Live at the Apollo
1963
King Records refused to pay for a live album with no new songs on it, so Brown funded the recording himself. It reached number two.
★ 8.1
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
MTV Unplugged in New York
1993
Cobain asked for lilies and candles on the set, refused to play the hits, and was dead five months later.
★ 7.5
Sunday at the Village Vanguard
1961
Scott LaFaro plays the bass as a third melodic voice rather than keeping time. He was killed in a car crash ten days later.
★ 6.6
Live at Leeds
1970
They burned the tapes of every other show on the tour and kept this one, packaged deliberately to look like a bootleg.
★ 6.4
The Last Waltz
1978
Martin Scorsese shot it with seven cameras and a written shot list keyed to the lyrics. Neil Diamond and Muddy Waters both turn up.
★ 6.3
Live at the Regal
1965
The crowd answers every line he sings, and King plays around them rather than over them. He never plays and sings at the same time.
★ 6.0
Ellington at Newport
1956
The tenor player Paul Gonsalves took twenty-seven choruses in a row and the crowd nearly rioted. Much of the record was quietly redone afterward.
★ 5.1
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!
1970
Recorded on the 1969 American tour, weeks before Altamont. Charlie Watts posed for the cover with a donkey carrying the band's instruments.
★ 5.1
Made in Japan
1972
The band thought a live album was a waste of time and only agreed because it was for the Japanese market alone.
★ 5.0
Waiting for Columbus
1978
Tower of Power's horn section joined them for these shows, and a good deal of it was quietly fixed in the studio afterwards.
★ 4.8
At Newport 1960
1960
The 1960 festival ended in a riot, but Muddy's set got out on record and half of Britain's guitarists learned it.
★ 4.5
Sinatra at the Sands
1966
Count Basie's orchestra behind him, Quincy Jones's arrangements, and a long unscripted monologue in the middle that is half the reason people keep it.
★ 3.9
Live Wire Blues Power
1968
Recorded at the Fillmore in front of a rock crowd who had mostly never heard him, which is why he explains the blues between songs.
★ 3.1
Alive!
1975
It is billed as a live album but a good deal of it was rebuilt in the studio afterward. It saved the record label from bankruptcy.
★ 2.9
Concert by the Sea
1956
Garner could not read music, and the tape came from an amateur recorder someone happened to be running at the back of the hall.
★ 2.9
Live Bullet
1976
Seger had been playing for ten years with no national hit when this was taped over two nights at Cobo Hall in Detroit.
★ 2.9