In many ways the Best Live Albums Polls are the heart of the Best Live Albums Blog.
It is your chance to help other readers (and me) find the best live albums by voting for your favourites from a list.
Best live albums polls exist in two categories at the moment – by music genre (e.g. heavy metal or singer songwriter) or by group (e.g. Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin).
The roles of these polls is slightly different. The genre polls gives you a chance to broaden your musical tastes within a broad category,. There are definitely grey areas here and I hadn’t realised how difficult it would be to try to explain some of my genre decisions.
The polls by group let you dig deeper into a group you already like but may mean that you cross genre. For example Genesis moved from progressive rock to classic rock to pop rock as Peter Gabriel left and Phil Collins became a solo superstar.
You can vote for as many as you want up to a maximum allowed by the poll.
I’m also keen to hear about great live albums that I’ve missed from the nominees in the polls.
The category presents the polls in the order of their publication date. You may find it easier to look at the polls that best match the type of music you like by using the Best Live Albums Polls list.
These nice things about lists is that while they are helpful to find the best live recorded music, they will inevitably cause controversy. I encourage you to join in the debate by first voting and then leaving a comment to explain your views.
Lester Young excelled with Count Basie and in partnership with Billie Holiday but it’s often alleged that his solo work after he left the army, and especially after 1950 wasn’t up to his previous exceptionally high standards.
Is that true?
We have a few early live recordings from Count Basie in the period before the Second World War but his live solo recordings are after 1945.
Ten Years After led by lead guitarist and singer Alvin Lee may not be as fashionable as some of the other blues rock artists from the late 1960s and early 1970s but their music is much too good to be ignored.
The band formed in 1966 but split in 1975 before reforming in 1983 and again in 1988. Alvin Lee left the band for good in 2003 and died in 2013. He has been replaced by Joe Gooch who was then replaced by Marcus Bonfanti in 2014.
Continue reading What Are The Best Live Albums By Ten Years After Or Alvin Lee?
Some bands love to jam live in concert` and have built a devoted following by drawing on psychedelic rock, blues rock, southern rock, country and folk music, jazz, progressive rock and world music.
In many ways this is a battle between the two main jam bands, the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band but you shouldn’t ignore the contributions of Phish, Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, Gov’t Mule, the Derek Trucks Band and the many spin-offs from the Grateful Dead.
Continue reading What Are The Best Live Albums By The Jam Bands?
What are the best live albums by Count Basie?
Do the performances of his late 1930s band with Lester Young outweigh the sound quality issues or was he at his best in the 1950s and ’60s?
To help find out, I have started a readers poll and I see a vote for your favourites as a recommendation to others. Few of us have heard all the albums often enough to make a fair judgement but, like me, you’ve probably got albums that you listen to most when you’re in the mood.
I have recently updated my overall summary of the best live albums – The 106 Best Live Albums Ever Recorded & Released – but that list has the weakness that it is dominated by the genre polls with the most votes.
To present an alternative view of the best live albums, I thought I’d summarise the best FIVE live albums per genre poll provided the poll has at least 20 voters.
If you don’t agree, my your opinions known by VOTING. You can also leave a comment but please remember there is no right or wrong because these are opinions.
Best AOR Live Albums – 46 voters (see poll)
Albums 3, 4 and 5 are third equal but I can’t do that with the bullet points. Continue reading Five Of The Best Live Albums By Genre 31 March 2016
I have combined the votes from the different genre polls to produce an overall best live albums list. I last did this a year ago to create The 74 Best Live Albums Ever Recorded & Released.
I have used the same criteria – i.e. every album that has collected at least 15 votes (recommendations) is included with the albums ranked by their maximum vote. I have also looked at the data another way and summarised the top 5 albums by genre.
If you don’t agree with the list, you need to vote in the various polls. You will see that the list is very different from my favourite live albums.
Last year the top 3 were:
Have these three widely recognised classic live albums managed to keep their lofty positions or has another great live album leapt ahead of one or more of them?
Continue reading The 106 Best Live Albums Ever Recorded & Released 31 March 2016
The poll to find the Best Progressive Rock Live Albums has attracted 240 voters to date and is getting a bit too long. I thought it would be useful to create a second division poll to provide a focus on some of the less well known bands and albums. In particular, there are some excellent albums from Europe in the 1970s that deserve to be heard by a much wider audience of progressive rock fans.
There will be promotion and relegation between the two divisions based on the number of votes received. I see each vote as a recommendation so any album with more than a handful of votes is well worth exploring.
To refresh your memory, here is the main (first division) poll:
Loading ...You can get these albums from Amazon.com – Amazon.co.uk.
While I have tried to select the best albums by particular groups to include in the general poll, sometimes I get surprised. I also have group polls for the following albums that may be considers as progressive rock bands – Barclay James Harvest – Camel – Caravan – Colosseum – Dream Theater – Emerson, Lake & Palmer – The Enid – Frank Zappa – Genesis – Gentle Giant – Steve Hackett – IQ – Jethro Tull – King Crimson – Magma – Marillion – Pink Floyd – Porcupine Tree and Steve Wilson – Procol Harum – Rush – Supertramp – Traffic – Van Der Graaf Generator & Peter Hammill – Rick Wakeman – Yes
It’s also hard to draw firm lines around music genres, so there are several other categories that may include albums you think of as prog rock which also have their own polls – AOR – Art Rock – Classic Rock – Jazz Rock –
Continue reading What Are The Best Progressive Rock Live Albums SECOND DIVISION?
BB King has issued a lot of live albums but which are the best two or three that should be included in the album collections of any blues fans?
Which are the albums you simply must here?
There are some obvious answers like Live At The Regal and Cook County Jail but, perhaps, those in the know have found an even better album?
Here are the poll results for music genres for voting up to 31 December 2015.
I’ve only shown polls with 50 or more voters.
Best Art Rock Live Albums – 148 voters
The campaign by Deaf School keeps them at the top of this poll but David Bowie is creeping up after them.
Best Blues Rock Live Albums – 266 voters
A nice variety of blues rock albums in a genre where the basic sound is good but can get a bit too similar. Continue reading Best Live Album Poll Results To 31 December 2015
Paul Simon is one of my favourite songwriters, both in his partnership with Art Garfunkel and in his solo career.
He’s been responsible for classic studio albums like Sounds Of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water as Simon & Garfunkel and Still Crazy After All These Years and Graceland as a solo artist but does he have a classic live album?
Art Garfunkel doesn’t have the songwriting talent of Paul Simon but he has been blessed with a remarkable singing voice.
I have started a readers poll to collect your votes. Continue reading Best Live Albums By Paul Simon And/Or Art Garfunkel