If you have visited the blog before, you will have noticed two things:
- The change in title from Best Live Albums to Best Live & Studio Albums.
. - I haven’t been posting and updating. That’s partly because of time and also because the floodgates have opened with these radio broadcast based releases that squeeze through the copyright laws. Some are fantastic in performance and sound quality but too many are shabby. I hate wasting my time listening and writing about something that isn’t good enough.
I’ve come to realise that I’ve painted myself into a bit of a corner by purely focusing on live albums.
It was never my intention to listen to live albums 95% of the time but that’s what happened. For a long time, I was updating you on the live albums I was listening to each month, partly so you could see my favourites in action and partly to help my website maintain links to pages.
I still love live albums and they will often be my “go to album” for an artist when I’m in the mood.
But there are other artists who refuse to release a great live album, even when I’m sure they are capable or who release fine live albums but at the wrong time.
I’ve long recognised the vital link between great studio albums and great live albums. Take The Rolling Stones for an example, it’s no coincidence that the fantastic Brussels Affair 1973 comes after the terrific set of studio albums in Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street. Goats Head Soup isn’t too shabby either and is widely underrated.
When an artist or group is hot, they are usually hot in the studio and live in concert as confidence flows from one to the other.
In my reconfiguration of the website, I’m planning to provide some comprehensive guides to major artists backed up with the readers polls and resources from other music enthusiasts. I still want to help you to maximise your listening pleasure by guiding you to the “best” and that has to go beyond my own favourites.