Opener “The Dam at Otter Creek” shifts from seething restrain onto gloriously noisy crescendo – both elements that Live would abandon in their later days. While Taylor and Gracey play their parts with efficiency, aside from Kowalcyzk, it is Dahlheimer who manages to truly stand out with his fluid basslines. Meanwhile “Lighting Crashes” patiently hover with its hushed verses before exploding into its crashing wave of coda, featuring the middle-eastern-tinged wail that Kowalczyk was known for. “I Alone”, “All Over You” and “Selling the Drama” engage in economical stadium rock, efficient in its dynamic turns, shifting from clean-watery guitars to distortion with a mild-grunge touch that recalls R.E.M's most aggressive moments. Like a lot of popular hits, the quality of the songs get overshadowed by its ubiquitous existence in pop culture. For what it's worth, a good few would have heard the radio staples “I Alone” and “Lightning Crashes”, as well as “All Over You” and “Selling the Drama” to a lesser extent. If you are a rock fan who has not heard the original record, now is the time to do so. It is not a greatest hits record where every song is a single but a reminder of how much an experience a collection of connected songs with different approaches can be.Īll of the original tracks are in this rerelease (officially billed as The Super Deluxe 25th Anniversary edition) alongside a reasonable amount of bonuses that include their previously unreleased “Woodstock 1994”, nine song performances and three outtakes – two of which were previously released on compilation albums, and one previously unreleased song titled “Susquehanna”. There were solid singles alongside deeper cuts that take longer to brew but reveal depth after a few plays. (Radioactive Records/-)īest yet, the record had what the greatest records had – it felt like an “album” in the classic sense of the word and not a random collection of songs. The album cover for the 25th Anniversary edition of "Throwing Copper" by Live. Though its sentimental over-dramatics, both in lyrical composition and in Kowalczyk's stage moves, would eventually go into hyperdrive, Copper managed to push earnestness and wild esotericism as far as it could go without feeling resoundingly cheesy. The music was absolutely dynamic and catchy, using the quiet-loud formula measurably through its immediately hummable verses and choruses. The lyrics were alterna-90s in the way they mashed the abstract and spiritualism, alongside the sentimental (and sometimes just plain weird, in a good way). Copper is a solid beast from front to back. But the record itself should ideally transcend those things. Those post- Copper days arguably cemented Live's image in different ways for most music fans. By 2016, Shinn was gone and Kowalczyk returned for a reunion, eventually releasing Live's latest EP, Local 717. The remaining members – guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer and drummer Chad Gracey – then re-formed Live with a different singer named Chris Shinn, releasing The Turn in 2014 to little fanfare. The band remained in existence afterward, releasing four more albums of varying quality before calling it quits in 2009, when vocalist and main songwriter Ed Kowalczyk left to focus on his solo career, causing drama with the rest of his band, who claimed he took unreasonable royalties during his tenure with them. Even though it eventually moved 2 million records, by the standards of the day and in comparison to Copper, it was a big letdown. Though its artistic merits remain subjective, the band's 1997 follow up, Secret Samadhi, was considered a failure. Live's career took a considerable dive after Copper.
Copper remains a record unfairly maligned due to its creators' supposed alignment alongside the worst of post-grunge and their less powerful subsequent albums.
Its newly released 25-year anniversary edition album is a welcome reminder of how promising the band was, even amidst the drudgery of the post-Nirvana times. It has since sold over 8 million copies, making Live one of the major success stories of the alternative world in the 90s. Their sophomore record Throwing Copper, released in 1994, delivered hit after hit, culminating in the emotive ballad “Lightning Crashes” and reaching the highest positions of various charts. Thu, Aug 14:42 1418 0290f9de4aeb62f98549b410b54956e9 1 Entertainment Live,music,rock,alternative,90s,rock-band Freeįor a very short time in the mid-1990s, American band Live were alternative rock titans.
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