The dreaded fake 'live' album....

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by TheLazenby, Apr 4, 2013.

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  1. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    What "live" albums do you hate because they're so obviously not what they claim to be?

    My biggest vote goes to They Might Be Giants' "Severe Tire Damage" - I have a radio ad proclaiming this album to be recorded 'live on stage, in front of people!' Well, no. "Doctor Worm", "Severe Tire Damage Theme" and "About Me" are studio recordings; "Meet James Ensor" is a demo recorded in a hotel room; "Till My Head Falls Off" is a radio performance; and many of the other tracks are soundchecks (discernible by the apparent lack of audience). Even the tracks that were indeed recorded live ("Ana Ng" for instance) have been tampered with after the fact. The only true live portion is the series of improvs included as hidden tracks, dubbed from various fan bootlegs.

    A runner up would have to be "Iron Butterfly Live" - even as a child (I think I owned that CD in 3rd grade), the oddities in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" were apparent; jumps in quality between recordings of various venues, especially around the drum solo, and the tacked-on intro has quite obviously looped audience chatter.
     
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  2. noahjld

    noahjld Der Wixxer

    The Stranglers "X-Certs".
     
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  3. ggergm

    ggergm another spring another baseball season

    Location:
    Minnesota
    Johnny Rivers is going to boycott this thread.
     
  4. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    The Ventures On Stage
    The first few albums by the Kingsmen
    Duke Ellington at Newport
    The 13th Floor Elevators Live

    runners up:
    Beach Boys Concert (some studio overdubs)
    Yardbirds Live With Jimmy Page (fake audience OD'd on actual live recording)
     
  5. peteneatneat

    peteneatneat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Liverpool UK
    Much of James Brown's Sex Machine album is made up of studio recordings with applause added.
     
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  6. Bill Cormier

    Bill Cormier Forum Resident

    Location:
    Malta, New York
    But do you "hate" them folks ? Some of these are still considered classics !
     
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  7. You sure about this one? I've never heard that it was anything but legit.
     
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  8. signothetimes53

    signothetimes53 Senior Member

    Did I hear correctly that the fake audience plastered over this is from a Spanish bullfight? :laugh:
     
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  9. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Missouri
    KISS' Alive II is a pretty infamous example. Eddie Kramer has claimed in interviews that the *original* Alive! was mostly a studio concoction, but I think his memory is a little flawed and it's A2 that he's actually thinking of. Alive definitely has some overdubs, but some of the raw tapes those shows were recorded at float around and there's really not very much tinkering at all.

    Alive II, on the other hand, went so far as to include versions of songs that they never played live even a single time, songs recorded at soundchecks, very audible instances of multiple Paul Stanleys singing harmony, and the world's worst looped audience track. But somehow despite all that, I still love the album - after all, it was my introduction to KISS...for better or worse.

    (Oh, and I think one of the most egregious examples of this EVER by anyone comes in the form of KISS's 1996 You Wanted the Best compilation album. It's a mix of tracks from the first two Alive records along with what was advertised as 4 'lost' tracks that had been recorded during those sessions but hadn't made the final cut for those records back in the '70s. Well, they gave us the four songs alright... with brand-new, recorded-in-1996 vocals overdubbed on them. All while trying to claim that they were indeed legitimate '70s recordings, even though anyone with half an ear can tell the difference between what Stanley's voice sounded like in 1975 versus what it sounded like twenty years later. To this day I'm not sure they've ever actually admitted that the tracks aren't what they were advertised as.)
     
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  10. I have always loved Elton John's "Bennie & The Jets" and didn't know it was canned applause until I was in my 40's.

    As noted though, still a classic.
     
  11. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    My favorite is The Black Lips' Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo, which the liner notes claims is recorded in a club in Tijuana, Mexico. The fake audience sounds are supplemented by rooster clucking and the occasional bray of a donkey. Classy work.
     
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  12. I don't mind . Cheap Thrills sort of fits that's bill but its a great album with a live feel. But isn't advertised as live. But the intro my Bill Graham leaves That impression.
     
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  13. Queen - Live Killers
    Why did a band with so many great live concerts have to release this piece of crap? The overdubs don't bother me as much as the cut and paste of different performances to create a frankenstein's monster of a track.
     
  14. mikestar

    mikestar Friendly Optimist

    Location:
    Capitol Hill
    The Band - Live At Watkins Glen
     
  15. Bill Cormier

    Bill Cormier Forum Resident

    Location:
    Malta, New York
    Fairport Convention`s "In Reel Time" is a studio recording (the band does readily admit this) they used crowd noise from a John Martyn live album to make it sound "live".(Although I don`t hate it, it is a great album)
    One that does irk me is the Santana/Buddy Miles "live" album that uses a loop of the same segment of crowd yells/whistles repeating roughly every 2 minutes. I am still not sure if this is an actual live recording.
     
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  16. Thermionic Dude

    Thermionic Dude Forum Resident

    Cannonball Adderly "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!: Live at 'The Club'"

    One of the best albums of Adderly's career (and some of Zawinul's best playing), but it's definitely not your typical "live" album. The producer set up a "club" in the studio, invited select people to be in the "audience", got them liquored up, and recorded one of the best Jazz records of the 60s.
     
  17. morgan1098

    morgan1098 Forum Resident

    These two are heavily enhanced by studio post-production, but I love them anyway:

    Peter Gabriel/Secret World Live
    Simple Minds/Live in the City of Light
     
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  18. Rodney Toady

    Rodney Toady Waste of cyberspace

    Location:
    Finland
    I thought of this, too, but left it at that because I most certainly don't hate it - it's a great album, indeed! I do wish they'd re-release it without the added crowd noise, though.
     
  19. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    It sure sounds like that's what happened! Sheesh.

    Quite a few jazz albums were recorded like that, ie: "Jimmy Griffin's Jazz Party," which sounds like everyone was having a solid ball.

    Then there's "Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus," in which Mingus 'pretended' to be performing in a club, making announcements between tunes and asking the audience not to rattle the ice in their glasses and the bartenders not to ring the cash registers. The odd thing is there was no audience in the studio and none added later on!

    Side One of Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Here They Come!" is another live-in-the-studio-with-audience recording, with additional audience noise overdubbed. You can hear the raw tapes on Sundazed's superb "Mojo Workout!" CD.
     
  20. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    first one i thought of. :righton:
     
  21. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Thrills_(Big_Brother_and_the_Holding_Company_album)

    The album also features Bill Graham, who introduces the band at the beginning of "Combination of the Two". "Combination of the Two", "I Need a Man to Love" and "Ball and Chain" are the only live recordings.

    ReleasedAugust 12, 1968
    RecordedMarch 2 – May 20, 1968
    Live recordings: March 8, The Fillmore East
     
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  22. rediffusion

    rediffusion Forum Resident

    Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel
    "Medley Live from Northern Quebec:"​
    
(a) "Cash on the Barrelhead"​
    (b) "Hickory Wind"​

    Surely fake, right?
     
  23. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    I think Jimmy Page said in his Trouser Press interview that the applause was from was nightclub recordings the guy who assembled it had.
     
  24. Lownote30

    Lownote30 Bass Clef Addict

    Location:
    Nashville, TN, USA
    I can't think of a live album that HASN'T been tampered with other than maybe Playing The Fool by Gentle Giant.
     
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  25. Yes. I think it was more of a joke than an attempt at deception. There aren't many concerts in Northern Quebec.
     
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