Customer Reviews

Frampton Comes Alive! (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For some reason, I feel compelled to start this review off with a few comments from someone else's. Following is a review of the previous CD release of Frampton Comes Alive:

"This album is so 70s that to listen to it would risk opening a time portal back to the days of afros, bellbottoms and - shudder - arena rock! Frightening, eh? Okay, this WAS the biggest selling album of all time at one point, and it DID get tons of exposure on FM radio all over the world. But it was totally PLAYED OUT by 1979! To be caught dead with this disc in your collection then - even moreso NOW - would be an invitation to the worst kind of (deserved) ridicule. The fact that this anachronism has made it onto the compact disc format is astonishing."

Hmm. What's funny is that everything this person said about this CD is the very reason I bought it. I've been tempted to buy it for years, but everytime I picked it up, I hesitated and put it back. Guess I wasn't ready to step through that "portal - back to the days of afros, bellbottoms and arena rock!." But then I saw the 25th anniversary edition on sale and decided to grab it. Guess enough time had passed for me.

The point is, this is a set of live music that does indeed teleport you to a specific time and place. How many recordings can do that so successfully? Whether or not you're a fan of 70s music is really beside the point. Listening to Frampton Comes Alive, you can close your eyes and almost relive those concerts of yore - the sights, the sounds, the people.... Where it was general admission seating and huge mushroom clouds of pot smoke always formed at the top of the venues. Sometimes the music itself was irrelevant. It was about the experience. This was before Ticketmaster wrangled control of the concert business and ruined it forever. Frampton Comes Alive is a stern rebuke to that, and the boy bands that now fill those over-priced, designated-seating arenas. Yes, FCA is a reminder of arena rock, but a reminder nonetheless.

As for the reviewer's comment, "to be caught dead with this disc in your collection then - even moreso NOW - would be an invitation to the worst kind of (deserved) ridicule." Geez, I'm not 13 anymore and feel quite secure in my decision to purchase this. So bring on the taunts, pal. My musical tastes are wide and varied and somehow this CD fits right in.

A great addition to any collection and especially for those who don't mind doing a little time traveling.

What can you possibly say about this album that hasn't already been said? A&M just released a new 'deluxe edition' of the album in commemoration of its 25th anniversary, complete with all-new packaging and four unreleased bonus tracks. For those of you who may not already be familiar with this record, I'll give you a little background on the musical phenomenon called Frampton Comes Alive.

The original plan was for it to be a single album. Five songs. Somehow, in retrospect, it just doesn't seem right. There were so many great tracks on this album, there's no possible way it could be edited down like that. Frampton invited A&M co-founder Jerry Moss to come down to Electric Lady Studios to preview the album. The first words out of Moss' mouth were "where's the rest?"

With Moss' blessing for a double album, Frampton went back out on the road to record more dates. Once the tour was over, Frampton went back to Electric Lady Studios to mix the album with Chris Kimsey. After everything was ready to go, he played the new version for several of his trusted friends and confidants. One of these friends was Rolling Stone music critic, Cameron Crowe. "Cameron was beaming from ear to ear," recalled Frampton. "He felt every track was better than the one that had come before it."

Now that the finished album was in the hands of the record company, it was time for a vacation. When he returned ten days later, things were already beginning to take off. Concerts were selling out, sales records were being shattered, and the album had the top spot on the Billboard chart for ten weeks straight--eventually surpassing Carole King's 'Tapestry' as the best selling album of all time.

For this new deluxe edition, the producers/engineers went back and remixed and remastered everything, and for the first time (without the time constraints of an album side), put the songs back in the proper order. As a special bonus, four songs--all previously unavailable and picked by Frampton himself--were added back into the set. From a musical standpoint, the album holds up quite well, even after all this time (not counting the tepid cover of "Jumping Jack Flash").

Having said all that, you're probably wondering... how's it sound? Outstanding. A&M really outdid themselves on this one. They did a great job in the remixing and remastering process. It's a bit strange at first hearing the songs in a different order, but the album sounds better than ever before. In addition to the new packaging, there's a new essay by John McDermott, plus a ton of new photos and lyrics to all the songs. All reissues should look and sound this good.

The Deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition of "Frampton Comes Alive" gets my highest rating and recommendation IF you are a devoted Peter Frampton fan or someone who is interested in the history of this remarkable recording. However, if you're merely a casual fan trying to choose the "best" version of this historic album you may be more satisfied with the original "Comes Alive". Here's why...

Back in 1976 Peter Frampton's niche market position coupled with the time limitations of the old 12" LP forced the original production team to make choices that resulted in a tight, well crafted, energy-filled, labor-of-love. The result was a breakthrough product that captured the attention of the mass market - the rest is history.

As a devoted Peter Frampton fan I find the 25th Anniversary repackaged album absolutely intriguing and very, very enjoyable. I like how they worked hard to maintain the original play lists/song sequence of the original performances. I love the new lengthy and enlightening liner notes. I'm impressed at how faithfully they translated that beloved old album cover to a very cool CD sized format. I am fascinated by the added songs that didn't make the first cut.

However I am looking all these things through nearly thirty-years of listening to, loving, and obsessing over the original aren't I? Frankly, if this album were the released in 1976 I'm not sure that I would even be a Peter Frampton fan today due to it's slower pace and addition of some less than top notch songs.

So my advice to the reader is this. First determine if you're "devoted" or just "casual" and then, "Emptor Caveat". Choose wisely, but whatever you do make sure that you have at least ONE copy of "Frampton Comes Alive" in your music library!

Over 25 years since its original release in 1976, Peter Frampton's live masterpiece "Frampton Comes Alive!" is still one of the best live albums of the 70s and remains the biggest selling live recording to this day. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of this classic album, A&M released an expanded deluxe version with an expanded booklet and four additional tracks bringing to album's running time to nearly two hours.
This album still never fails to please. From the Frampton standards "Show Me The Way" and "Baby I love Your Way" to the extended jams of "Lines On My Face", "I Wanna Go To The Sun" and the ultimate talkbox-guitar opus "Do You Feel Like We Do?", this album shows Peter Frampton in all his glory. Besides being a gifted songwriter and singer, Frampton's guitar work is up there with the greats. It's unfortunate that his guitar playing doesn't get as much recognition as his other two great talents.
The additional material on the expanded edition includes three additional live pieces as well as an unreleased studio track entitled "Day's Dawning".
What else can I say, "Frampton Comes Alive!" still sounds as fresh and exciting as it did back in the day. This is classic arena rock the way it's meant to be done. Check it out and relive the the glory days.

Who would have ever thought that this rock staple could be improved upon, but that's what has happened with this special edition of "Frampton Comes Alive". Me like many other people have bought this album more than once over the years, in fact I can remember playing my cassette copy of this album until it snapped!!! For this reissue the original running order of the some of the tracks has been changed slightly which may or may not delight purists but four songs that were not part of the original album have been included, which is a great bonus. The thing that impressed me most is how much brighter and clearer the sound is. Remixed from the original multitrack tapes the sound quality is almost explosive, and the original remastering done by Doug Sax five years ago was excellent, but this new version, WATCH OUT!!! The booklet that comes with the package is great and gives new insight to this classic album. Classic rock at it's very best.

There is little doubt that this is one of the essential arena rock albums ever! On Frampton Comes Alive Peter Frampton packs a huge punch where he is most comfortable; in front of thousands of screaming fans. (A situation most of us would hate to be a part of) His best songs are here, played better than ever. However there is more to this album than just Baby I Love Your Way. (However great that track may be.)
This is a very consistent album with high kicking, energizing run throughs of Do You Feel Like We Do, Something's Happening, Show Me The Way, and Shine On. However some of the most listenable music is when Frampton's goes accoustic and solo for peaceuful renditions of Wind of Change, Just the Time of Year, Penny For Your Thoughts, and All I Want to Be (Is By Your Side). (In fact half of the first disc sounds like an MTV Unplugged concert)
To put it simple there is not one bad song on this double album. Frampton Comes Alive is one of the best live albums ever, and is pop rock at its best. This 25th anniversary album is the best version as it contains some unreleased hard hitting versions of White Sugar and Nowhere's Too Far For My Baby, and also includes a great studio bonus track. (Day's Dawning). Don't delay. Get it NOW!

Just recently, I've become aware of Universal's "DELUXE EDITION" re-releases of some of pop music's great gems. Case at point, A&M's 1976 phenomenal "Frampton Comes Alive!" Being the owner of all three CD editions...the first one, with 2 discs, completely duplicated the sequence and line-up of the original phonograph album, probably taken from the original 4 analogue tape masters...i.e., 2 albums...4 sides...complete with applause fading in & out between the "LP" side breaks, which can become obnoxious, to the stuffy CD purist. The next edition, the Re-Master for Digital...combined both "records"...all four sides...by the way of "cross-mixing" all four programs together...seamlessly, on one CD disc! But there's one thing that remaster engineers "CAN'T" do very well...and that is to cleanup bad analogue "tape-splices" that were made, back-in-the-day, to compile the songs together over the roaring crowd noise! These "splices" that act as connectivity points for the individual cuts, have no way of "equalizing", if you will, sound levels. If you listen closely to the VERY BEGINNING of the epiconic "Do You Feel Like We Do", a REAL bad hard splice was made over the intoxicated mob noise, that was very audibly apparent, on the record, the 1st CD release & even the 2nd CD Re-Master. NOT SO on this new glorious Re-Mix Edition! When I opened up my copy...I went RIGHT TO that start-up point of "Do You Feel..." and sure enough that horrific SPEED-BUMP had been so smoothly & effortlessly corrected! That short 3 second passageway, went down like a smooth shot of warm Brandy on an cold Arctic day! (And I don't even drink!) So now, it probably sounds the way it ORIGINALLY did, that very day Peter, Bob Mayo, John Siomos & Stan Sheldon, knocked it out, before a mesmerized San Francisco mass of maylaying multitudes. Other cuts like, "Show Me The Way" is cleaned up extensively during the introductory strums of Frampton's guitar, that remained "muddy" over the years on the original mix. As I write...I have the DELUXE CD on my Tascam Pro-CD Player...so there's still SO much more good things to report on...so you'll just have to take your critical ears on a listening journey yourself!

NOW...one item that disappointed me greatly...was the new treatment to the number one ballad "Baby, I Love Your Way." During the Re-Mix process, much less (if that's a word) reverb effect was laid on Siomos cross-stick drum action, as he kept his beat time on the snare-rim. That was sort of a shame. Being a mix-down engineer myself (yeah right, if you hadn't already picked up that "humble" part of my personality), when layering effect for "ballads", it's always customary to add more "grace & warmth" to the drum mix, if you sweeten the snare drum cross-stick action, with some longer-lasting decay (echo) of natural reverb...digital or analogue. In this case, is was drastically lessened...taking away from...in my opinion...the beauty of the percussive rhythm track of "Baby, I Love You Way".

Nevertheless...this Universal Music Company's DELUXE EDITION Re-Mix Release of Peter Frampton's musical Blow-Torch of an album, COMES ALIVE, one more time! (Bonuses include, never-seen-before photos of Peter & the Boys in the underground arena tunnel, lying in wait to hop out on stage...all wearing their iconic mid-70's tight, white Disco-Pants, complete with Street-Sweepin' Bell-Bottoms...!!! Man, Oh Man...! What a visual for them hungry Rock-N-Roll gals, out thar in that audience, that night!)

IN 1976 I was inspired by this young Artist that was on the Midnight Special a { TV show}, and bought a Guitar and learned how to play it.That Artist was Peter Frampton and his Gutiar playing was awesome and still is today.His playing kept me dreaming of doing my own Album one day and that happened last year.This Album is as good now as it was in 1976,the remaster and new cuts are just great.Buy this CD and sit back and close your eyes and enjoy the show you want believe it but you become part of the show.Thank you Pete for the music its what dreams are made of.

Frampton Comes Alive came out of nowhere to become one of the biggest albums of all time. Peter Frampton released several albums in the early to mid 70's, a couple of which sold respectively. When this album was released in early '76, it exploded and stayed in the top ten for over a year. The album offers something for everybody from straight forward rockers like "It's A Plain Shame", "Something's Happening" & "Doobie Wah" to ballads like "Baby, I Love Your Way" & "Show Me The Way" to extended jams like "I Wanna Go To The Sun", "Lines On My Face" & "Do You Feel Like We Do?". It also has that voice-box. Frampton is a great guitar player and an energetic performer and those traits didn't always come across on his studio albums. They were front & center on the live album and people tapped into that. Frampton never again reached the heights he reached with this album, but it stands today as a touchstone of 70's rock music. This is a remastered package that includes three unreleased songs as well as the original liner notes written by a young Cameron Crowe who would later cast Mr. Frampton in a bit part and use him as a technical and guitar consultant on Almost Famous.

This 25th anniversary reissue of one of rock's most famous (and sadly sometimes derided) live albums returns some of the authenticity which was lost from the original album. Three more live tracks from the series of American concerts which gave rise to the `Comes alive' album are added, together with a live performance recorded in an American studio in the same year, 1975. The order of the songs is returned to that of the original shows, the sequence used on the original album having been dictated primarily by the constraints of LP-side timings. The new sequencing of the tracks is fine, and the concert seems to take on a new character as a result, with a more pronounced `unplugged' section in the middle. All the tracks have been remastered and some remixing done, and the recording again becomes a double album, since it no longer fits on to one CD. The packaging is superb, with very high quality archive concert photos, a new essay, and all the song lyrics - not that they exactly qualify as great poetry!

However, despite these changes the resulting album is not perhaps quite as good as it might have been. The remastering is a bit louder than the previous CD remaster, but not significantly different, and whatever remixing has been done is so subtle as to be virtually undetectable. I had hoped that by way of a change the rather intrusive audience noise (especially the scary bang in the middle of `Wind of change') might have been reduced a little in this version, but it remains as loud as before. The live studio take of `Day's dawning' is an interesting piece of history, but weak compared with the original version which opens the `Frampton' album. The three extra performances from the `Comes alive' concerts are all excellent and fill out the recording to approximately the correct length for Peter's concerts of the time. However, one can't help feeling that there must have been other songs in the band's repertoire which were performed in that summer of '75, and which could have been included here to fill out the double CD. They needn't have formed part of the `concert proper', but could have been added as a postscript, like the radio studio cut, in order to give a really comprehensive overview of the band's work at that time. Instead all we have essentially is the original live album with 3 extra performances - perhaps not enough to be trumpeted as a special anniversary edition.

To sum up though, despite these criticisms, this is an improved version of the previously available album, and it remains a classic which defined the sound of FM rock radio just prior to the `punk' onslaught. Unfairly criticized by some as just a pretty-faced poser, Frampton demonstrates that he can play melodic rock guitar far better than most, as well as putting on an exciting live show which the audience thoroughly enjoys. So if like me you considered `Comes alive' to be an indispensable 70s rock album, you will probably agree that this version is even better than the original. (By way of comparison, I would also recommend the 1999 `Live in Detroit' album by Frampton - be sure to get the extended, double CD version - which shows that though he has lost most of his hair and gained a little weight since the glory days of `75, Peter's guitar playing and live performance appeal remain intact.)