The art of the live album seems antiquated these days. Back in the 70s, artists like Kiss, Cheap Trick and Peter Frampton found their greatest success with live albums, enjoying multi-platinum sales and even spinning off radio hits, while other artists like The Allman Brothers and the MC5 enjoyed their greatest artistic and critical successes with live albums as well. However, somewhere along the line, in between popular rock moving away from the ideals of virtuosity and pure energy (and popular music moving farther away from rock in the first place), live shows becoming excessively easy to bootleg, and supposedly legendary live acts like Phish and Widespread Panic soiling many on the form, the live album essentially lost its power, becoming increasingly less of an artistic or commercial prospect and increasingly more like a mere collector’s item.

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Rest of the list for "Stylus Magazines top 50 live albums of all-time" can be found here:

www.stylusmagazine.com