There’s a Lot to Love about Live Albums
by Owen Murray
Documentation is imperfect. Photographs capture one moment at a time, video can capture only what’s in the frame, and audio recordings can sound dwarfed compared to the all-encompassing experience of a live concert. But do these imperfections make documentation futile?
According to NME, yes, in fact, they do. In an October op-ed titled “Live albums are pointless—so why do bands insist on releasing them still?” NME argued that live albums can never truly provide an opportunity to relive a concert experience nor can they provide a chance for people who missed a concert to get a feeling for what the experience would have been. While this is true to an extent, giving up entirely on live albums is a bit extreme.
First off, no one is expecting a live album to entirely compensate for their missed concert experience and that doesn’t make them entirely useless to fans to have missed a show. Just days after the NME article was published, Jeff Rosenstock released his first live album Death Rosenstock: Thanks, Sorry! which reignited enthusiasm among my friends, many of whom have never had the chance to see Jeff live. I have raved about his concerts, but Thanks, Sorry! confirmed my praise and confirmed our plans to drop anything we are doing to see Jeff next time he comes to town. One friend who had never seen Jeff live before told me the album had him kicking and headbanging in his room in an imaginary moshpit. The playing was sloppier than the records, and Jeff’s voice was hoarse, but the recording captured an energy that could only be captured through a live show.
NME’s article was spurred by the announcement of an IDLES live album. Coincidentally, I saw IDLES the day before the article was released and their live album was announced. The show was one of the rawest and most emotional concerts I had seen in months and I was thrilled that it would be released on a professional recording. Joe Talbot had a commanding stage presence and between songs would launch into passionate rants that strongly and clearly defined what the band stood for. I’m sure his rants weren’t the same every show so I was excited to see what he had to say in Paris, where the live album was recorded. As a result the sarcastic subheader “can’t wait to relive that scintillating between-song banter!” from NME’s article was particularly irksome and jaded.
The only leverage that NME seems to give live albums is that they are fine as long as they are free. If you’re going to be given one then that’s fine, but the expectation to pay for one is absurd. While I would probably be less likely to buy a live album than a studio album, this premise is absurd in the era of streaming. Sure, IDLES is going to make their album available to anyone who wants to pay for it, but it will show up on Spotify, Apple Music, and anywhere the rest of their discography is going to be with no expectation for an additional fee.
The raw energy of Jeff Rosenstock’s Thanks, Sorry! is evidence enough in itself that live albums have something to offer not to mention The Who’s Live at Leeds, Nirvana’s Live at Reading, Jimi Hendrix’s Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival, and Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn all of which capture an off the cuff energy and a sense of spectacle that couldn’t have been produced in a studio.
Live can capture a sense of nostalgia, spectacle, energy, and talent in ways studio albums simply can’t. To discount them because they are imperfect recreations of live experiences ignores everything there is to love about them.