For Week Ending:
9 March 2024
Live - Throwing Copper (1994)
[Alternative Rock]
To say an album is a masterpiece is a big call, but every so often something is released that is so perfect, so definitive, and so ultimate - that it can wear the badge proudly. Throwing Copper is one of those albums. Although Live's debut album was hard to categorise (sounding like a clone of early R.E.M.), their second album knew what it wanted to be - not quite so mainstream to be regarded pop, but not quite so heavy to be purely alternative rock. Opener 'The Dam At Otter Creek' builds slowly to a cacophony, setting up the incredibly infectious 'Selling The Drama' to lead the way into the rest of the album. It all unfolds one great song after another, moving through 'I Alone', the mega-single 'Lightning Crashes' and even the punchy 'All Over You'. The songs are varied in style, yet wonderfully cohesive, and the album even finishes with a cowboy song, the beautiful 'Horse'. The lyrics seem to alternate between hard hitting social commentary and whimsy, but the whole album is performed with such conviction it all exudes the same power. Post this the band followed a more commercial direction, leaving this standing tall to carry on in a class of its own.
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