather than having something in particular to say. That being said TROY and What's Wrong both are great lyrically.

4. The Distance To Here. Initially I wasn't thrilled with TDTH because I so badly wanted another SS or TC, but it didn't take long to grow on me. I think the best way to sum it up is "stunning". I can't think of another album by a band that sounds like TDTH that I would listen to. It's unique in that normally it's not the "sort" of music I would listen to but Live manages to pull off the inspirational uplifting rock without crossing the line of cheesey. Face and Ghost is just a beautiful song, one of my favs, Dance with You is equally as beautiful. I think initially Sun was my favorite song on the album, I still struggle with Feel the Quiet river and Dolphin's Cry and RTTW I feel I've heard a little too often. I dig the country/trippy vibe of The Distance.

5. Mental Jewelry. This one still astounds me that someone at age of 18 can write like this yet at 40 is giving us stuff like "Just In Time". Lyrically it feels like this album had the most to say. I love the stripped back feel of the songs, but I prefered their live versions where they had more guts and Ed's voice sang with even more conviction. I love when a band I love has a fantastic first song on their first album as like an introduction to the band as a whole and Pain Lies smashes that one.

6. BOP - There is a big gap between 5 and 6, but BOP had bright moments. Like I Do is a monster rocker and Lighthouse is such a great rocker too. I have soft spots for She, Everytime.. and Out to Dry. I don't find WAWFF as cheesey as some do. But I struggle with Heaven, Sweet Release and Run Away. It's too polished and too digital sounding, not like they just set the mic to record and rocked it live. Ed does sing his guts out on the album to his credit but his lyrics took a dive to the mundane and the begining of the band taking a back seat was happening.

7. V is close to BOP and almost interchangable, but I have a more emotional connection with V. Almost more so than any other album (not just by Live). It came out at a really rough time and I clung to it pretty hard and convinced myself it was the greatest musical achievement man had created at the time of its release. Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing as it's pretty terrible mostly. Ed should never, ever rap. The lyrics mostly are terrible. But I don't know many songs that have such a grip on me that Flow has, again it's not even about the song musically, it just transports me to a place and time that was so bad yet the music made me feel so good. Very comforting.

8. Death of a dictionary. I think this one suffers a lot from its recording quality. But there were some gems, I still think Who put the fear in here is a killer song. "I thought I knew exactly what scared me, and i would never have to run again, so i went to sleep and began dreaming of perfect lives and paradise, woke up and started screaming". From the pen of a teenager? brilliant. But overall still very bare, juvinile and basic.

9. Songs from Black Mountain. Its pretty telling when a album done by the band almost 20yrs earlier available by casette when they were about 16yrs old is higher on my list than this abortion. Just terrible from start to finish, a couple of songs had potential. Sofia mostly, the live version had a pretty cool opening, but the lyrics are cringeworthy. The whole album suffers from major production problems in that it sounds so flat and lifeless, no energy at all. Love Shines and Home are 2 of the worst songs. Just, argh.

10. Alive. This one could be 9 based purely on the strength of Zion and that the production/Ed's voice is a little better. But there's nothing else good about it. Everything besides Zion is just trash in my view, no other redeeming features.

So there.