Deadheads: What was the Grateful Dead's last exceptional studio album?

[Barad Simith]

Poll question: Deadheads: What was the Grateful Dead's last exceptional studio album?

After which studio release did the Grateful Dead lose their magic? (If your answer is "never," then choose their last album.)

Since the poll is limited to ten options, I've left out their first two albums. Besides, I can't believe anyone who didn't like Aoxomoxoa, Workingman's Dead or American Beauty is a true Deadhead.

[clonebot]

1. live band

im too young to see them in their prime - but live recordings ive heard smoke the uptight studio sessions any day

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Well, magic in the studio is one thing. On the stage, something

else.

Record producers and the Dead could not possibly see eye to eye. It would drive them crazy to have Jerry come in one day with a banjo, and Phil show up with a string quartet on the same day. So, they had to behave and do the "hits" and cut them down to whatever fit, and it was a bad scene.

Yeah, Aoxomoxa and American Beauty are good albums. For lots of us, who could not make all the shows, and before the taper scene went big, and way before MP3's... it was the only way to hear the music, and it was good.

But, magic? In a studio?

Not the Grateful Dead, man. Just a simulation of their real energy.

[vi5]

3. Someone voted for Go To Heaven?

I like that record quite a bit, but it surprises me that someone else would list it as their last exceptional album. I love any album that has any Brett Mydland songs on them. But overall I think their final 2 studio albums (In The Dark and Built To Last) were phenomenal.

[ET Awful]

4. I voted for American Beauty because it's the only studio album I ever. . .

bothered to buy. Nothing I ever heard of them in the studio came anywhere close to a live performance.

It seems like as the years went by, the more and more overprocessed their studio efforts were. Especially 'Built to Last', it sounded like it was recorded in some kind of sealed compression chamber, the whole album is so compressed it's like audio claustrophobia kicking in.

[Barad Simith]

5. kick (nt)

[SnohoDem]

6. You left out Mars Hotel?

I thought I read Jerry Garcia saying in a Rolling Stone interview that Mars Hotel was closest to their live feel, or his favorite studio album.

Any real DeadHeads remember that?

[Barad Simith]

14. YOU'RE RIGHT

I'm not much of a Deadhead yet -- just recently started listening to their music. I didn't include Mars Hotel in the poll because I thought it was a live album. But I just checked an Amazon review: "The Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel is a wonderful presentation of studio recordings that capture some of the Grateful Dead's live vitality."

[SnohoDem]

15. Thanks for checking

I can imagine how you might think it was a live album. It's one of my favorites, but I am NOT a DeadHead, having only seen them live twice and knowing very little Dead lore. I just remembered seeing that statement from Garcia, and I think it was in RS.

[woofless]

7. I still love Workingman's Dead.

I like a few tracks off Aoxomoxoa like St. Stephens and China Cat Sunflower. Workingman's is all American music to me.

[Sporadicus]

8. My Favorite Dead Joke

Don't get me wrong, I think the Dead were a great band, but I still get a chuckle out of this old joke.

Q: What do Grateful Dead fans say when they run out of weed?

A: Man, this band sucks!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

12. Q. How many Deadheads does it take to change a light bulb?

A. 10,001. 1 to insert the new bulb, and 10,000 to follow the old, burned-out bulb to the next city.

[SnohoDem]

16. Hard to tell this one in text:

(Wave hand sinuously in front of your face)

Q: Why do chicks dance like this at a Dead concert?
A: To keep the music out of their faces.

(May not be funny if you only saw the Dead after 1975. Hell, may not be funny anyway, but I laughed.)

[Tom Kitten]

9. I voted for American Beauty

I think it's their last studio album that is consistantly excellent...The later albums had goods and not-so-goods, except the one I would have voted for (had it been on the list) is Mars Hotel, for "Scarlet Begonias", "Unbroken Chain", "U.S. Blues", "China Doll"...I didn't really care for their studio lps after that, too "mersh".

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

10. Mars Hotel...

..that is actually a real good album. Maybe one of my favorite Dead albums.

[TrogL]

11. I take it nobody ever taught them how to tune a guitar?

Or any other instrument for that matter?

[Tom Kitten]

13. actually...

...they were known for their tendency to take their time tuning up in concert...Sometimes it would take 'em 15-20 minutes of just tuning!