\n<\/p>\n
\n\tLast week, Olivia Rodrigo<\/a> made a surprise announcement about her follow-up to Guts<\/em>. But instead of another record of new material, Live at Glastonbury (A BBC Recording)<\/em>, to be released in December, will document her entire set at that festival this summer, complete with a cameo by the Robert Smith on covers of two Cure songs.<\/p>\n \n\tBut here\u2019s the even more startling thing about the announcement: She\u2019s releasing \u2026 a live<\/em> album? In 2025? Who does that anymore? In terms of big-league pop and rock artists, hardly anyone. But maybe it\u2019s time for a comeback for records that lent a you-are-there listening experience and brought out aspects of a band or musician\u2019s work you hadn\u2019t heard in a recording studio. <\/p>\n \n\tYou do remember live albums, right? If you\u2019re on a certain generation, you may not, since not even Taylor Swift, very attuned to revenue streams, released a full concert album from the Eras Tour. Billie Eilish<\/a>\u2019s unplugged Live at Third Man Records<\/em>, back in 2019, was a limited-edition vinyl release, which instantly designated it an underground item. But for decades, the concert LP was a staple of zillions of music-addicted households. No matter what genre you followed, one of them was surely in your record collection. Classic-rock buffs surely had copies of the Rolling Stones<\/a>\u2019 Get Yer Ya-Ya\u2019s Out!<\/em> or the Who<\/a>\u2019s Live at Leeds<\/em>. Soul fans probably owned James Brown<\/a>\u2019s Live at the Apollo<\/em>, Otis Redding<\/a>\u2019s In Person at the Whisky a Go Go<\/em> or Aretha Franklin<\/a>\u2019s Amazing Grace<\/em> gospel foray. Metal fans swear by Deep Purple\u2019s Made in Japan<\/em> or Metallica\u2019s Live Shit: Binge & Purge<\/em>. For Southern rock, the Allman Brothers Band\u2019s Live at Fillmore East<\/em> or Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s One More from the Road<\/em> were must-cranks. And have we mentioned Woodstock<\/em>? Or Nirvana\u2019s MTV Unplugged<\/em>? <\/p>\n \n\tIn its heyday, which lasted a few decades, the live album served several equally valid purposes. In some cases \u2014 Cheap Trick<\/a>\u2019s At Budokan<\/em>, Kiss<\/a>\u2019 Alive!<\/em>, Peter Frampton<\/a>\u2019s Frampton Comes Alive!<\/em>, and Bob Seger<\/a>\u2019s Live Bullet<\/em> \u2014 it became the breakout moment for acts who\u2019d been kicking around for a few years but hadn\u2019t hit the big time. Why not gather all their best songs to date, tape \u2018em in front of an excited fanbase, and give em another shot? Live records could also be a way of fulfilling a contractual obligation (too many examples to cite) or a way to mollify fans who were going to have to wait a while for another studio record (Fleetwood Mac\u2019s 1980\u2019s concert record, which bridged the gap between Tusk<\/em> and Mirage<\/em>).<\/p>\n