After Frampton Comes Alive came out in 1976.....

[fhm555]

…Edit: just to belabor the point, this crowd included folks who had been Humble Pie fans, many of whom found FCA too "soft" and crassly commercial.

Raises hand
But I was a couple years in to the Suck and chafing at the bit to use our enemies guts for garters, so anything that might even vaguely hint at mainstream, safe, of for the masses, wore thin rather quickly.

 

[johnmichael]

"Frampton Comes Alive" was the reason I started playing again. I'd begun as a 7th grader in '66 after seeing The Beatles at The Colosseum in Seattle (I think The Raiders' "Kicks" was my first tune on bass). As a good little Catholic kid, I was horrified at all my rock wannabee buddies getting into drugs and, in my senior year, I quit playing in bands. Fast forward to summer of '76 and I'm driving to work while channel surfing on my Celica's FM radio ... " If there was ever a musician who's an honorary member of San Francisco society ... MR. PETER FRAMPTON !! ... " And the joy, the pure unadulterated joyful sound that came out of those Jensen coaxial speakers .... it was Ed Sullivan '64 all over again. Omg, I thought: I am DEFINITELY getting back into the music !!

 

[peterfrey2000]

Peter Frampton's road manager lived in the front of subdivision where I grew up and my older brother and I mowed his lawn a couple of times. I was still probably in elementary school then and he seemed pretty weird to me at the time, but he paid well for the time. His brother was the road manager for Lynyrd Skynyrd and was responsible for booking the plane that crashed, killing many of the band members.

 

[TrevorR]

Nah, don't stop at '76, because the success of this album is what inspired this which came a couple of years later…

 

[jerry]

Not in my experience. Class of '77 - admittedly we were a minority, but there was a very vocal "Frampton it too poppy, sellout" crowd. Had the goods, just couldn't deliver anything "heavy", just all this ucky emotional entanglement relationship stuff lol....

Edit: just to belabor the point, this crowd included folks who had been Humble Pie fans, many of whom found FCA too "soft" and crassly commercial.

I dug Frampton's Camel and his bassist on those was Rick Wills who was becoming an early hero of mine, but by the time of Frampton comes alive I was really entering my early if-its-not-fusion, its crap phase.

 

[Dust2Dust]

Every day of my life new and better music has been created.
. . . . . . . But music is a moving target and only improves as we go forward.
. . . . . Not knocking the old stuff, just embracing the new.

.

What the hell is the matter with you


Just kidding, bro . . You do you

I myself can't get past the nostalgia of the past long enough to make an honest assessment . . . but then why would I bother since I can listen to Pink Floyd any time I want

I really tried to resist posting that last bit but just couldn't

 

[jerry]

Every day of my life new and better music has been created. If I had to choose between music only released in 2025 or music released before 2020 I'd pick the new stuff. I've heard the old stuff so I can make that comparison for myself.
I happen to love Frampton and have seen him perform. But music is a moving target and only improves as we go forward.
Free to disagree. Not knocking the old stuff, just embracing the new.

You can do both, almost every day I revisit the past in music and let the wonders of new music wash over me, it a huge menu!

 

[Dust2Dust]

To this day, I've never listened to the whole album; I'm only familiar with the above-mentioned hits. I liked those hits a lot, and still do. They are a big part of my high school soundtrack.

Same here

 

[Lo-E]

Frampton never blew my hair back, personally. Well executed pop rock but not really my thing.

If it's your desert island record that's totally cool but in my world Frampton Comes Alive was the pinnacle of…. nothing. The idea that nothing worthwhile has been recorded since is nothing short of preposterous.

 

[DJ Bebop]

These albums where the "end all" for Me.

Fusion.Fusion.Fusion.

View attachment 7158530View attachment 7158531View attachment 7158532View attachment 7158533View attachment 7158534View attachment 7158536

"Dat's der sh!t man!"

 

[Killing Floor]

You can do both, almost every day I revisit the past in music and let the wonders of new music wash over me, it a huge menu!

There's no best music. And all music is good. I love the stuff I grew up with. And I'm a daily listener of new stuff. It's all good

 

[Matt O]

Music ending at Frampton Comes Alive is an interesting premise for a dystopian hellscape type novel.

 

[DJ Bebop]

There's no best music. And all music is good. I love the stuff I grew up with. And I'm a daily listener of new stuff. It's all good

Duke Ellington is famous for saying, "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind".

 

[lowplaces]

Nah, don't stop at '76, because the success of this album is what inspired this which came a couple of years later…

View attachment 7158782

Frampton Comes Alive inspired Thin Lizzy to record that album for sure.

 

[aero58]

"Music pretty much peaked all-time in history between my middle school and high school years"

I've always theorized that the music of one's youth, from about 10 years old to about 18, is what one thinks is the "best era" for music. For me, the 70s is the "best decade"; my wife is younger than me and says the 80s is the best decade - and so it goes.

 

[Neck Diver]

Always found it interesting that Frampton Comes Alive is the exact opposite of The WHO Live at Leeds. Much prefer having audience at very low level, only head from bleed through on band mics, not cranked.

 

[Pauly 4001]

I was 18 in 1976 and while Frampton Comes Alive was a constant presence way in the background we were listening to Pink Floyd, Allman Brothers, the last gasps of the prog bands, plus the whole catalogs of Beatles, Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, Alice Cooper, Etc.
I never owned any Frampton albums and never warmed to Frampton Comes Alive and managed to ignore the ever present singles from that album which sound much less plausible these days.

 

[TrevorR]

Frampton Comes Alive inspired Thin Lizzy to record that album for sure.

Yes, Phil decided he could do so much better!

 

[Smooth_bass88]

three pages and 58 posts and no one mentions the very excellent fretless Fender p bass playing of Stanley Sheldon on that record. And on a bass forum no less! And if you only know the hits from Comes Alive, you're absolutely missing out. Sheldon is clearly influenced by Jamerson. His feel, tone, and lines are among the best of the era.

 

[ryco]

... and then this happened

always thot this fretless looked badass!
Not too many rock/poppers were playing fretless
(yes yes, there were a few )

Wish to heck the other Small Faces would have let Frampton join their band.
Altho I liked Humble Pie and Faces II, thot the original SF + F would have been killer diller.

Never had a Frampton solo album, but a lot of my friends did, and Do You Feel was played incessantly on FM radio. and no I didn't.