HELLO CLEVELAND!

A Prog writer considers the merits of live prog albums.

Back in Prog 93, reviewing Saga’s So Good So Far… live album, Dave Ling queried whether there are too many live albums these days. My answer to his question is a resounding yes.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, most artists — prog or otherwise — went several times round the album-tour cycle before releasing a live album. For example, Rush followed a neat, era-closing pattern of releasing a live album after every four studio albums. As a result, All The World’s A Stage, Exit… Stage Left, A Show Of Hands, and Different Stages emerged in 1976, 1981, 1989 and 1998 respectively.

These days, for many artists, the studio album-tour-live album (and/or live DVD/Blu-ray) appears to be the default sequence. It’s notable that Rush had released 16 studio albums before Different Stages. But by stark contrast the last three Rush studio albums have been outnumbered by no fewer than seven live albums with accompanying DVDs/Blu-rays.

I would argue that for maximum musical enjoyment — and to provide some frequently needed perspective — it’s far healthier to follow a wider range of bands in reasonable depth than just a handful to and beyond the metaphorical ends of the earth.

After all, and while many of us enjoy much of our music on the move, there are only so many listening hours in the day. The point is all the more pertinent given that there are now more prog studio releases every year than ever before. Last year, Prog reviewed more than 500 new studio albums, with those usually prioritised over live ones for review purposes, unless the latter are particularly notable for some reason.

Of course no one’s being forced to buy all these live releases, whether by Rush or otherwise. But being a completist is now also a much more expensive proposition than it once was.

So why do artists increasingly churn out live albums? Perhaps unsurprisingly, commercial reality is the simple answer. Or, to put it another way, cold hard cash; live albums provide artists with another, often vital, income stream. Additionally they serve to keep the artist in the public eye, beyond the three to six month flurry of publicity that a news story, album review and interview will generate, supplemented by the actual live shows and their live reviews.

Also, what better way to prime your audience for a new studio album than to release a live album? Additionally, it ensures that you’re not forgotten at a time when there are more prog bands than ever before.

Love them, loathe them, or feel entirely ambivalent towards them, live albums are in themselves easy to produce. In fact, their production may actually outlast their studio counterparts if some prog artists should choose to abandon the studio album format entirely and just release material on an ad hoc digital basis. Got an opinion on the matter that you’d like to share? Please email us at: prog@futurenet.com. Opinions expressed in this column aren’t necessarily those of the magazine.