Whatever happened to the live album?

Thin Lizzy 'Live and Dangerous' a legendary live album

While it’s widely recognised that the importance of the LP album is diminished in a world where streaming music and random playlists dominate, spare a thought for the live album, which has pretty much become an irrelevance.

You need to go back to the 1970s for the heyday of the live album, and indeed the likely reason the idea died out.

The list of classic live albums from the decade is impressive, from Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Song Remains the Same’ (which had an accompanying cinematic movie release), through Thin Lizzy’s ‘Live and Dangerous’, Peter Frampton ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’, AC/DC ‘If You Want Blood’, KISS ‘Alive’, The Who ‘Live at Leeds’, Deep Purple ‘Made in Japan’, Cheap Trick ‘At Budokan’… the list goes on.

Of course there were classic live albums released prior to the 70s, such as MC5 ‘Kick Out the Jams’ and Johnny Cash ‘At Fulsom Prison’, as well as great live albums released after the 70s, including U2 ‘Under a Blood Red Sky’ and Talking Heads ‘Stop Making Sense’ to name just two, but it was the 1970s when the format truly ruled.

Many of the classic live albums from the era have come to be regarded as definitive of the bands that recorded them. In many cases the live albums represent bands at their absolute peak and technical best, such as UFO ‘Strangers in the Night’. UFO in the studio, both prior to and since ‘Strangers in the Night’, have never matched the sound, power, emotion or technical excellence of the live album. Michael Schenker’s solo on the live version of ‘Rock Bottom’ will probably be the moment he will always be remembered for.

There is no doubting that a great many bands have also managed to reach their peak live on stage since the 70s, yet where are the classic live albums as a result? What's missing? Why don't live albums matter anymore?

The 80s probably gives us the best clue.

This was the decade when MTV arrived and bands suddenly found they had much greater visual exposure.

I remember being a fan of Van Halen in the 70s and part of the mystique of the band was not actually knowing what they looked like live. Yes, I saw pictures on album sleeves and in the music press, but without TV exposure and in a pre-Internet world it was all about imagining what they were like.

That idea of imagining the experience while listening to the live album was pretty much what it was all about.

Thin Lizzy’s ‘Live and Dangerous’ was an exceptional pleasure in this regard. The gatefold sleeve not only featured one of the most exciting covers in rock, with the long leather-clad legs and crotch of Phil Lynott thrust in your face, it also featured countless pictures of the band on stage. To listen to the album while staring at the pictures was an experience that was even better than when I eventually got to see them live.

But along came the 80s and suddenly there was no need for imagination. You could see it all on TV. And in the Internet age of YouTube we can now dial up all sorts of live footage – even very rare or very old footage that would never have appeared on TV.

The mystique has gone.

Live concerts today are plagued with smartphones, even if they are also being professionally filmed in high definition by countless cameras strategically placed onstage and off. With the price of tickets it almost makes sense not to bother with the hassle of going to gigs and to just sit back at home and watch it on TV or the Internet.

The mystery has been swept away to such a degree that you can watch in-depth rig reviews on YouTube where guitar techs explain in detail exactly how guitar heroes get their sounds.

It’s a shame, because there was no greater pleasure in the 70s than sitting around with your mates listening to the live albums of the decade and imagining what it was like to be there, and indeed how it was done. With your imagination doing all the work, your ears were free to really concentrate on every note and nuance. By contrast, the visuals of today’s hi-def live footage almost acts as a distraction from the music. You watch, but you don’t truly listen; at least not like you listened in the 1970s.