Heavy Metal: The Art of the Live Album.

(TheBRHM.com) In metal, the live album still has a place of reverence. They’re like the blend between a full-length release and a compilation only with an audience. It’s something I would’ve loved to have seen adopted in hip-hop or R&B. We seen live performances regularly but only recently have we started to see full live performances recorded.

Part of it could be because it seems like a waste now since music releases are eaten through so rapidly. In the 1970s or 1980s, a live album could thrive because the window between full-length releases was more flexible and often lengthier. Now, it’s like a one-and-a-half-year to two-year turnaround before fans start believing you fell off.

So, recording the performance for audio? It can seem wasteful because when will they listen to this again? How often are they going to listen to it? In the 21^st century, it makes more sense to record it for streaming video.

Personally, I’ve always felt this was a less convenient option because I’m usually working on something and listening is better than having to give my undivided attention to something. However, consumers tend to be very visually stimulated so video it is.

The Art of the Live Album

Both methods allow the fans to experience the show. Streaming video allows you to actually see everything as it happened which is great but the live album allowed your imagination to run wild. Well, it ran wild until the live tape or whatever dropped.

Again, you’ve working with audio only. If you’re chilling and focusing on the music and the audience, you probably form an idea of the performance itself from what you’ve seen or know of the songs. You know, how they’ve been performed live in the past.

I often think about those early live album fans and how they didn’t even have the resources to see previous performances. No YouTube, DailyMotion, or any of that. Hell, the technology to view it at home wasn’t widely available or of a consumer-friendly price. I doubt many record labels were clamoring to do live tapes or live Betamax. It would’ve been a loss of money.

Well, perhaps. Unless the KISS Alive tape would’ve been enough to stimulate the VCR market. If KISS had VCRs flying off the shelves, more labels would’ve just thrown bands out there since everyone believed they had the next KISS or whatever band.

My favorite live albums will always be the ones from smaller venues. While I love a big arena performance with the razzle-dazzle and stage stuff, there’s just something about the production and sound of a live album from a bar show.

“Raw” isn’t exactly the word I’m looking for because the production is cleaned up and whatever muffling is reduced as much as possible. Well, for most releases. In other cases, the audio imperfections are left because it’s authentic to the performance—and that works for me! It all goes into painting a picture of the performance, after all.

Those smaller shows actually make you feel like you’re at the actual show most of the times. A bigger show often sounds like the television broadcast version made it to the live album. It’s definitely the live show on these specific dates but they had that nice festival or label budget to work with on this show. However, some festivals you simply want to see and hear that large performance such as live albums that come out of the Wacken tour. I mean, yeah you could just go on YouTube and see these performances as well and more recently, I’ve found myself watching performances over going back and listening to live albums.

There are some I always revisit such as Judas Priest…Live from Memphis 1983 or Combat Tour Live: The Ultimate Revenge released in 1985. However, it looks as though full show uploads and the best live bits are making the live album a tedious project in the 2020s. It’s somewhat of a shame because there are acts that might never perform live or record their live performances for video. Audio might be a more cost-effective means to do a live but if there the demand isn’t there for live albums in general, that’s vault material.