#Best easy listening albums full

The clear highlight is “One More Time/Aerodynamic,” on which DP toss two of their biggest tracks into a particle accelerator, creating a single, arena-annihilating monster. (This is the part where I get to humblebrag that I was there, and it was just as revelatory as you’ve heard.) Recorded a year later in Paris, “Alive 2007” captures a virtually identical show - easy to do with no acoustic instruments or live vocals to worry about - as the two robot rockers mash up their catalog in a variety of clever, cheeky, and infectious ways. One of the few instances in the modern era where a single live appearance could turn a whole career around, Daft Punk’s light-up-pyramid performance at Coachella in spring of 2006 put the French house duo’s then-flagging trajectory on a whole new course, setting the stage for its Grammy-winning comeback album, and lighting the fuse for the Stateside EDM craze that would break the banks at Vegas casinos for years to come. Sam Cooke, 'Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963'.Coltrane had already taken dazzling technique as far as it would go, and for the rest of his life he would set his gaze toward more distant galaxies - consider this a test launch. Not only was he still cementing his chemistry with newer collaborators like drummer Elvin Jones, pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison – soon, those three would complete Coltrane’s greatest quartet - he was also already beginning to outgrow the style he had honed through years of collaboration with Miles Davis, and even his own more intense solo releases like recent breakthrough “Giant Steps.” This release, particularly the anarchic saxophone showcase “Chasin’ the Trane” that takes up the entire second side, was controversial in jazz circles at the time, with some critics considering it little more than aimless noise. Though it wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone but him, John Coltrane was at a major crossroads in his career when he played this four-night New York residency in 1961. James Brown, 'Live at the Apollo' (1962).There are more thrilling switch-ups just in that performance than most rockers’ entire careers.

All of Bowie’s many ‘70s live albums have thrills to recommend them, but the ones that came out years or decades later generally beat the two that were contemporaneous at the time… not just this but “Bowie Live ’72,” “Cracked Actor,” “Welcome to the Blackout (Live London ‘79” and the just-released “I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 1974).” So why elevate “Nassau”? In large part because of that 12-minute “Station to Station” opener, with guitarist Carlos Alomar taking us to Mars and beyond.

#Best easy listening albums full

No one in rock ‘n’ roll ever went through a faster series of changes (with or without the ch-ch-ch alliteration) than Bowie in the mid-‘70s, and this live album, released in 2010, finds him thrillingly at the nexus of all of them - already at a slight distance from wham-bam “Ziggy Stardust” days and the neo-soul of “Young Americans,” now in full Thin White Duke embrace, anticipating the bigger chill of Berlin. David Bowie, 'Live Nassau Coliseum '76' (1976).A masterpiece listen hitting all the nostalgia buttons as funk and R&B collides head-on with hip-hop and pop, and a celebration of Black excellence at its finest, this girl rules the world.

Still, there’s no denying Bey classics like “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “Crazy In Love” and the three-song Destiny’s Child reunion alone is worth the price of admission. Rooted rhythmically with a drumline and brass band involving some two dozen musicians, Beyonce, whose credits on the project include live performance direction, executive production and music direction, proves that she’s one of the most innovative and visually arresting artists to exist in popular music - not that it was in any doubt - and that her songs, as sing-along-friendly as they may be, have a more pressing message to the universe. The 40-track companion piece to Beyonce’s groundbreaking Coachella 2018 performance, chronicled in superb detail in the Netflix documentary “Homecoming,” was a musical highlight of the decade that exists in its own lane.