Art Rock Live Albums
Art rock fits between pop rock and progressive rock.
The music has a cleverness about it – humour, complexity, different styles, rhythms or instruments – but it’s also commercial enough to be radio friendly and therefore its bands benefit from hit singles. In some ways it is a natural development of the work The Beatles were recording in their psychedelic phase with songs like Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am A Walrus.
Leading art rock bands include Roxy Music (before they went soft), David Bowie, Kate Bush, early Queen and the Electric Light Orchestra.
As Genesis moved from being a prog rock band to a pop rock band, there was a time around A Trick Of the Tail when they were art rock. Peter Gabriel has been in the category since he went solo.
To help you find the best live albums, there is a readers poll – the Best Art Rock albums recorded live.
Loading ...The advantage of live albums in the art rock category is that performing live stops the groups from trying to be too clever and too technical.
Live Albums On The Best Live Albums Website
Art rock live albums include:
Barclay James Harvest – Live Tapes 1977
Barclay James Harvest Berlin A Concert for the People 1980
Be Bop Deluxe – BBC In Concert 2nd October 1976
Be Bop Deluxe – Tremulous Antenna 1976 & 1978
Be Bop Deluxe – Live In The Air Age 1977
Be Bop Deluxe At The BBC 1974-1978
David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture 1973
David Bowie – David Live 1974
David Bowie – Live Nassau Coliseum 1976
David Bowie – Stage 1978
David Bowie – Glass Spider Live 1987
David Bowie – A Reality Tour 2003
Kate Bush Live at Hammersmith Odeon 1979
City Boy – BBC In Concert 1975 (radio recording)
City Boy – Live At My Father’s Place 1978 (radio recording)
Deaf School – Second Coming 1988
Electric Light Orchestra The Night The Light Went On 1974
Family Live 1971
Fripp & Eno Live in Paris 1975
Peter Gabriel Plays Live 1982
Peter Gabriel Secret World Live 1993
Peter Hammill Room Temperature 1990
Justin Hayward Spirits Live At The Buckhead Theater Atlanta 2013
King Crimson – The Night Watch 1973
King Crimson – Absent Lovers Live In Montreal 1984
Kraftwerk Minimum Maximum 2004
The Moody Blues A Night At Red Rocks With The Colorado Symphony Orchestra 1992
The Moody Blues Hall Of Fame 2000
Bill Nelson – Live In Concert At Metropolis Studio 2011
Procol Harum Live In Concert With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra 1971
Procol Harum BBC Live In Concert 1974
Procol Harum In Concert With Danish National Concert Orchestra 2006
Queen – Live At The Hammersmith Odeon 1975 (TV broadcast)
Queen – Live Killers 1979
Roxy Music Viva 1973 to 1975
Roxy Music – Ladytron 1979
Roxy Music – Roxy Music Live 2001
Sparks – Two Hands One Mouth 2012
Supertramp Is Everybody Listening? 1975
Supertramp Paris 1979
Supertramp Live 1988
Supertramp It Was The Best of Times 1997
Talking Heads – The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads 1977 to 1981
Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense 1983
Television – The Blow Up 1978
Television – Live At The Old Waldorf 1978
10cc – 10cc In Concert 1975
10cc – Live And Let Live 1977
10cc – Live In Concert 1977
10cc – 10cc Live 1993
10cc – Alive In Japan 1993
What is the best live album by guitar hero Bill Nelson and Be Bop Deluxe?
Be Bop Deluxe should have been huge and their career was gathering pace nicely in 1975 and 1976.
They recorded some very good (but not great) studio albums – Axe Victim, Futurama, Sunburst Finish and Modern Music. Continue reading What is The Best Be Bop Deluxe Live Album?
Queen Live At The Hammersmith Odeon 1975 isn’t a live album but I wish it was.
I remember this being broadcast on the Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC on Christmas Eve in 1975, having been recorded earlier in the evening.
Bohemian Rhapsody was #1 on the singles chart in the UK. If I remember correctly, A Night At The Opera was #1 on the albums chart.
And Queen did a great concert which I really hope they turn into a top quality official release because I want to buy it and have done for more than 35 years.
Here is the video of the concert I found on YouTube. I don’t know how long it will stay available but I’m assuming that this has “unofficial permission”. After all Queen can afford to have someone policing their copyright and having YouTube take it down. Continue reading Queen Live At The Hammersmith Odeon 1975
What is the best 10cc live album?
This underrated group created some great singles in the mid 70s and a live album with a beef-up “in concert” sound should be great.
I’m not sure it works out quite like that with 10cc because of the split in the group after the How Dare You studio album.
The 10cc live album the world wants will have all four original members and be recorded in 1975 or 76.
We don’t yet have that. We have an early live recording after the Sheet Music album and then a number of live albums released without featuring Kevin Godly and Lol Creme.
What is The Best 10cc Live Album? Continue reading What is The Best 10cc Live Album?
The Night Watch is a live album by progressive rock group King Crimson. It was recorded on 23 November 1973 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Holland while they were promoting the Larks’ Tongues in Aspic studio album.
I think King Crimson could be the most difficult group to buy albums for because of the many different changes in line-up and basic sound.
The group at this stage were:
Robert Fripp – guitar, mellotron
John Wetton – bass guitar, vocals
David Cross – violin, viola, keyboards
Bill Bruford – drums, percussion
Many will argue that this is the classic line-up, even surpassing the version with Greg Lake as all four people appeared on Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black and Red although the involvement of David Cross on Red is very limited.
There is a very strong argument that a group as innovative as King Crimson are best live rather than caught in the studio.
What are the best King Crimson live albums? There has been an explosion of live recordings made available by Robert Fripp but where should you start your collection?
King Crimson are probably the most innovative and experimental of all the progressive rock groups and that helps them to thrive in the live album arena.
This is a group that won’t slavishly stick to imitating the sound they worked hard to create in the studio.
However unless you intend to become an avid collector of these live albums, it means that deciding which few to buy is a hard decision. It’s made even harder by the changes in style King Crimson have made along the way.
That’s why I’d like King Crimson fans to help the less dedicated find the best live albums.
Live In Concert At Metropolis Studio is a live recording of a concert in March 2011 by Bill Nelson and the Gentlemen Rocketeers in London.
It comes as a 2 CD plus DVD set or you can buy it as an mp3 download without the video.
If you’re not familiar with Bill Nelson, he was the main man – singer, lead guitarist and songwriter – in art rock group Be Bop Deluxe.
Immediately he broke up the group, he recorded another excellent album, Sound On Sound as Bill Nelson’s Red Noise. Then he abandoned his guitar in favour of keyboards and released many albums of electronic and ambient music.
His Wikipedia entry shows how difficult it is to keep up with the music that Bill Nelson has been releasing.
he’s come back into the spotlight with a cracker.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (9 + 10 + 9)
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Continue reading Bill Nelson Live In Concert At Metropolis Studio 2011
What is the best art rock live album ever released?
First I’d better define art rock.
Like progressive rock it grew out of psychedelia combining the influence of The Beatles around the time of Strawberry Fields Forever and the space rock of Pink Floyd and their first couple of albums. Continue reading Best Art Rock Live Albums
Live Tapes is the second live album from Barclay James Harvest and was released in 1978. It was recorded on the 1976 and 1977 tours.
I’ve got a soft spot for this live album because I nearly went to see BJH on the Octoberon tour. As a schoolboy, money was tight and it was either these guys or Be Bop Deluxe.
I am treating this stage of Barclay James Harvest on the progressive rock / art rock border.
Deaf School are one of my “should have been huge” bands like City Boy from the mid seventies who were swept aside by the punk explosion.
Second Coming is a live album recorded in 1988 of a concert in their home city of Liverpool.
Alive In Japan is a live album by art rock / pop rock band 10cc.
The live albums issued under the 10cc brand name are very confusing and it appears that Ali9ve in Japan is an extended version of 10cc Live.
This is another album by the Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart version of the band so the emphasis is on melodic pop but without the earlier inventiveness that the original foursome created..
