Get a ticket to some of the best live albums of 2025 so far

Via Goldmine

Live albums … let us address the elephant in the room. At the time of the explosion in the popularity of live albums as a mainstream format (roughly early mid-’70s), the affection for the live album was widespread, sought after, and consumed heartily by the mainstream music-buying public. However, if we’re being honest, as decades past, the live album format fell drastically out of popularity with regard to music collectors in particular. It became a scenario where if you loved them, you defended the format, and if you hated them, there was no convincing otherwise. ‘What goes around comes around,’ they always say, and it has been coming around again as of late. Over the past few years, the live album format has made a comeback and is stronger than ever. Record companies, both major and independent, are producing more live album releases than ever before, and the consumer (especially the collector) is eating them up alive. From classic era live album reissues, to never-before-released archival live album recordings, to legacy acts as well as modern artists releasing newly recorded live albums — we are in the midst of a live album renaissance. Goldmine is a champion for the live album format, and we have gathered together a small handful of some of the best ones released this year so far. Scan your ticket and find your seat; the show is about to begin …

 

WAR | Live in Japan 1974

^{Avenue Records / Far Out Productions / Rhino Records}

When one mentions the band WAR, there is absolutely no discrepancy, question, or confusion about who they are. However, they are quite possibly one of the most paradoxical bands in history: highly revered, one of the most innovative, deeply loved abroad, one of the longest continually existing music groups in the annals of recorded music, yet the industry in which they dwell has failed to properly accolade the band and their music over their entire 56-year existence. Their music has contributed to television, commercial ads, a multitude of motion pictures with inclusion on 145 movie soundtracks, and has graced the covers of some of the most well-known music publications in the world (including Goldmine). They have sold over 50 million records worldwide and have achieved 20 platinum, multi-platinum and gold records combined. And while their 1972 album, The World is a Ghetto, out sold any other album in 1973 — including Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John), Houses of the Holy (Led Zeppelin), Goats Head Soup (Rolling Stones), Red Rose Speedway (Paul McCartney & Wings) and others — the Recording Academy still failed to honor the band with a Grammy win that year, and every year since. In fact, it was only months ago that the band finally received their long-overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. With all of these accomplishments to their credit, only one thing overshadows them all — their incredibly dedicated perpetual touring schedule and their extreme reputation for live show performances that will blow the mind and leave you with a post-show natural high. Ironically, across their over half century of performing, the band has only ever officially released four live albums: 1973’s, WAR Live (recorded at the High Chapparal venue in Chicago in 1972), 1980’s, The Music Band Live (recorded at the Los Angeles Street Scene Festival that same year), 2008’s, Greatest Hits Live (a compilation of various live performances of the band’s most well-known music), and WAR’s latest — 2025’s, Live in Japan 1974.

In the spirit of archival music — a format that has exploded in popularity over the past decade — bandleader, Lonnie Jordan, life-long producer Jerry Goldstein, and producer Jeremy Levine uncovered early era, never-before-released recordings of WAR’s final-leg of their 1974 tour while in Japan, with concert performances in the cities of Shizuoka, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe. It is the only live album by the band in over 50 years that contains all seven original band members performing. The band was touring with a setlist that contained material from their All Day Music, The World is a Ghetto and Deliver the Word albums, as well as material that would eventually end up on their 1975 release, Why Can’t We Be Friends. Without trying to come off as overeager or sounding like a puff-piece, these recorded live performances are virtually flawless; the band is in absolute rare form, and the audiences are constantly captured responding accordingly. Moreover, the remixing of the original master tapes by engineer Dylan Ely is extremely dialed-in and complemented to the fullest with a pristine mastering job by the world-renowned Bernie Grundman. Goldmine is intimately familiar with the band’s first two live album releases, and it is beyond safe to say that Live in Japan 1974 is by far WAR’s greatest live album performance and recording, foreshadowing that it will more than likely make our Top 10 Live Albums for 2025. It is available on a double vinyl LP with a tailored-down track-listing, containing 12 selections from the Japan performances, and a coinciding compact disc version that contains two additional tracks, both with liner notes that include detailed interviews with Lonnie Jordan, Jerry Goldstein and Jeremy Levine. —GM