| V | 
 enlarge | Artist: Live
Label: Mca
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $18.97 (100%)
New (71) Used (105) Collectible (4) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  290 reviews
Sales Rank: 51532
Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 008811248529
EAN: 0008811248529
ASIN: B00005NZKG
Release Date: September 18, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Intro | | • | Simple Creed | | • | Deep Enough | | • | Like a Soldier | | • | People Like You | | • | Transmit Your Love | | • | Forever May Not Be Long Enough | | • | Call Me a Fool | | • | Flow | | • | The Ride | | • | Nobody Knows | | • | Ok? | | • | Overcome | | • | Hero of Love |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
When Live debuted in the mainstream in 1991, the band's earnest alt-rock effort Mental Jewelry balanced high-strung emotions with aggressive guitar work. On the band's fifth album, V, the earnestness has completely disappeared. Everything about this record feels forced and overproduced. Electronic beeps and loops swirl through songs like a U2 record gone bad. Guitar solos squeal in overarching metal-band style, and front man Ed Kowalczyk's vocals are so overdramatically pained, you can almost feel the veins popping off his neck for the most mundane subject matter. Even the band's use of Eastern influences feels slapped on, as in the intro to the nu-metal disaster "Like a Soldier." The guest appearance by Tricky--a partnership that only Kowalczyk's appearance on the last Tricky album can match in oddity--feels like nothing but a gimmick. What started out as a college rock act has sadly become just another attempt at grandiose sound with invisible substance. --Jennifer Maerz
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| Customer Reviews: Read 285 more reviews...
 Sad sad sad... September 20, 2001
11 out of 18 found this review helpful
Ok, before any LIVE fans out there get mad at this, just hear what I have to say. I'm a huge LIVE fan. I've seen them in concert. I own every album. The reason I didn't like this album wasn't because it's another album like the others. This is completely different, and in a bad way. On every other album, the lyrics were meaningful, and Ed sang them with such emotion it actually sounded like he cared about what he was singing (which is hard to come across in a lot of current music). In V, nothing comes close. Many songs concern the band itself, which I never imagined LIVE would ever come down to. I was suprised how many time Ed used the F-word. In the past, he would always use such words to heighten the emotion of the songs, like in Throwing Copper. In this one they just feel tacked on, almost just to make a statement that they aren't a "kiddie band". The quality of the lyrics has also deteriated from past albums. One song is all about going to LIVE concerts. And "Like a Soldier" even concerns itself with voting for Nader and not drinking Starbucks coffee. GEEZ. And who in the world is this TRICKY fellow? The guy sounds like he gargles gravel, and his "rap" just ruins the songs. Also, I don't ever recall LIVE citing Elton John as part of the many artists that helped shape the band, such as REM and U2, nor has it ever showed in their music. Some parts of V almost feel like a tribute to him. The song "Overcome" sounds like it's from some Disney movie, and they even sing about being on stage with him in "People Like You". It's not all that bad, but it sure isn't LIVE. The whole album feels that way. The album is deservant of 2 stars because some songs are pretty fun to listen to, like "Simple Creed" and "Deep Enough"(I'm pretty darn sure it was on The Mummy Returns, as was "Forever may not be long enough"). Overall, this album would have been great if it was from almost any other band. Too put it bluntly, It may be worth getting for anyone who's not a LIVE fan, while LIVE fans may cringe at this new, and in many ways for the worse, turn in the direction of this great band.
 A failure September 15, 2002
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
I got into Live, like many others, because of the strength of 1994's Throwing Copper. I heard "Lightning Crashes" on the radio but was still too young to truly appreciate it, knowing only that there was some aspect of the music which haunted me like a dead ancestor. Some years later I decided to buy Throwing Copper and, for me, that album was an eye-opener to the entire rock genre. Listen after listen, the album seemed more malleable. It seemed to steadily adapt to my growing mental state not because the songs themselves changed, but because my view of them did. They became more dynamic, intriguing, melodic, haunting, and meaningful. Following Throwing Copper I got Secret Samadhi, which introduced me to a sophisticated darkness I didn't know the band possessed. This album, too, attached itself to my conscious and sub-conscious concepts and seemed to change as they did. Mental Jewelry sounded like a time capsule since the band evoked an austere optimism that had not been touched except for groups like REM and U2. When I bought The Distance To Here in 1999, something seemed to have shifted. Kowalczyck's lyrics were optimistic, but not wrought with the same idealistic social change heard on 1989's Mental Jewelry. The songs were enchanting yet also a little diffused of weight and importance. But I quickly overlooked those detrimental factors only now to see that their ugly heads have sprung on V. I do not exaggerate when I say V is a failure because, simply put, it is. The lyrical accuracy Kowalczyck possessed on earlier works seems completely eradicated by an overhauled radio monolith; careful drumming and guitar-playing has been replaced with trite, dead, and empty riffs and mindless busy work; and the entire cd is like a compilation of b-sides from when the group was joking around in the studio. Nothing is of importance here. Instead you get a glimpse of the fading future of rock as the market resurges to dominate every artistic and intellectual nook and cranny. One can't help but roll his/her eyes as Kowalczyck sings ... lines--written in locker rooms, no less--on songs such as "Forever May Not Be Long Enough" and the utterly putrid "Deep Enough," a song which should not belong on anyone's cd, much less Live's. Smashed between the power ballads are soft odes which are just laughable. "Nobody Knows" and "Overcome" expose depressing songwriting attempts which turn a ludicrous album to a saddening one. I'm afraid to say that the potent political, spiritual, and social implications once highlighted in the past have now been replaced by hallmark sermons, faint religious carols, and puerile social observations. The direction taken for this cd is unbelievably negative and leaves any hopes for the future of the group highly dubious. One can only wait now.
Horrible CD from a once was great band. March 7, 2003
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Sellouts. That's all I have to say. Normally that term isn't used for rock bands, but I thaught I would throw it out here because of how disgusted I am by Live's recent turn twords pop sounds. They are now "rock stars". I love Live's older stuff like Mental jewlery, Secret Sameidi, and Distance from Here, but for this one, the editorial is right. It is just downright bad, and very overproduced. If there was an option to give this CD zero stars, I would. korny loops, a repeditive sound, and the lead singers emotion is absolutely gone (and what is there sounds forced). Usually, I'm all for bands evolving, but these guys need to either start making the good old music like they used to, or quit all togeather.
 Down for Anything October 4, 2001
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
V finds Live having discovered a kinder, gentler sound. They've come a long way since MENTAL JEWELRY, which tended toward rather rigid philosophical confessionals and preachy diatribes against popular culture (which earned the band comparisons to U2 and REM), churning shirtless around post-punk grooves. V is still basically a rocker, but with the help of producer Glen Ballard (best known for his work with Alanis Morissette, Paula Abdul, and Wilson Philips), Live tries to prove they're down for anything with V, trying to bring its sound a little more in line with the current vox populi of Top 40 pop music. And although the spiritual angst and self-psychoanalysis are still woven into the fabric of the album, the band has turned it down a couple of notches, and incorporated some new musical influences: hip hop, thanks to lead vocalist Ed Kowalczyk's involvement with Tricky, and some flourishes of electronic pop, thanks to producer Ballard's production style. Neither is entirely successful in its incorporation. The hip-hop elements are less successfully incorporated into the band's sound on V than similar recent attempts by Live's alt-pop brethren Sugar Ray and Better Than Ezra. The end result is a record that feels built rather than made. The vocals and guitars are piled on top of themselves layer after layer. It's impressive craftsmanship, if not quite great art. Die-hard fans will be happy with this album, and may find the change in direction a welcome change from the band's efforts since THROWING COPPER (still the band's best album to date), but V is not likely to win over the prevoiusly uninitiated.
Where ARE the boys from Live? October 15, 2001
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Ed poses the aforementioned question in the song "People Like You", and listening to this album, I had to ask myself the same question, because this sounds nothing like them! I respect trying something new, and Live was always a band to try something new on each album, but this? This is not trying something new, this is selling out! This album is filled with hip hop/techno beats, gansta rap lingo ("back up fool", "keep it real"), and guest vocals from some guy named Tricky (actually, that part's kinda cool). But really, there were times where I thought I was listening to Kid Rock or something! Yes, Ed does try to rap a few times. The weird thing about all this is that Ed seems to hold a degree of disdain for what the mainstream is today. The lyrics to "People Like You" seem to hint at that, and when I went to see them over the summer, he was talking about how there needs to be more good stuff on the radio. I wholeheartedly agree, but most of this album seems to contradict that. They're selling out to the corporate monster they so despise. It's like saying, "I don't like this kind of music, but I want to sell albums, so I'll do it anyway". That's just wrong! Albums like "Throwing Copper" didn't sell albums because they were popular, they sold because they were good, and people who want good music who don't care about trends will respect that. Bottom line, this isn't worth it. "Simple Creed" is a decent single, despite the weird lyrics (puppy scruff?), "Overcome" is a great ballad (but NO WAY is it better than "Lightning Crashes"!), and "Flow" and "The Ride" are okay too, but that's pretty much it. Boys, forget about trying to be on MTV, and make another masterpiece like "Throwing Copper" or "The Distance to Here". Congrats to those who managed to enjoy this, but this new direction ain't workin' for me.
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