Live Album: “V”

As diverse as Live's five albums are, is how diverse their fans are. After reading only the first several pages of reviews, I noticed that each of their previous albums were noted as a reviewer's favorite. It makes me wonder then why so many are pining for a 2001 version of "Jewelry", "Copper", "Samadhi", or "The Distance". Live's evolving creativity and artistry are 2 of the main reasons they are one of my favorite bands. How many bad reviews would they get if they kept churning out a new "Jewelry" every two years? If you want to listen to "Copper", then put it in your CD player! But don't knock "V" because it's nothing like the first 4. Sure, "V" has a lot of rap/techno/etc. flavor. The walls between musical styles are not as impermeable as they used to be. Who would have imagined Sting and Stevie Nicks working with Puff Daddy and Destiny's Child? Not me, but it happened! I commend Live for their growth as artists and individuals. I will continue to buy their CD's, and I will continue to listen to each one that came before.

I got into Live, like many others, because of the strength of 1994's Throwing Copper. I heard "Lightning Crashes" on the radio but was still too young to truly appreciate it, knowing only that there was some aspect of the music which haunted me like a dead ancestor. Some years later I decided to buy Throwing Copper and, for me, that album was an eye-opener to the entire rock genre. Listen after listen, the album seemed more malleable. It seemed to steadily adapt to my growing mental state not because the songs themselves changed, but because my view of them did. They became more dynamic, intriguing, melodic, haunting, and meaningful. Following Throwing Copper I got Secret Samadhi, which introduced me to a sophisticated darkness I didn't know the band possessed. This album, too, attached itself to my conscious and sub-conscious concepts and seemed to change as they did. Mental Jewelry sounded like a time capsule since the band evoked an austere optimism that had not been touched except for groups like REM and U2.

When I bought The Distance To Here in 1999, something seemed to have shifted. Kowalczyck's lyrics were optimistic, but not wrought with the same idealistic social change heard on 1989's Mental Jewelry. The songs were enchanting yet also a little diffused of weight and importance. But I quickly overlooked those detrimental factors only now to see that their ugly heads have sprung on V.

I do not exaggerate when I say V is a failure because, simply put, it is. The lyrical accuracy Kowalczyck possessed on earlier works seems completely eradicated by an overhauled radio monolith; careful drumming and guitar-playing has been replaced with trite, dead, and empty riffs and mindless busy work; and the entire cd is like a compilation of b-sides from when the group was joking around in the studio. Nothing is of importance here. Instead you get a glimpse of the fading future of rock as the market resurges to dominate every artistic and intellectual nook and cranny. One can't help but roll his/her eyes as Kowalczyck sings ... lines--written in locker rooms, no less--on songs such as "Forever May Not Be Long Enough" and the utterly putrid "Deep Enough," a song which should not belong on anyone's cd, much less Live's. Smashed between the power ballads are soft odes which are just laughable. "Nobody Knows" and "Overcome" expose depressing songwriting attempts which turn a ludicrous album to a saddening one.

I'm afraid to say that the potent political, spiritual, and social implications once highlighted in the past have now been replaced by hallmark sermons, faint religious carols, and puerile social observations. The direction taken for this cd is unbelievably negative and leaves any hopes for the future of the group highly dubious.

One can only wait now.

Something that mostly works.....Live on this album for the first time are working with someone other than Jerry Harrison, and the change in musical touches shows. This album is expert in producing extremes...."Call Me A Fool" and "Overcome" are hauntingly beautiful ballads, (the soft end) while "Forever May Not Be Long Enough" swells from soft piano backdrop to crashing guitars and imposing lyrical delivery and back again, Like A Soldier follows the same pattern (the rough end).

The song "Simple Creed" is solid (and to me, the loops in this song are complementary rather than poorly used), but as with many albums, it isn't the best (again, my vote would lean towards "Call Me A Fool".) The bottom line is, Live have both returned to the old and embraced the new.....At times it may seem like they had a hard time figuring out which style to stick to, but it makes this album eclectic and keep it from becoming stale. Like some others, I had to dock it a star for some of the self-serving lyrical sentiments that came through in parts of the album. These are not, however, enough to invalidate the rest of the album as a sturdily crafted piece of alt-rock with a few sprinkles of nu-metal thrown in for good measure, quite worthy of a listen.

I've been listening to LIVE my entire life thanks to my mother's love of them. I see them almost very time they come within two hours of here and I plan to continue up the beat as long as financially possible. Each of their albums tells the story of a different point in their lives, each with it's own soul and power that still knock me off my seat all these years later- all save one.

V is the lowest point ever in Live's history. Ed moved from writing in the desert to writing during pit stops on tour, and living in LA had to be doing things to him (I remember him talking about the band wanting to more live up the rock star image, like bands like limp Biscuit were...), and it really shows in some of the songs. The shout-outs to themselves in "People like You" and the first part of "Transmit your Love" are embarrassingly unnecessary and arrogant- we already know how wonderful you are, you don't need to tell us yourself. "Transmit Your Love" besides that trip up is a lovely song, but "People Like You" features some of his most utterly appalling vocals... "Deep Enough", while it has addictive backbeats, is somewhat lyrically shallow. "Forever may not be long enough" would be a decent song if it weren't for the horrible way the chorus is handled. And "Ok?" is the one Live song which is simply -bad-, a thing I never knew could happen before listening to it.

While I'm critical of it that's only two, three and half songs. There are 14 on the album and the rest go from good to positively wonderful. "Hero of Love" is one of the most fantastic songs they've ever written and "Overcome", "Call me a Fool" and "Flow" are wonderful. (Although I'd like to note that Ed wrote "Overcome" and "Call me a fool" years before) The other songs are varryingly good, save for some of those listed previously.

V was their low point because of attitude. We don't look for `badass' pissy stereotypical rockstars when we look to Live. What always pulls me back to them are the fiery-eyed souls of Mental Jewelry and Throwing Copper, the reactionary darkness of Samadhi, the sense of peace flowing through every word of TDTH, and the affirmation of truth and the power of love in Birds of Pray. As different as all these things are, they all have one thing in common- they're utterly vivid and alive and beautiful, whether it be brightly or darkly so.

Buy this one and give it a chance. It isn't the end of the world (as Birds of Pray and the snippets we've heard thusfar of Songs from Black Mountain prove), but it's definitely not up to their usual strength.

Ed poses the aforementioned question in the song "People Like You", and listening to this album, I had to ask myself the same question, because this sounds nothing like them! I respect trying something new, and Live was always a band to try something new on each album, but this? This is not trying something new, this is selling out! This album is filled with hip hop/techno beats, gansta rap lingo ("back up fool", "keep it real"), and guest vocals from some guy named Tricky (actually, that part's kinda cool). But really, there were times where I thought I was listening to Kid Rock or something! Yes, Ed does try to rap a few times. The weird thing about all this is that Ed seems to hold a degree of disdain for what the mainstream is today. The lyrics to "People Like You" seem to hint at that, and when I went to see them over the summer, he was talking about how there needs to be more good stuff on the radio. I wholeheartedly agree, but most of this album seems to contradict that. They're selling out to the corporate monster they so despise. It's like saying, "I don't like this kind of music, but I want to sell albums, so I'll do it anyway". That's just wrong! Albums like "Throwing Copper" didn't sell albums because they were popular, they sold because they were good, and people who want good music who don't care about trends will respect that.

Bottom line, this isn't worth it. "Simple Creed" is a decent single, despite the weird lyrics (puppy scruff?), "Overcome" is a great ballad (but NO WAY is it better than "Lightning Crashes"!), and "Flow" and "The Ride" are okay too, but that's pretty much it. Boys, forget about trying to be on MTV, and make another masterpiece like "Throwing Copper" or "The Distance to Here". Congrats to those who managed to enjoy this, but this new direction ain't workin' for me.