NOT At Budokan

Stinky has shared a number of Homemade Live Albums on this blog, seeking out great live performances to recreate a studio album in track-by-track order.  He's created almost two dozen of them!  I suggested that he do the opposite: assemble the studio versions of one of the best-known live albums in rock music.  

We posted a compilation last year of OTHER artists who have performed at Japan's famous Budokan arena.  The boys from Rockford (as you may know) didn't plan to release their live album outside Japan, but it sold well as an import, and their live performance had an energy that the studio albums seemed to lack.  (Did you know that it was actually recorded in Osaka?  The Budokan audience was so enthusiastic that they drowned out the band!)

Having said that, why post the studio versions?   First, because casual fans may not have heard them.   At Budokan was the first Cheap Trick album in many record buyers' collections (and for some, it remained their only purchase.)  Back then, a live album was like a greatest hits collection: all the songs you wanted to hear by Peter Frampton or Kiss (for example), with none of the filler -- although Pete did stretch out some of his songs with those long talk box solos.  

Another reason for today's post: the studio recordings have greater subtlety and variety than the concert versions.  Though many live albums are "sweetened" after the fact, the studio versions benefit from layers of vocal harmonies, guitars and other instruments, and arrangements that may be difficult to reproduce in concert.

We discovered that Cheap Trick never released a studio version of "Ain't That A Shame", so Stinky found a great performance from the American Music Awards.  And you don't just get the ten tracks from At Budokan.  He also found a terrific live version of "The House Is Rockin (With Domestic Problems)".  At my request, he added "Writing On The Wall" (a personal favorite) and the 1997 recording of "Brontosaurus" (which Cheap Trick interpolated into "California Man" on Heaven Tonight).  "Dream Police" is here without strings, as well as a sample from the Albini sessions and a few other rarities.