Vinyl Reports

With a new album coming out in May 2026, a new audiophile-worthy, restored 180g 2LP reissue of Peter Frampton’s breakthrough mega-hit double-live January 1976 Frampton Comes Alive! album seems more than appropriate, especially in order to celebrate this landmark live set’s 50th anniversary. To that end, a new Frampton Comes Alive! Vinylphyle edition was released as part of UMe’s thus far outstanding Vinylphyle series on January 22, 2026 — and I can report that, after numerous spins, the results are quite wonderful.

More on my listening impressions in a bit, but a few stats first, for context. In 1976, Peter Frampton was arguably the biggest artist in pop music on a global scale — an “overnight sensation” ten years in the making who delivered a live record that spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and was also nominated for Album of the Year at that year’s Grammy Awards. In short, Frampton Comes Alive! was the right album at the right time for the right audience. According to label sources, Alive! has sold some 20 million copies to date worldwide. It’s also been officially certified by the RIAA as being eight times platinum, meaning that it has sold 8 million copies in the U.S. alone.

And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. By all accounts, Frampton is one of the nicest rock & rollers out there — and I can actually attest to that personally, because I got to meet him back in the summer of 1981 when I was interning at A&M, the label that initially released this live album! But that’s another story for another time. (Footnote 1)

The new 2LP Vinylphyle edition of Frampton Comes Alive! has great underlying DNA elements. Official press materials depict the handle-with-care perspective the artist himself had insisted upon from the start: “I can’t believe it’s now been 50 years since Frampton Comes Alive! was released, but that record still feels like a living, breathing moment in my life,” Frampton is quoted as saying in those press materials. “When we decided to do this Vinylphyle edition, it was important to me that it be done the right way. I personally asked that the audio be sourced from the original 1975 Doug Sax production master because I wanted it to sound exactly as we heard it back then. This album was born onstage, and hearing it presented this way on vinyl feels like bringing that energy back to life for longtime fans and new listeners alike.” For the record, the new lacquers for Alive! were cut by Joe Nino-Hernes at Sterling Sound, Nashville, and they were pressed on 180g black vinyl at RTI in Camarillo, California.

A four-panel insert, which is framed by tape box images on the front and back (see one of them above), features a new interview with Frampton. The super-high-quality tip-on style wrapped gatefold jackets are matte-finished and printed on heavy, sturdy cardboard, making this Vinylphyle reissue immediately of better quality than the original LP editions that were made with flimsier white oaktag-style board. Each disc of this new edition comes housed in its own audiophile-grade, archival plastic-lined inner sleeves.

The SRP for the new 2LP Vinylphyle version of Frampton Comes Alive! is $54.98, and you can order it directly from parent company Universal’s uDiscoverMusic site here.

The Vinylphyle reissue of Alive! is certainly a great deal for audiophile fans of this album, especially when you consider that trying to score one of Mobile Fidelity’s 1996 editions of this album (cover shown above) will likely cost you upwards of $600 on the secondary market for a pristine condition copy. (That’s the going rate on Discogs at the time of this posting.) And while there are no doubt many, many used 1976 original and later-reissued copies of Frampton Comes Alive! available at most any used record store out there, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one that sounds as good as this new Vinylphyle edition does.

Anyhow, I offer all that background to also relaunch my own renewed appreciation for Frampton Comes Alive!, which was always a good-sounding record to begin with — so much so that, over the years, I had heard many rumors about its extensive “sweetening” in the studio (i.e., what happens when the artists in question go into the studio to re-record and/or replace certain tracks on a live recording). This was a common accusation of artists at the time — even the Grateful Dead, for example, had been unfairly dinged by some fans for re-recording certain aspects of their hugely successful November 1972 3LP set on Warner Bros., Europe ’72.

Personally, I was never bothered by the “sweetening thing” conceptually, because if you know even a little bit about live concert production — not only have I performed live myself over the years, I was also on the stage crew back in high school — you know that, well, stuff happens: cables fail, connections come undone, gremlins strike. So, it’s practically inevitable that some problems would ensue in the making of live releases like Frampton Comes Alive!

In fact, Frampton addresses this very issue head-on in the new Vinylphyle liner notes by stating: “Yes. I made a rule: if it made it to tape, it stayed. The only fixes were due to technical issues — like a piano drop-out or my acoustic [guitar] cutting in and out. Bob [Mayo] replaced the piano on ‘I Wanna Go to the Sun’ at Electric Lady Studios using ‘The Stevie Wonder’ piano. On ‘Baby, I Love Your Way,’ I redid the acoustic rhythm. Otherwise, it’s all live.” That’s all a-ok by me — and ditto re AP editor Mike Mettler, for that matter.

At the end of the day, Frampton Comes Alive! holds up as one of the great and most well-received live albums in rock history. It certainly stands proudly alongside other classic live releases from that period, such as The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East (July 1971), the Grateful Dead’s aforementioned Europe ’72 (November 1972), The Band’s Rock of Ages (August 1972), Yes’ Yessongs (May 1973), and Little Feat’s Waiting for Columbus (February 1978).

In preparing for this review, I went out and bought a clean used copy of Frampton Comes Alive! (the cover of which you can see below). Immediately transported back to my teenage years, I was amazed at not only how familiar and ingrained this music was in my psyche, even though I didn’t own the vinyl until long after its original release. I had honestly not listened to this music in many decades, yet it sounded so familiar that I could very well have last played it a week ago!

This music on Frampton Comes Alive! still sounds fresh and fun. Yet, while playing the original vinyl edition, I noticed that the recording very much bore that somewhat compressed-sounding time stamp of 1970s FM rock radio — and, heck, one could even say that Frampton Comes Alive! arguably defined that sound! This gave me hope that the new Vinylphyle edition might offer notable improvements.

Happily, I was not disappointed. The new Vinylphyle edition of Frampton Comes Alive! sounds just like the album should sound, and it feels decidedly less compressed and much more open with a greater sense of dynamics and range. The high end is much clearer and cleaner, while the midranges on the acoustic guitars in particular resonate much more naturally. The electric guitars deliver a good, hard-rockin’ crunch, and Frampton’s leads soar beautifully. From the opening notes of “Something’s Happening” (LP1, Side 1, Track 1), you just know that this is going to be a great live album listening session. The energy and pacing of the performance on “Happening” is exemplary.

It is particularly great to finally be able to just flip over the first side of the album to get to Side 2! For those not in the know, like many multidisc LP sets of the 1970s, Frampton Comes Alive! was designed to play on the automatic record changers that were the de-facto standard playback devices for the average teenager at the time. Thus, the original edition’s Side 1 was backed with Side 4, and Side 2 had Side 3 on its flip. On the new Vinylphyle reissue, the discs are sequenced for manual turntable usage — i.e., Side 1 is now backed with Side 2, and Side 3 is backed with Side 4. (Just as they should be, according to both Mettler and myself.)

The acoustic moments on Frampton Comes Alive! are especially rewarding. Just listen to the instrumental “Penny for Your Thoughts” (LP2, Side 3, Track 1), and you realize that Frampton is a gifted picker who could probably easily keep pace with acoustic guitar wizards like Leo Kottke, not just his fellow rockers of the day. I also found it electrifying how he barnstorms from that piece right into the harder-rockin’ “(I’ll Give You) Money” (LP2, Side 3, Track 2), which reminds me of Montrose, Deep Purple, Rick Derringer, and other metal-leaning ’70s hard-rockers. That said, Frampton’s solo on “Money” leaps off into Bill Nelson (of Be Bop Deluxe) territory. So, yeah, Frampton may have become a teen idol for a moment after the Alive! album took off, but that should never diminish his reputation as an outstanding guitarist.

Yet that is pretty much what happened back in the day. For younger readers who may not be familiar with this album’s legacy, let me sidebar for a moment into some (I think) important personal teenaged perspective. In 1976, I was 15 years old, and squarely in the perfect audience target for this music. I honestly hadn’t heard of Frampton before this album was released, believe it or not! But, in junior high school and leading into high school, Frampton Comes Alive! was ubiquitous. Pretty much everyone seemed to have it — but, like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t actually get around to owning a copy myself because it was being played on the radio all the time (though I may have taped it off radio onto a cheesy cassette).

Frampton Comes Alive! was always being played somewhere, be it at parties or in the record stores we frequented — but I did, however, have the poster! One of the local record shops gave me this utterly ginormous poster of the Frampton Comes Alive! cover image. You can see what the poster looked like above, via an image I found online — it’s pretty massive, and it took up almost an entire wall of my tiny suburban teenaged bedroom for several years. That is, until it became painfully clear that it wasn’t cool to be into Frampton anymore, especially given that his career had been taken over by his teenybopper image at that point. Just see what was being projected with his followup A&M LP, June 1977’s I’m in You, for proof, as well as the ill-fated 1978 Sgt. Pepper album and movie he starred in alongside the Bee Gees.

In fact, Frampton acknowledges this strange period in his career in the Vinylphyle edition’s liner notes, wherein he observes: “It’s funny, but Frampton Comes Alive! created this sort of syndrome. Suddenly, I was the guy with the open shirt on the magazine cover, more than the guitarist onstage. Some hadn’t seen me live, so they didn’t realize I actually played.”

Indeed, that series of “open shirt” career missteps did little for advancing his career. Looking back, it really was an image problem after the concert cool of Frampton Comes Alive!. Frampton himself was still an outstanding musician, but he wasn’t being presented as such.

All that said, it felt great for me to come full circle and recapture some of that teenage joy from 1976 with the new Vinylphyle edition that I’ve already played many times. Frampton Comes Alive! remains a great album, and now that I certainly care not what anyone thinks of my taste and preferences, I’ve had some fantastic fun just cranking up this music again as if I’d just scored it at Sam Goody, Crazy Eddie, or King Karol (some of the iconic East Coast shops that were around when I was growing up).

Both of the LPs in my copy of the Vinylphyle Frampton Comes Alive! reissue set have proven to be perfectly centered and dead-quiet — just as to be expected from a facility like RTI, so I have no problems on that front. I also especially appreciate the sturdier cover design over the flimsy originals. Happily, the album itself sounds great at low volume levels or even when you pump it up real loud on your stereo. I’ll be honest — given the warm weather we are having here on the West Coast as I’ve been working on this review, it almost made me want to put my speakers out the window for the world to hear (something many folks used to do back in the day, btw).

As for our numeric ratings, the Music of Frampton Comes Alive! easily garners a solid 10, and the Sound on this reissue is also worthy of a 10, given it is one of the best-sounding live albums of the 1970s, now sounding better than ever. (Footnote 2) This new Vinylphyle edition of Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive! is a timely reminder of what a great singer, songwriter, and overall musician Peter Frampton is — and I hope it will introduce a new generation to the joys of his music and his guitar playing.

Author bio: Mark Smotroff is an avid vinyl collector who has also worked in marketing communications for decades. He has reviewed music for eCoustics, among others, and you can see more of his impressive C.V. at LinkedIn.

Footnote 1: AP editor Mike Mettler adds: I too can personally attest to Frampton’s inherent personability, having interviewed him a number of times over the years, most recently alongside his son Julian to talk about Carry the Light, the new album that Mark mentioned at the outset of this review that is slated to be released May 15, 2026, via UMe (cover shown above). We (as well as Peter and Julian) will have much more to say about Carry the Light closer to the release date. I’ve already heard all 13 of its tracks, and it’s one of the best composed, masterfully played, and most affecting, heartfelt albums of Frampton’s career. (And I preordered the signed yellow vinyl edition too, for that matter!)

If you want to read one of my prior interviews with Peter, go here, which posted on July 12, 2023. There, we talk about why Frampton feels going the all-analog route is the only way to reissue his music on vinyl.

Footnote 2: Mettler again. My ratings here mirror Mark’s, as I can also give the Music on the Vinylphyle Frampton Comes Alive! an unabashed 10, and the Sound gets a 10 as well. My original 1976 copy (A&M SP-3703) is beyond well-worn and duly relegated to being permanently shelved, and thus, I later bought the 2008 reissue (A&M 750 216 505-1) just to have a playable version, but the new Vinylphyle edition is the one to actually play and enjoy. Both of my Vinylphyle toploader LPs were flat, deep black, and well-centered, with almost no discernible pops or clicks during playback. Only a few of them were apparent upon the needle drop on Side 4.

On the new Vinylphyle edition, I reconnected with the funk vibe and right-channel guitar jangle of “Doobie Wah” (LP1, Side 1, Track 2), the delicate emotivity (and choice falsetto moments!) of the acoustic-led “All I Want to Be (Is By Your Side)” (LP1, Side 2, Track 1), the extended jam section and “ooh yeahs!” on the cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash” (LP2, Side 3, Track 4), and the eternal call of his expert talk box deployment and genuinely enthusiastic audience response all throughout the 14-minute epic take on “Do You Feel Like We Do” (LP2, Side 4, Track 2).

In short: What an absolute joy it is to feel, well, truly alive while listening to Frampton Comes Alive! anew like this. Get your copy now, and feel like we do once you cue it up!

PETER FRAMPTON
FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE!
180g 2LP (A&M/UMe)
MUSIC: 10
SOUND: 10

Original album produced by Peter Frampton
Original album Audio engineer: Chris Kimsey Engineer (Live Recording and Original Mixer 1976), Ray Thompson
Original album Mastering: Mike Reese at The Mastering Lab
Original album Remastering: Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab, Los Angeles
Vinylphyle reissue produced by Mike Ruthig, Peter Husting
Vinylphyle reissue lacquers cut by Joe Nino-Hernes of Sterling Sound (Nashville)
Vinylphyle reissue pressed at RTI, Camarillo, California

LP1, Side 1
1. Something’s Happening
2. Doobie Wah
3. Show Me The Way
4. It’s A Plain Shame

LP1, Side 2
1. All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)
2. Wind Of Change
3. Baby, I Love Your Way
4. I Wanna Go To The Sun

LP2, Side 3
1. Penny For Your Thoughts
2. (I’ll Give You) Money
3. Shine On
4. Jumping Jack Flash

LP2, Side 4
1. Lines On My Face
2. Do You Feel Like We Do