Live/Dead
by Grateful Dead
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Grateful Dead bestography
Live/Dead is ranked 3rd best out of 164 albums by Grateful Dead on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Grateful Dead is American Beauty which is ranked number 394 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 4,176.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
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Live/Dead track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 82 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
Live/Dead rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 2 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  Patman360 | Top 100 Music Albums of 1969 | 80/100 | 1 |
| 2026 | Johnnyo | Albums of the year 1969 by Ultimate Record Collector | 48/100 | - |
| 2026 | davidhuret | Top 36 Music Albums of 1969 | 10/36 | 4 |
| 2026 |  baystateoftheart | Top 80 Music Albums of 1969 | 71/80 | 1 |
| 2026 | pinkfreud1981 | Top 55 Music Albums of the 1960s | 52/55 | 1 |
| 2026 | fabm0 | List 1969 | 31/91 | - |
| 2026 | Exist-en-ciel | Top 100 Music Albums of 1969 | 75/100 | 1 |
| 2026 | downandout | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1960s | 75/100 | 5 |
| 2026 | adbrack1988 | Top 45 Music Albums of 1969 | 22/45 | 3 |
| 2026 | brent13 | Top 97 Music Albums of the 1960s | 17/97 | 17 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 275 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 1,245 | |||
Live/Dead collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 146 members
Live/Dead ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 289 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 07/14/2026 18:10 |  JR | 1,125 | 81/100 |
| ! | 05/20/2026 15:50 | Mariamp | 5 | 73/100 |
| ! | 04/28/2026 12:09 | classicjoe | 507 | 78/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 79.2/100, a mean average of 78.6/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 79.5/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.4.
Live/Dead favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 35 members
Live/Dead forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 08/04/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5394): By O.T.View latest topic →
pedro1976 01/22/2024 10:43 in What album are you listening to right now?View all forum mentions
Live/Dead comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Showing comments with any number of votes. Manage Profile)
The Grateful Dead were schooled in both the European and American avant-garde atonal improvisation tradition. The band's erudite "acid" jams and unusual meters were best represented live. Their sound encapsulated the ideology of freedom of expression and alternative lifestyles. 'Dark Star' is their ultimate "trip", the quintessence in searing harmonic progressions - an hypnotic-inducing masterpiece. (Edited)
NickVolos TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/09/2013 13:16 | #88045 | TOP COMMENT
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If I had to pick the best 10 live albums ever, this would definitely be in the list and close to the top. (Edited)
A landmark of 60s psychedelia and the culmination of the Dead's first period--two months after this was released, with Tom Constanten fired (yay! he's terrible!), they went into the studio and recorded Workingman's Dead and transformed into the 70s Dead, which is a completely different sound. On a lot of the live recordings that have come out in the Dick's Picks series and so on, Constanten's soulless and meaningless playing really ruin the experience for me; here he's not so ridiculously high in the mix and doesn't get in the way, making this the definitive place to experience 60s Dead for me. In other words, this is really pretty fantastic--true, deep psychedelia. (Edited)
One might take or leave "Dark Star", but the St Steven -> The Eleven -> Love Light sequence is what for me is mind-blowing in its ecstatic progression. I think Live/Dead is in fact a concept album - a passage from the primordial beginnings, through the dance of life, to the realization of mortality and finally into nonexistence. Might be even better under the influence... (Edited)
Brandon8 TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/09/2025 01:57 | #308903 | TOP COMMENT
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Great live album that catches the band in an early period when they were playing psychedelic blues rock. The band was at its most experimental and at their heaviest so may appeal depending on your taste. (Edited)
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