A critical consensus has been reached: playing an entire album live is a bit of a bore. The once novel concept has quickly become an unimaginative experience that legitimizes bands trotting out reliable hits without looking desperate (perhaps not always such a bad thing). From an artist's perspective, the album-as-set-list can be a self-mythologizing ego boost reinforcing older work as classic. The fans, for their part, get the songs they want in the order they are accustomed. Old codgers of all stripes will tell you that the album used to 'mean' something that kids today just don't understand. These individuals, fans and artists alike, have been weaned on the hallowed AOR template, a place where deep album cuts and well-known singles are valued equally. more ›