Live Era, why didn't it sell?

[Eric]

 I just don't think live albums sell as well as greatest hits with any bands these days. I'll have to look up some examples, but Bon Jovi and Motley Crue put out live and greatest hits in the last few years, and I'm pretty sure greatest hits sold better. Casual music fans will pick up greatest hits before a live album.

[Ted Nugent]

All those other bands went out and actively promoted their live albums.  The members of GN'R treated it the way most families treat a mad relative, they just didn't talk about it.

[Eric]

I'm not sure what promotion any members, current or former, did for greatest hits, other than file a lawsuit.

[Cold Heartbreaker]

And same for Axl. He'd better hurry cause one of these days there's gonna step a group into spotlight that will be as good and as huge as GNR was.

like The Darkness right? lol

i agree with the timing subject. music is really softining....i really really fuckin hate fags like maroon5 who have one fuckin sucky assnballs song and they get a lot of hype and now you got little hoes too. fuck that.

[Wheres Izzy]

I thinkit has to do with the current popularity of greatest hits packages in general, they seem to be selling alot for all types of artists and alot fo artsist who have already done greatest hits records (like aerosmith several times) released another one the past few years on account of this. Alot of the occasional non-die hard fans can pick them up. I think most of the people who are the oppostie on this baord have live era and not greatest hits.

[Eazy E]

Like teh J-man said, only fans seem to care of live records. Can anyone name a live record that has sold even remotely aswell as the studio albums of the band in guestion?
 

Garth Brooks - Double Live
Any Dave Matthews Band CD...
and people already mentioned Kiss and Peter Frampton...

You're right though, it is not common that a live CD explodes.

[anarchy]

I never saw one advert for Live Era, I only found out it existed when I saw it in the GNR section of HMV.

[noizzynofuture]

I never saw one advert for Live Era, I only found out it existed when I saw it in the GNR section of HMV.

Same here, i didn't even know there was such a thing and i consider myself more than a casual fan.

I do think it's highly under rated and i love live albums and the rawness.

[Gunner80]

Like teh J-man said, only fans seem to care of live records. Can anyone name a live record that has sold even remotely aswell as the studio albums of the band in guestion?
 

Garth Brooks - Double Live
Any Dave Matthews Band CD...
and people already mentioned Kiss and Peter Frampton...

You're right though, it is not common that a live CD explodes.

'Didn't Peter Frampton's  Comes Alive' sell something like 10 million copy's?

[Ted Nugent]

Frampton comes alive was a better album.   That's why it sold so well.

[bolton]

in my opinion,live era was realised 1999(in very bad time for gunsnroses,when gnr was "band that the time was forgot"),but now,gnr realive.
in this week in usa gh sold in 35330 copies,and in usa 1.100.000 copies of gh was sold.

[KeVoRkIaN]

I remember seeing a TV ad for Live Era on Much Music and it showed the new WTTJ video - but I only remember seeing for about a week.

[Hammy]

I think since 1999 the music has changed in the industry people seem interested in older rock since bands like The Darkness have made it 'cool' again and to see ex-gunners in a successful band must help to.  Plus the point of it being a double CD makes it mainly for us mega fans because people would rather have studio cuts it's sells may of increased if reviews had been good but they were not so.  I mean i hear GN'R tracks much more on football focus on saturday here in the UK they played You Could Be Mine at the end, you always find tracks on Kerrang & Scuzz and they get plays on many other music channels, they have had weeks dedicated to them and more ads so increased promotion has helped reminding people of who these fuckers are and despite the poor 2002 VMA performance i still think it was a reminder to people who maybe remember songs like Welcome To The Jungle something like that alone would of sparked interest again and it may of died a bit until the GH came out but it wasn't the same gap of TSI? to Live ERA with jusy SFTD in the middle which was slated despite being class anyway.  So all in all it's a combination of a lot of things ultimately i think it is down to timing many bands i like have split up or not achieved the success they should and could have because they arrived during the wrong musical scene/time.

[Dave_Rose]

def lack of promotion and Live CD's never do well any way I thought it was Axl's idea because he said it was to close the old band

[Mr Cowbell ?]

Now that the Greatest Hits cd has sold more than one million copies in the USA alone, we can safely say it's a bigger success than Live Era ever was.

So the question is, why didn't Live Era sell nearly as much as Greatest Hits? Lack of promotion? Because it was a double cd? Poor song selection? The timing wasn't right? Or the fact that it was a live album which only interests fans like us?



/jarmo

The fact it wasnt a real live album and done all in studio didnt help.

The fact it cost $25 kept me from buying it.

Wrong timing, There was no real push for it. I agree if Axl would of tried to stop it from coming out it  would of created a BUZZ and free pub. that would of helped push it.

[gnr1967]

Although Live Era is not a "real" live album, I still think it's a must-have for most GNR fans.  That said, I don't think Live Era is a "must have" for the casual listener who sometimes listens to GNR.  The casual listener today would rather spend cash on studio cuts like GH or download them online. 

[Wheres Izzy]

How much of live era was done in the studio and where did everyone hear this? If it was done alot in the studio they goofed big time because the first thing they shoulda done was added a second guitar. I love live era but on most of the songs you onlyt hear slash and no gilby or izzy.

[RichardNixon]

It went gold, right?  That's not huge, but not too bad. On another note, do you think Axl re-did some of the vocals? And is it me, or can you hear Robin Finck doing backround vocals in "Mr. Brownstone"? Maybe that question belongs in the dead horse section.

[NickNasty]

I think everyone has added valid points here. Personally, i will go with the GNR were not really on the map at the time theory. It had been 5 years since anything had been heard from the band, other than that Slash had left. After Axl's semi-reemergence in 02, and the whole VR project coming together, the GNR began to be circulated again in media outlets, hence GH's success (which also had commercial and print adverts). Give that to Live Era today, and we might see better sales.

[jarmo]

Do you think that if Greatest Hits had been released in say late 2003 (as originally planned) and Live Era this year, that Live Era would've sold more thanks to the new "interest" in GN'R among record buyers?

I doubt that myself since it's still mostly aimed at fans who have everything by GN'R.



/jarmo