The Band
The 50 Best Live Albums of the 1970s
The concert industry exploded in the 1970s, and the live album, a stopgap project once reserved for only the biggest artists, became a compulsory ritual and a pivotal moment for many artists. Live albums captured legendarily loud bands like The Who and The Ramones in their natural element. Once obscure regional acts like Bob Seger, KISS and Cheap Trick exploded into the mainstream with live albums. The Band, The Stooges, and Velvet Underground put their final gigs on vinyl. Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young (as his ongoing archive series shows), and Jackson Browne recorded entire sets of new songs onstage. The Grateful Dead released several official live albums (and continue to do so) that only made fans want to bootleg shows on their own more. With the 50th anniversary of a landmark live album, Th...
The Reissue Section: Winter 2021
While it’s been a challenge for bands to collaborate in person over the last year, archival releases have been booming. And over the course of this first quarter, lots of goodies have dropped. Here are some of the most worthy entries in the reissue world. Black SabbathVol. 4 Deluxe Edition (Rhino)Heaven and Hell Deluxe Edition (Rhino)Mob Rules Deluxe Edition (Rhino) What we have here are three essential Black Sabbath albums from two distinctly different periods in the band’s timeline. 1972’s Vol. 4 is renowned mostly for the hedonism and drug use that went down during the album’s creation in Los Angeles. But nearly 50 years later, it stands as the creative pinnacle of the Ozzy era. By bringing the production duties in-house, the original lineup of Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bi...
