A question for you rock historians and aficionados

[Dookus]

How did Peter Frampton have one of the best-selling albums of all time? I'm not saying he's undeserving... but it was a LIVE album of an artist nobody knew.

How did he get a live album released? Who did he play to? For all practical purposes, he was unheard of before "Frampton Comes Alive". In fact, he was virtually unheard of AFTER "Framptom Comes Alive"...


edit: i'm not dissing him... I saw him on tour in '77 and then again when he played with Bowie on the Glass Spiders tour. I like the guy. I just find it exceedingly odd that the ONLY hit album an artist has is a live album... and that that album is one of the top selling albums of all time.

[Crunchy Frog]

1. It was all a conspiracy.

In fact, it was the very first test of Right Wing mind control. It helped lay the groundwork for the Rupert Murdoch takeover of our media.

They knew if they could push that, they could push anything.

[Dookus]

3. It's a serious question

The only other equivalent I can think of is Jeff Buckley, who gaineda following, but not mega-hit status from a live album.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. I'm sorry, I'm half asleep and just babbling nonsense.

I'm just embarrassing myself right now.

[Ruffhowse]

2. He was in Humble Pie, a really good group though not hugely popular,

before he went solo. He has a reputation as an excellent guitarist (planned on being a session guitarist if the solo career thing didn't work out), and I heard that he put on terrific shows in the mid 70's---hence his breakthrough album was a live album.

[Dookus]

4. Yeah..

I'm familiar with Humble Pie. I liked 'em. I also liked the Raspberries and Eric Carmen had a decent album. But a mega-hit live album? It's just seems so implausible today.

[Ruffhowse]

6. Yeah, I think it was one of those things that just sort of took on a life

of it's own after a certain point. It suddenly became THE album to buy for everyone in High School and college. Maybe it has something to do with herd mentality, sometimes everyone just moves in one direction for really no reason at all. I mean, look at the Spice Girls, or Brittany Spears. Who can say why they became mega-stars, they certainly weren't any more talented or beautiful than a lot of pop star wanna-be's.

[radwriter0555]

14. Dude, the songs were GREAT! They spoke to that MOMENT in time when

everyone needed to hear THAT song. That ALBUM epitomized that YEAR, and that era and that pinnacle of rock music at that moment. He took rock n roll from being a hippie Haight Ashbury thing to being a modern oh-my-gawd you have to listen to this and groove to this thing!

He had a great voice and the TOTAL rock god look without being a caricature.

He was HOT... He was a total chick magnet, photographed great.... He just was in the right place, with the right music at the right time.

[radwriter0555]

15. BTW he's a KERRY supporter, per his site

http://www.frampton.com

Which has a great bio that explains a LOT about the man....

[Kenneth ken]

7. I'll throw in my WAG

I will say marketing pushed it in the beginning, and once people heard it, they said, (to themselves) "wow, listen to the crowd, it sounds huge! I better get this so I don't lok like I'm totally a spazoid. The guy must be famous, even though I've never heard of him."


:shrug: Heck, I dunno. Where's that dookus talking out my ass graphic when I need it?


edit: ha ha - it's in your post! I hadn't noticed who started the thread, just liked the title. :P

[Dookus]

9. perhaps

that suggests pure word-of-mouth could make a mega-hit then. That's possible.

But I don't think that was it. The album just sort of "became" a mega hit.

Similarly, the unknown Meatloaf had a mega-selling album. Not that it wasn't worthy, but it wasn't a live album. I know of no other artist who had a huge hit from a live album.

[Kenneth ken]

10. I wouldn't necessarily say pure word-of-mouth

once an album starts selling, it tends to get more airplay, increasing its exposure, so the same don't wanna-be-thought-a-spazoid themes come into play, and it fees on itself that way.

In addition, not long after Frampton cam Alive, he starred in the really bad Sgt pepper's movie, so that probably knocked a big dent in the way his follow-up was perceived.

Re Meatloaf, he also had a role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show at around the time Bat Out Of Hell was released, so he probably got a lot of Rocky Horror fan sales to boost his release.

[ForrestGump]

11. Some people have had huge hits from live albums

James Brown springs to mind, as does Elvis (in the '70s -- for example, his 1972 Madison Square Garden concert went gold upon release a week after the show, while he was still on the tour). They were obviously megastars, though, but I beleive that JB's Apollo album predated anything like the pinnacle of his fame.

I never understood the whole Frampton live album thing, either. It just seemed so unlikely. I guess it was the thing to do.

For that matter, how did Wayne Newton get to be "Mr Las Vegas"? He's still packing the house, even though he's never exactly burned up the charts or otherwise earned the kind of credentials that other Vegas legends have. Same with the new Big Man in Vegas, Danny Gans ("who?, I hear everyone say). Ditto Don Ho in Hawaii. Not that they're bad, but how did they get to be such icons?

[MajorFlaw]

8. If you look at the way his solo career played out, he released about 4

studio albums and then took his "greatest hits" and put them on the live album. It was partially some talent and partially some smart marketing.

[ForrestGump]

12. Good point. After all, the '70s WERE when

the live album came into its own, and proliferated rapidly. Most especially, the live double album.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

13. Cause he had the coolest "Thaaaaaannnnnk Youuuuuuuuu"

that had been recorded up to that point.