Won't be to everyone's tastes but this album changed my life
Yep, this was a life changer for me as well. I guess if you bought into this one, then you ended up a strat-player, not for the look, but for that sound...
Have you got the "mega-set" that has all the nights that were recorded? It needs the right mood to listen to it (and the Made in Japan mix is more to my taste), but it's very instructive hearing how they played on different nights. And also interesting that they pretty much picked the right versions for MIJ, even though Ian Gillan hated his performance on these ones.
Yep MIJ and If You Want Blood are "it".
Live and Dangerous is up there. I've heard about the overdubbing stuff - it's mainly backing vocals. The basic performances are on the live tapes. I think I've even heard a snippet of the "raw" recordings that back this up, not sure where though. I wouldn't worry about it, all "live" albums are doctored in some way.
One that was famous for "no doctoring" is Live Killers - Queen nearly split because of arguments about it, probably the closest they ever came to actually splitting -
but I'm not sure I fully believe it is as undoctored as we'd think from that. For a document of what a "complex" band could achieve with just four of them it's a stunner though. Rock Montreal is the same, it's kind of the end of that Queen, and it sounds even better - but Live Killers has this raw but perfect vibe to it (they were getting too good by the Montreal gig a few years later... :lol:).