James Brown Live At The Apollo
James Brown

This'll probably comes as a bit of a surprise to you guys, but I'm not a recording engineer. I know, I know. I'm as surprised as you are. But as a non-engineer, I have to imagine that capturing the energy of an artist on record is not nearly as easy as just setting up a mic and pressing the record button. If it were, then pretty much every metal band I've seen live would have much, much better sounding albums. And live albums - oh God, those are the worst! They very rarely have any energy at all! Not. This. One. Not James Brown. The man exudes energy. You can see this performance as much as you can hear it, and that's crazy to me. So yeah, big thumbs up. I could listen to him just sing the names of cities for about thirty-six hours, no exaggeration. Cover the globe, James. I'm here for you. Also, kind of cool how close the artwork of this is to the Sarah Vaughn record. I guess it makes sense, given they're both live recordings. Anyway, I'm all caught up on my Thanksgiving listening. I liked the Vaughn record, but there's only one person who should be singing "Just a Gigolo" and his name is Diamond David Lee Roth. Three stars. Sugarcubes? Loved it. Bjork's energy is well on display here, too. What a wonderful weird record. At times, poppy and happy alternative-y, at other times kind of oddly menacing with some German sounding dude saying oddly menacing German things. "Fucking in Rhythm and Sorrow" might be the best song title we've come across yet on this list. Four stars.

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