CD-Charts Position 1
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Live Santa Monica '72

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: David Bowie

Release Date June 30, 2008
First off this is truly a superb gig. The track listing is faultless and the performances, though beautifully flawed at times, are blistering. It is a far superior document of the Ziggy period Bowie to the 73' retirement gig at the Hammersmith Odeon.

I already own the 94' official release of this concert on the mainman `golden years' label. I bought this new EMI edition because I had read somewhere that Bowie had remastered the recording himself. He hasn't! Listening to it I cannot really detect any significant differences in sonic quality from the 94' release.

What is shockingly obvious however is the absence of big chunks and small snippets of Bowie's playingly camp dialogue with his audience throughout. Where's his ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
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Nine Lives

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Steve Winwood

Release Date May 05, 2008
I just cannot relate to most of the other reviews. "About Time" was very good - but this does not feature one memorable track. I am a big Stevie Fan - right back to the Spencer Davies Group - brilliant musician and singer. However the guy has never been a great song writer - now and then he has teamed up with someone who pushed him on a bit - e.g. Will Jennings but the stuff here is really second rate. May be I am being a little hasty - I'll hang on to the disc, and keep playing it who knows - might grow on me. If you want some recent Stevie and don't already have it - buy "About Time" would be my advice.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

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We'll Live And Die In These Towns

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: The Enemy

Release Date July 09, 2007
The album starts off in electric fashion with the fantastic 'Aggro' and the quality of songs never lets up. First single 'Away from here' follows and provides a great sing-a long chorus. 'Pressure' shows that the band can really play their instruments as they let rip on a fantastic song. 'Had Enough' slows things down a bit but once again provides a great chorus. 'We'll Live and Die in These Towns' is next up and gives a great acoustic platform for the band and provides a real highlight of the album. The powerful song 'You're not alone' follows and brings back the electric sound and it will stay in your head. 'its not ok' is the last highlight of the album and a worthy single earlier in the year. The last 4 songs 'This Song, 40 days and nights, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

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Live 1975-1985

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Bruce Springsteen

Release Date April 24, 2006
After listening to the River off this album in my mates car I decided to buy my first springsteen record.
Im now a avid fan of the great man . Most of his classics are on the these 3 CD's . From the haunting tracks like Thunder road and Racing in the streets to rocking classics like Born to run and Rosalita.
If theres only one album you get then it sould be this one

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

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Roseland NYC Live

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Portishead

Release Date June 18, 1999
Other reviewers have said it all - I just want to clarify a couple of things
1) A couple of tracks here are not the same performances as on the companion video. One of them, Roads, was recorded at a festival (and certainly sounds like it!). The other - well, read on...
2) None of the tracks on this album deserve to be damned with the faint praise of "faithful reproduction of the originals". For one thing, they're all loud and vivid-sounding, with a fine balance of ambience and clarity (and this makes a particular difference to the second-album material - Cowboys is a speaker-blaster!). Elsewhere, Mysterons and Strangers have extended codas; Half Day Closing (with all its vocal processing intact) ends with a strange `Liberty Bell'-like sample ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

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Cohen Live

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Leonard Cohen

Release Date January 25, 1999
I've been a Cohen fan as far back as I can remember. I had a feeling I wouldn't be disappointed by this album, since Cohen's live backup singers are legendary, and I was right. These are without a doubt the most beautiful and emotional versions of the songs ever recorded, and I find it impossible to listen to the album as mere background music; as soon as the music starts playing, I can't help but close my eyes and just let the music envelop me completely.

The songs "Bird on a Wire" and "Sisters of Mercy" are worthy of special mention. The tempo is lower, the saxophone sexier and the vocals deeper and more intense than ever before, and the result defies description. I would have gladly paid in blood to be at the show where they were recorded.

I heartily ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

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Solo Acoustic Vol.2: Live

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Jackson Browne

Release Date March 03, 2008
I am a long time Jackson Browne fan and have seen him live several times both with the band and solo. The previous solo album was an excellent effort and well worth five stars. Regrettably, this is not up to the standard of Vol.1 by any means.

I don't know why, perhaps some of the tracks were just not suited to a solo performance, perhaps these weren't the best performances but this album just doesn't gel. In particular, Somebody's Baby just didn't hit the spot at all and nor even did the usually excellent All Good Things. I was particularly disappointed by the rendition of "In the shape of a heart" which was just not as good as I remember it from the acoustic tour a couple of years ago.

On balance, I would have to say that this album is strictly for fans ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

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MTV Unplugged In New York

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Nirvana

Release Date June 18, 1999
Like albums such as the Manic Street Preacher's "The Holy Bible" and Joy Division's "Closer", this album is impossible to hear without the ghost of a creator looming large - unlike albums by The Doors or Jimi Hendrix, which lack the seeming suicide-note nature of those works. "Unplugged" more than any other album I know has an elegiac, funeral atmosphere, one heightened by the inclusion of lilies and candles in the small stage and the nervousness of band and audience, as though aware that what they were seeing was so fragile it might break. (Compare the atmosphere with that of Rod Stewart's Unplugged, which is like a knees-up gig in a cosy pub by the resident band).

There is, for the first time with Nirvana, a remarkable delicacy. While some of their songs had been suggestive ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

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Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: The Byrds

Release Date June 02, 2008
This is one of those innocent pleasures that one can afford to consume in one's later years without any guilt whatsoever while ruing the years that the subject has been under wraps in Roger McGuinn's archives.

I will leave others to discuss individual tracks while I make the claim to how like the Grateful Dead the Byrds really were on this showing. The differences are clear, whilst the Dead gre from their blues based background the Byrds arose from the folk tradition but here, in this fines concert marred only by a minor sound glitch in the first track, the similarities are there for all to see and hear.

Marvel how America has produced two bands who outgrew their simple origins to become the greatest evangelists for the broad spectrum of music that has emerged from ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

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Nine Lives (CD+DVD)

CD-Charts > Music > Live Albums
by: Steve Winwood

Release Date May 05, 2008
This is one of those innocent pleasures that one can afford to consume in one's later years without any guilt whatsoever while ruing the years that the subject has been under wraps in Roger McGuinn's archives.

I will leave others to discuss individual tracks while I make the claim to how like the Grateful Dead the Byrds really were on this showing. The differences are clear, whilst the Dead gre from their blues based background the Byrds arose from the folk tradition but here, in this fines concert marred only by a minor sound glitch in the first track, the similarities are there for all to see and hear.

Marvel how America has produced two bands who outgrew their simple origins to become the greatest evangelists for the broad spectrum of music that has emerged from ... Read More: