Album Playlist on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mgTSwN5dv_HSu_nT4J808l0mBkMfQ7sQA&si=N742w0h1V5Zjdfeh
The Feeling of Falling Upwards is a live album released by 5 Seconds of Summer that was recorded in Royal Albert Hall in London with an orchestra and choir. The album features live recordings of their biggest, and most meaningful, hits. As I discussed during my presentation in class, the live recordings with added elements truly bring a new layer to the music that emphasizes the musicality and prosody. The live recordings allow for crowd noise, slight melody changes, and live vocals that all pull on emotion more than a clean cut studio recording might. At the same time, the choir adds background vocals and the orchestra adds more layers of instruments. This means that the songs can build more intensely than they do in the studio tracks, again pulling more emotion out of the songs.
To discuss some specific examples of this, in many songs you’ll hear the audience start a chorus for a line or two before the band jumps back in singing. “She Looks So Perfect” is typically a very upbeat song categorized as pop rock or punk pop music. However, on this live album it was remastered as a stripped back slower song. This allows a fun song that has very little strong emotions to pull much more out. In “Amnesia” the crowd is quite loud. This shows not only the popularity of the song, but also the impact it has on fans. “Amnesia” is a song that features lyrics surrounding a breakup. The crowd noise adds to the nostalgia of the music and lyrics.
I could go through every song on the album and explain how a live recording changes the meaning and emotion of the songs. Ultimately, a live recorded album brings more energy, meaning, emotion, and significance to each song.