The 1970s gave a real boost to live albums with so many great examples released. It makes a strong claim to the title for best live album decade. The 1980s followed on strongly and by the 1990s we were still seeing many great live albums released. But there were also quite a few at the other end of the scale.
It can be a very personal view on why a live album doesn't deliver. There will always be those who really like an album and others who don’t. For me, it needs to really capture a live show, all the atmosphere, live variations of songs, and a great performance. Transfer the magic from the show onto the album so I can share it. Just replicating the studio version isn't enough. Neither is churning out a live record as a contract filler or cash grab.
Sadly the 1990s seemed to have more than its fair share of live albums that just didn’t deliver a great experience for listeners. Here are eight live 1990s albums which all have multiple reasons why they miss the mark and don't deliver the magic. These don’t delight at anywhere near the level they should.
Eight live 1990s albums without the magic
INXS - Live Baby Live
Live albums in the 1990s were often released alongside a film of the concert or tour on video or DVD. That was very much the case here with both taken from a July 1991 night at Wembley Stadium, London. It is though another one of those live albums that are so close to the studio versions, you wonder what the point is.
The album doesn’t have that live energy you’d expect. INXS were usually full of that on stage, but it doesn’t come across here. Sure it’s an OK listen and it was probably a great night at the show, but you want to be able to participate in that when you listen to the album.
Perhaps that’s where the DVD release comes in. Visually you can see that it’s live, you can understand what’s happening and perhaps soak up a bit more from watching rather than just listening. But if you release an album, the sound still needs to have the magic from the gig, it’s done a disappearing act on this one.
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Two live 1990s albums best avoided
Judas Priest - ‘98 Live Meltdown 1998
Released in 1998, ‘98 Live Meltdown is a quick follow-up to a very long awaited album. Judas Priest brought out Jugulator in October 1997, some seven years after their previous album, Painkiller. Jugulator introduced a new era with a heavier sound and without Rob Halford, welcome Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens. After that long wait, it was this live album up next. Taken from the Jugulator tour in 1998, it was quickly released that September. Perhaps that was too much of a hurry.
It has plenty of their best songs on a decent tracklist. Owens has a good voice but he’s no Halford and comparisons are inevitable. Even with him as a fresh face and some new energy the rest of the band don’t seem able to match that. They sound jaded and past their best in several places on this album. This makes this a real turn-off, even I suspect for avid fans of the band
King Crimson - THRaKaTTaK
This album is a slightly odd concept in the first place, especially for a live record. Take a load of instrumental improvisations from your tour, edit out the crowd noise, and focus on the musicians doing their own thing. Maybe if you are at a concert, knowing the band's style, that’s ok to watch for a few minutes as part of the overall set. But all together as one album? The only good news is that it's not a double album.
Released in 1996 after the band had completed their Thrakattak tour you have to wonder who the album was aimed at. It doesn’t reflect the live concerts with its hard focus entirely on improvisation. Many hardcore fans of the band have rejected it with accusations of rip-off heavily used. As a live album, it’s nowhere near replicating the gigs and easily becomes one to avoid.
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A double miss from Genesis
By 1992 Genesis had pretty much morphed from their prog rock days into a pop rock group. Some might even say it was more like Phil Collins and his backing band. There’s a debate to be had on whether or not the newer Genesis was as good as the earlier version, even if still compared to a post-Peter Gabriel lineup. Their We Can’t Dance Tour in 1992 put the two into stark contrast with the material for a couple of live albums.
Genesis - Live – The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts
First up was this November 1992 album recorded on the tour and featuring the short songs. Typically the ones that were hits as singles and usually in the latter years too. To be fair the sound quality is great and the live performances are fine too.
That’s where I have an issue with it. The songs pretty much replicate the originals, the studio versions. There isn’t the same range of extra touches, segments, or variations that you want at a live concert or on an album from one. The audience sound seems quiet and doesn’t add much in terms of atmosphere from the event.
Genesis - Live – The Way We Walk, Volume Two: The Longs
Then we have the second album from the same tour. This has the longer songs. The ones closer in sound and time to the prog-rock days. It kicks off with a blast of those from the 1970s, early packaged up in a close to 20-minute long medley. So that’s shorter versions of the long songs combined into one long segment.
The album was released separately from and later than the short songs rather than as a double disc version. It sounds like a marketing idea more than a good one. If these are the long songs, you’d really want the full version. I’d also want to hear “Supper’s Ready”. But that’s not what they played on tour when perhaps the medley had a place as a nod to the past without taking over the whole show.
Another element from this album that had a better place on stage than on record is the drum solo. They are rarely a highlight for the majority of fans, perhaps fun to watch at the time for a short while. Adding one as a six-minute segment late in the album isn’t a huge success. This all proves there are some exceptions to be made when putting the show on a record.
There is another downside to the shorts and longs approach. It's always tricky when the songs are recorded from a variety of nights across a long tour and not always in line with the running order. It can sometimes give a disjointed feel to the album. With the two separate albums chopping and dropping songs in and around, that’s a feel that emanates from these two albums.
They are probably for dedicated fans only, but even then those that fit that bill perhaps have most to feel unhappy about. It all becomes just a bundle of songs with a bit of a crowd. That doesn't deliver enough for me to be an album I want to play again and again.
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Anthrax - Live: The Island Years
When an artist is pretty open about not liking one of his own band’s albums and even telling fans not to buy it, it's usually for good reason. It’s a stinker alert!
That though was the view of guitarist Scott Ian about this 1994 live release from Anthrax. I say from the band, but they had little to do with it. The album was made up of a couple of old recordings by their record label to fulfill a contract for another album with Island Records. Part was the soundtrack to a home video, Live Noize, from 1991, the last few songs came from a college radio show recording in 1992.
The album is an odd mix of content using songs with a too heavy focus on collaborations between the band rather than on their top numbers. It’s also slightly odd in that the recordings used had Joey Belladonna on vocals, but he had left the band two years earlier, in 1992. John Bush then took over but isn’t on this release.
On the plus side, there weren’t any other live albums for Anthrax, this was their first. On the downside, the sound on it isn’t brilliant and it’s all a bit tame for a band like Anthrax. Scott Ian called it right, one to give a miss to.
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Guns N’ Roses - Live Era '87-'93
The period this double live album covers is the prime years for Guns N’ Roses. Their best years, from their debut album Appetite For Destruction right through to the massive crowds on their two year long Use Your Illusion tour. The end of the tour in Argentina in July 1993 was Slash’s last show with the band until he rejoined in 2016. That marked the end of an era for sure.
You'd expect quite a lot from a live album covering this period. But it’s a letdown. The track listing isn’t as great as it could be with concert favorites like “Live And Let Die” omitted and more softer acoustic numbers in there than you’d expect or need from top rockers like Guns N’ Roses.
Axl Rose is at his annoying worst in between songs and you just want him to start singing again. But when he does you can only note that his voice isn’t that great live. Slash has been said to declare the album as not pretty and with a lot of mistakes. He has a point for sure. The whole album may reflect their best years, but it’s nowhere near their best live music. Which is a shame as it should have been a superb release.
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Nirvana - From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah
It’s a personal thing, but this live album made up of a bunch of recordings from all over the place and across several years just doesn’t work for me. It’s quite different from the band’s MTV Unplugged In New York album a couple of years earlier. But then it would be, this one is much closer to the real Nirvana live.
The two did start out as part of a plan to release the unplugged recording in a double set with another live album. But in the aftermath and grief of Cobain's death, it all proved too difficult to pull together at the time. The unplugged release came in November 1994 and From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah followed separately, with minimal overlap of songs, a couple of years later in October 1996.
There’s a warning if you decide to listen to it, don’t use headphones especially not in-ear ones. There’s a load of on-stage feedback, amp noise, and Kurt Corbain screams that’ll make you wince. If you pay attention there are quite a few off-key vocals, bum guitar notes, and other errors. So yeah, true live perhaps, but is that really how you want to remember the band and Cobain?
As with their unplugged album, there’s often very much a split audience in terms of liking or disliking this one. Let’s face it, their MTV album sold close to 13 million copies and still gets slammed by many. From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah sold around 2 million worldwide. It’s already much less popular with fans, even if you don’t mind it a real test is whether you still dig it out to play now and again, or head for other Nirvana albums instead.