If albums are on their way out, then live albums are REALLY a dying breed. But some of the best albums ARE live albums. There’s just something about them that you can’t reproduce in the studio.
Uproxx.com came up with a list of the 50 best live albums of all time. And before you start tearing it apart, you should know they stuck to ONE album per artist. Here’s the Top 10:
- “The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert” . . . Bob Dylan (1998)
- “Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1963” . . . Sam Cooke (1985)
- “Live at Leeds” . . . The Who (1970)
- “Sunshine Daydream [Veneta, OR, 8/27/72]” . . . The Grateful Dead (2013)
- “The Köln Concert” . . . Keith Jarrett (1975)
- “MTV Unplugged in New York” . . . Nirvana (1994)
- “Stop Making Sense” . . . Talking Heads (1984)
- “The Last Waltz” . . . The Band (1978)
- “At Fillmore East” . . . The Allman Brothers (1971)
- “Live” . . . Donny Hathaway (1972)
“At Folsom Prison” by Johnny Cash came in at #11.
The list also included more contemporary acts like Pearl Jam, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Wilco, the Roots, and My Morning Jacket.
Plus classics from Led Zeppelin, James Brown, the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, and Miles Davis.
Sorry, people . . . no “Frampton Comes Alive”.
