Whitesnake
Made In Britain - The World Record

This is without a doubt the most unnecessary album of the year, if you ask me. It's not that it's bad or anything and I've said before that if you should pay Whitesnake your attention - do it live as they are a live band first hand and best seen and heard there. However, lately it's been plenty of live releases and this is actually their third live album in three years and that could have been acceptable if they'd also released one or two studio albums in between but they haven't. This album even have recordings from the same tour as their last live album and a staggering 14 tracks are the same on this album as that with seven tracks even coming in the same order.

To me it really doesn't matter too much whether this album is good or not - it's still unnecessary. Either this or the 'Made In Japan' album released a few months before this - pick one for yourself! But perhaps the most unnecessary album of them all, at least when we look back at it today, is the 'Live In Donnington' album from 2011 because if it hadn't been for that album I think two new live albums wouldn't be as bothering as I feel it is now when the last album released before them was a live album. And one with 20 years old material.

But let's foresee the issue with yet another live album for a second or so (I'll definitely return to it in a moment, be assured) and let's say I'm actually accepting this commercial deceit of their fans money. What do you get from 'Made In Britain - The World Record'? Well, as the name on the thing suggest it's made in Britain, but we also get a second disc that wasn't. The two takes well over two hours to play through and once you're done it and have a similar taste to mine, you'll feel that "hey - this is much better than 'Made In Japan'!". And that makes me feel even more that something was seriously wrong when Whitesnake started to release live albums lately because one is a 20 years old recording, one is from the same tour as the last released live album and one then is worse than the other - unnecessary - album released from the same tour (but released earlier). But would I chose one of the three to listen to it would definitely be this one because not only is Whitesnake sounding the best here of the three albums, the audience and the sound does too. And I can't really see why they released 'Made In Japan' and then this one so close by because they must have known they were about to do this one as well when they released 'Made In Japan' and when you compare the two - that one is pretty much shit! Sure, that had a DVD and this doesn't but why couldn't they wait a couple of years before releasing this? Why not make a new studio album in between? Why not combine the two? There were numerous alternatives but instead of choosing something intelligent they did numerous live releases instead. This is not only the third live album in three years but also the fifth live release in eight years!

I do like Whitesnake (and especially live) but I wouldn't say I'm a fan even though I've kind of liked all these three live releases and their latest studio album too. Even though I think Whitesnake should be heard and seen live rather than on album I still withhold they should have released something new from the studio before releasing more live material. It's not that I'm saying they don't have the right to do it, just that with more material to chose from you can always get something better out of it. They wouldn't have to use the new songs, not even the material from the new tour - but if they had such great material from this particular tour, why not wait just a bit with one of them? It couldn't harm them...

'Made In Britain - The World Record' is a good album and it portraits Whitesnake well: full of energy, killing one liners by David Coverdale in his speaches and really good live versions of some of their better songs. If you ask me in a few years I'll probably don't care it's the third live album in three years and fifth live album in eight years. But in this moment of time, right here right now I just feel that it is okay - it's good but I just feel like I've done with ELO lately - come up with some new songs instead!

HHHHHHH