3/13/2023 0 Comments Best thin lizzy songs![]() Lizzy’s manager, Chris O’Donnell, insisted it was the other way around, and 75% of the music came from the gigs. Tony Visconti, the producer, would later say 75% of the music came from studio recordings, and that only the drums were consistently from the shows. The argument that still swirls around it is whether it really is a live album. Maybe UFO, a similarly patchy and underachieving studio band, were paying attention, because the following year they released Strangers In The Night, another double live record that also elevated a slightly marginal group to the front rank by means of ruthless concentration on their strengths. Every important song Lizzy had written up to its recording was there (discounting, as Phil Lynott did, the folksy early recordings), so it was a greatest hits it captured the band in full flight in a way they hadn’t really managed in the studio it was easily marketable, right down to the startling cover image, which had been intended for the back until a last-minute switch and it dealt with Lizzy’s ever-present inconsistency in sterling style. Live And Dangerous ticked all those boxes. They might act as de facto greatest hits records they might capture the live magnificence of a group not deemed to have quite bottled the magic when they went into the studio they served as a flab-free introduction to groups that a label wanted to get behind but couldn’t quite find a way to sell they were the way to bypass inconsistent albums to produce a single collection that could be marketed strongly. Through the 19s, live albums served specific purposes. That Live And Dangerous became the most beloved and popular Thin Lizzy album is a product of circumstance. Live And Dangerous, a double platinum album in the UK, allowed them to make the step to greatness. A slight air of underachievement loitered: greatness hung about them, but never quite enveloped them. When Live And Dangerous was released, Lizzy had managed two top 10 albums and two top 10 singles. It would also be impossible for a band of Thin Lizzy’s status now to release a live album as anything other than a tour souvenir, certainly not for it become a definitive part of their catalogue. Live And Dangerous might not be the best live album ever made, but it’s the best album Thin Lizzy ever made, a double album that’s pretty much a pleasure from start to finish, and a live album without any of the manifold vices that traditionally afflicted such records: no 20-minute solo spots, little in the way extended interaction with the crowd, no radically inferior reworkings of beloved songs in order to keep the band mildly interested in their 3,923rd performance of it. ![]() It was released on the 1978 album Live And Dangerous, “recorded” (the inverted commas are important) in London in 1976 and Toronto in 1977. ‘Are You Ready?’ doesn’t appear on any of Thin Lizzy’s studio albums. It makes me feel old-fashioned, as if the natural position of the left foot is on the monitor and fingers were made to be curled into fists and thrown into the air. ‘Are You Ready?’ is a song so taut and single-minded, so devastatingly exciting, that if a band can follow it, then they deserve to be on the stage. For years and years, I’ve wanted to hear a rock & roll band walk on stage to Thin Lizzy’s ‘Are You Ready?’ First, it cues up the show lyrically – “Are you ready to rip it up? Are you ready to tear it down?” – and, second, it acts as test. Of course, I was always going to say yes, but I extracted a price: that they let me choose and cue up their walk-on music. Bottom line, “Johnny the Fox” is truly an essential must have if you’re already a fan of Thin Lizzy and classic hard rock in general, and if you’re just starting to get into the band’s music, then this album here along with “Jailbreak” would be both great places to start with.Earlier this year, I was asked to DJ before the third of the Hold Steady’s three London shows. From the vocals, to the guitars, bass, drums, just everything on this album is just tight, polished, and played with pure professionalism throughout here. Every song is just perfect, essential, classic hard rock listening. This whole album is just wonderfully produced from start to finish. Sadly though, the concept of this album here would prove prophetic for Phil Lynott as he would become a victim of the same lifestyle a decade later. ![]() ![]() “Overall, “Johnny the Fox” is a very underrated but superb and excellent album from Thin Lizzy, and is also the second of four “classic” releases that these legendary Irish rockers put out in the 70’s which also include 1976’s “Jailbreak”, 1977’s “Bad Reputation”, and 1979’s “Black Rose”. ![]()
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