Peter Frampton
Comes Alive

To know what it's like after selling sixteen million copies, you have to ask the ex-Humble Pie Peter Frampton: indeed, his Frampton Comes Alive! (1976) reached those heights by setting the record as the best-selling live album in history: a remarkable 17 weeks at the top of the U.S. charts, before becoming the most significant "live rock album" in sales up to that point.

The Peter Frampton phenomenon, as a rock world teen idol, reached its peak in the mid-seventies but actually has its roots ten years earlier when, very young, he was part of the group Humble Pie, with a fair reputation even in the USA, presenting himself as an excellent guitarist, singer, and rock composer with melodic bluesy touches. However, his fame is due to a single, incredible, perfect recording operation: the explosion of the multi-millionaire "Frampton Comes Alive", recorded at Winterland in San Francisco in 1976, or rather how to turn decent melodies into captivating road hits. Indeed, strengthened by the band's onstage chemistry and three highly successful singles taken from the album (Baby I Love Your Way, Show Me The Way, Do You Feel Like We Do), he manages to create an event album that dominates radios worldwide.
The more mischievous might wonder how this good album achieved such and so many results, while remaining inferior to many masterpieces produced by rock music, winning over even those unfamiliar with the genre. Simple, everything works in this album.

Handsome frontman, good guitarist, decent singer, infallible band, easy pop songs delivered with a rock band's verve like Show Me The Way, Baby, I Love Your Way, and the famous Do You Feel Like We Do, where Frampton discovers a mysterious little box, the talk-box, which filters the guitar sound through the voice, with remarkable results for the times. Mellifluous heart pulses with the acoustic Lines Of My Faces and diluted rock like the Rolling Stones cover Jumpin' Jack Flash complete the picture of this enviable album, the centerpiece of the talented and cunning Peter, who unfortunately will have to give up this fortune a few years later due to a terrible road accident that will take him away from the scene for some years.

In short, Frampton the young, the handsome, rich, and talented, the antithesis of the exclusive rock hero, remains seated atop the sixteen million copies of his ineffable "Comes Alive" and for him, the accounts add up.