Live albums were a thing for a minute, it's how bands broke out. KISS, Foghat, Peter Frampton, Bob Seger, Cheap Trick all had their biggest (to that point) selling albums of their careers with live releases. I can't imagine live albums ever recapturing that clout again.
Three of my favorites from the 'way-back machine'.
Mott The Hoople - Live
I love the original '74 release and 1st edition release on CD. The running order is wrong and each side is from different concerts (London, New York). Later releases on CD are expanded to include two complete shows but I prefer the original. First love, best love.
Queen - A Night at the Odeon
The Christmas show from '75 broadcast live on BBC. This was a heavily bootlegged show and I personally had several different versions. A tape from a radio rebroadcast, a LP and 2 CD versions. Original tapes were found restored and tweaked for official release in 2015. It's the last time that Queen sounded like a powerful club band.
Lou Reed - Rock n Roll Animal
I remember seeing TV ads for this when it was released while watching Midnight Special, a slow foot to head close-up crawled up the length of his body. It was the gold standard for Lou Reed to my ears along with Transformer. I know a fan of Velvet Underground and he loathes it! He claims Lou took songs of drug addled suffering and gave them a dose of zippity-do-dah and turned them into "Green Grass And High Tide". Oddly, the rest of this show (Non VU Songs) was released on a separate live album (Lou Reed Live) at nearly the same time as this release.
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