Music » Live Album Rock Music

Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing. Universal. 2008.

Release Date: 1999-06-15, Audio CD, Arista

With just a pair of CDs--Tigerlily and Ophelia--in her solo-career arsenal, Natalie Merchant isn't an artist you'd expect to release a live album. Perhaps Merchant is fond of playing live, which shows throughout these 11 tracks despite her relaxed, unflappable vocal delivery. The former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman leads an amped "Wonder" and then coos into "San Andreas Fault"; the latter is expansive and dramatic, a direction Merchant is exploring that's alternately off-putting and charming. Merchant's version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is even more philosophical and meditative. Add to that a languid take on Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" and you have a full-scale portrait of Merchant's mindset. The ever-somber music is limited in its emotional scope, but there are few performers in mainstream pop who excel more in that range. --Andrew Bartlett

Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2007.

Release Date: 1990-06-21, Audio CD, Curb Records

Kurt Cobain's former bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl clearly had an agenda in compiling From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, the second of what will no doubt be a long line of posthumous Nirvana albums. Because of its somber, intense nature, the first post-Cobain release, MTV Unplugged in New York, was largely perceived as music for a wake--an impression reinforced by MTV's constant airings of the special in the days following Cobain's suicide. But that acoustic detour aside, the Nirvana live experience was always about displaying a lust for life--not a death wish--with all the energy the musicians could muster. Wishkah offers 16 songs spanning the band's career, all delivered in the loudest, most frenzied, and sometimes the sloppiest versions imaginable. In the opening "Intro," a snippet of pre-show noise, Cobain screams his heart out in joyful contrast to the haunted screams on "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." Then the group launches into "School," which ends with the spirited chorus "Don't be sad." Indeed, it's impossible to dwell on the maudlin when listening to these renditions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Sliver," "Heart-Shaped Box," and "Negative Creep"--they're too loud and too full of life. But while it should be applauded, Wishkah isn't the great lost Nirvana album--there are no unheard gems to add to the catalog--and in the end, it isn't nearly as essential as any of the band's studio albums--or even the downbeat but revelatory Unplugged. --Jim Derogatis

Release Date: 2003-02-11, Audio CD, Sony

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: DENVER,JOHN
Title: EVENING WITH JOHN DENVER
Street Release Date: 03/20/2001
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP

Amy and Emily take a page from the Jackson Browne'sRunning on Empty notebook in compiling a fascinating melange of live tracks pulled from 12 different stages, dressing rooms, radio broadcasts, and a Hopi Indian reservation. For fans this is a gift, pure and simple, and even skeptics will be sucker-punched by the emotional power of the songs and performances. --Jeff Bateman

Release Date: 1990-10-25, Audio CD, Arista