> Once you start getting into live music more, everyone's studio albums sound bland
Speak for yourself. Some of us like the possibilities the recording studio yields as an instrument. And by "some of us" I mean "most of the music listening public".
Led Zeppelin, in particular, is well-known for their pioneering studio work. Most of Zeppelin's most famous songs are studio tricks. Stairway to Heaven--too many instruments to do with four people live. When the Levee breaks--tapes slowed down and run backwards. Achilles' Last Stand--a dozen or so overtracked guitars. Kashmir--the famous "hallway echo" on the drums with a phaser on top, multiple mellotrons, multi-tracked everything, &c. What's especially good about their studio albums is that they sound natural and alive, but this was another studio trick by splicing together the freshest takes, inventing new natural-sounding mic setups, etc.
They were also known for lazy, lackluster live performances, especially as Page and Bonham sunk deeper into substance abuse. So that's a very strange example. I don't really like the implied attitude that live music is best, and we are required to like it over "bland" studio music, and it's strange that you picked the most un-bland studio band since The Beatles.
I was speaking for myself. Since this is Hacker News and people are interested in business, I wanted to talk about what's unique about Phish and what they're providing that nobody else is willing (and quite frankly, able) to. While there are some bands that I prefer in their studio-album form, my overwhelming preference tends toward the excitement of live shows if they're good. I was originally a music student before I switched to writing software, and so perhaps my hours spent in the practice room shaped my appreciation for music more in the direction of the performance. But the real point of my original post is that in the world of pop and rock, almost everyone is leaning on the studio to craft their music and very few are properly good at singing or playing their instruments. And that's the interesting part about Phish, because they're not necessarily very good songwriters (sorry fellow Phish fans, but their lyrics are just not very good ;) ) but they are actually very good musicians and performers. Even if you don't get into their music that much, you kind of have to hand it to them for being basically the only band out there that is willing to sell you a download of their concert almost immediately after it's done.
I'm aware that Led Zeppelin wasn't a famously great live band. Even Jimmy Page has written about how difficult it is to find any decent recordings of live shows of theirs. But "How the West Was Won", even though it has had a lot of studio enhancement work to it, is just so much more exciting than their studio recordings. It has a more improvisational feel to it in many places, and you get a sense of ensemble and of reaction between the band members and between them and the audience.
I didn't mean to say that all live music is, by definition, better and I certainly didn't say you're required to like live music. I'm sorry you're choosing to interpret my original comment as some kind of personal attack on your music listening habits, but I hope you'll get over it.
I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but you're still mixing taste and judgment. It sounds like you are judging live music as Good and studio albums as Bad, not describing your own taste.
If you're not telling people they should listen to live music and then studio albums will sound bland, then don't say things like, "Once you getting in to live music more, studio albums sound bland". Then you turn your nose at albums that both critics and the masses absolutely love, and would say are the opposite of bland. (And of course you have to add how you're a trained musician, throw in some passive-aggressive insults at the end, &c. This sort of stuff is not done in the service of discussion or appreciation of music.)
Sorry, that wasn't my original intent. I'm just not a great writer. My intent was to describe more of the perspective of a someone interested in something that mostly doesn't exist elsewhere.
> They were also known for lazy, lackluster live performances, especially as Page and Bonham sunk deeper into substance abuse.
Really? I was under the impression that Led Zeppelin had some of the most legendary concerts of all time. I'm not denying that Page was a wizard in the studio...but have you listened to any of the bootlegs? Here's one from 1970, recorded by some guy in the audience with a tape recorder, and it's pretty damn heavy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4quuwZmUitI
Speak for yourself. Some of us like the possibilities the recording studio yields as an instrument. And by "some of us" I mean "most of the music listening public".
Led Zeppelin, in particular, is well-known for their pioneering studio work. Most of Zeppelin's most famous songs are studio tricks. Stairway to Heaven--too many instruments to do with four people live. When the Levee breaks--tapes slowed down and run backwards. Achilles' Last Stand--a dozen or so overtracked guitars. Kashmir--the famous "hallway echo" on the drums with a phaser on top, multiple mellotrons, multi-tracked everything, &c. What's especially good about their studio albums is that they sound natural and alive, but this was another studio trick by splicing together the freshest takes, inventing new natural-sounding mic setups, etc.
They were also known for lazy, lackluster live performances, especially as Page and Bonham sunk deeper into substance abuse. So that's a very strange example. I don't really like the implied attitude that live music is best, and we are required to like it over "bland" studio music, and it's strange that you picked the most un-bland studio band since The Beatles.