Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive! (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

If you were challenged to name five rock albums that epitomized the '70s, Frampton Comes Alive! should probably top the list. Former Humble Pie guitarist Peter Frampton recorded a few perfectly fine albums with his band Frampton's Camel, but it wasn't until some of those tracks were recorded at a live performance in San Francisco and released as Frampton Comes Alive! that he became a household name. Buoyant pop, sentimental ballads, arena rock--this album has it all. The double-LP package set sales records and contained three bona fide radio hits--"Baby, I Love Your Way," "Show Me the Way," and "Do You Feel Like We Do?" This 25th-anniversary remastered package features three previously unreleased tracks from the source shows, plus an additional selection recorded at the time as a radio promo. --Lorry Fleming Amazon.com

Not any better than the original

I was pretty disappointed in the quality of this release. There is too much noise that should have been filtered out in the remastering. I was expecting it to be cleaned up versus the original LP. IMO, not worthy of a deluxe edition.
Having said that, the live performace is top-notch and the extra tracks are nice. October 10, 2008

Frampton comes alive 25th anniv

wow great album, they added some songs that were not on the original recording. I'm gonna order another one and keep it sealed.

Service was excellent as always. August 24, 2008

Greatest song in the history of mankind is on this album

Do You Feel Like We Do is the greatest single piece of music in the history of all mankind, so for that reason alone I recommend this album. Certainly there will be those of you who will think I am mistaken (I'm not), and that perhaps The Beatles, or Elvis or Mozart can be credited with having the greatest music - but rest assured - it is on this album. The rest of the album is enjoyable as well - but it is as if the Hope Diamond were put on display with other, lesser, more common gems. July 20, 2008

From the Suburbs to the Big Show

Before the release of this landmark double-album, Peter Frampton headlined a summer community festival in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. After the release, Frampton was the headliner in a music festival inside Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

The former Humble Pie member had four pretty undistinguished solo releases before this January 1976 breakthrough that propelled Frampton to superstar status on the arena tour circuit. But even this multi-platinum monster did not catch fire when it initially reached the record stores, debuting on the charts at a distant 191.

But once it gained momentum, the staying power was incredible; topping the charts at number one for 10 weeks, remaining in Billboard's Top 40 album chart for 55 weeks and staying on the Billboard Top 200 chart for a total of 97 weeks.

Importantly, the success brought a new gimmick to the music industry, with double-album live sets - or a twist, three sides live and one side of studio material - becoming the rage for established acts and artists looking for a big break.

Because of what this meant to Frampton's career and to the music industry, it will remain as important a release to get a better understanding of the marketing of pop culture during this golden era in rock. July 13, 2008

Some have attempted...even fewer succeeded. A Complete Remix!

Just recently, I've become aware of Universal's "DELUXE EDITION" re-releases of some of pop music's great gems. Case at point, A&M's 1976 phenomenal "Frampton Comes Alive!" Being the owner of all three CD editions...the first one, with 2 discs, completely duplicated the sequence and line-up of the original phonograph album, probably taken from the original 4 analogue tape masters...i.e., 2 albums...4 sides...complete with applause fading in & out between the "LP" side breaks, which can become obnoxious, to the stuffy CD purist. The next edition, the Re-Master for Digital...combined both "records"...all four sides...by the way of "cross-mixing" all four programs together...seamlessly, on one CD disc! But there's one thing that remaster engineers "CAN'T" do very well...and that is to cleanup bad analogue "tape-splices" that were made, back-in-the-day, to compile the songs together over the roaring crowd noise! These "splices" that act as connectivity points for the individual cuts, have no way of "equalizing", if you will, sound levels. If you listen closely to the VERY BEGINNING of the epiconic "Do You Feel Like We Do", a REAL bad hard splice was made over the intoxicated mob noise, that was very audibly apparent, on the record, the 1st CD release & even the 2nd CD Re-Master. NOT SO on this new glorious Re-Mix Edition! When I opened up my copy...I went RIGHT TO that start-up point of "Do You Feel..." and sure enough that horrific SPEED-BUMP had been so smoothly & effortlessly corrected! That short 3 second passageway, went down like a smooth shot of warm Brandy on an cold Arctic day! (And I don't even drink!) So now, it probably sounds the way it ORIGINALLY did, that very day Peter, Bob Mayo, John Siomos & Stan Sheldon, knocked it out, before a mesmerized San Francisco mass of maylaying multitudes. Other cuts like, "Show Me The Way" is cleaned up extensively during the introductory strums of Frampton's guitar, that remained "muddy" over the years on the original mix. As I write...I have the DELUXE CD on my Tascam Pro-CD Player...so there's still SO much more good things to report on...so you'll just have to take your critical ears on a listening journey yourself!

NOW...one item that disappointed me greatly...was the new treatment to the number one ballad "Baby, I Love Your Way." During the Re-Mix process, much less (if that's a word) reverb effect was laid on Siomos cross-stick drum action, as he kept his beat time on the snare-rim. That was sort of a shame. Being a mix-down engineer myself (yeah right, if you hadn't already picked up that "humble" part of my personality), when layering effect for "ballads", it's always customary to add more "grace & warmth" to the drum mix, if you sweeten the snare drum cross-stick action, with some longer-lasting decay (echo) of natural reverb...digital or analogue. In this case, is was drastically lessened...taking away from...in my opinion...the beauty of the percussive rhythm track of "Baby, I Love You Way".

Nevertheless...this Universal Music Company's DELUXE EDITION Re-Mix Release of Peter Frampton's musical Blow-Torch of an album, COMES ALIVE, one more time! (Bonuses include, never-seen-before photos of Peter & the Boys in the underground arena tunnel, lying in wait to hop out on stage...all wearing their iconic mid-70's tight, white Disco-Pants, complete with Street-Sweepin' Bell-Bottoms...!!! Man, Oh Man...! What a visual for them hungry Rock-N-Roll gals, out thar in that audience, that night!) July 13, 2008

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