Rita Lee: MTV ao Vivo

Rita Lee is widely recognized as a great live performer with a virtually magnetic charisma, and at 58 years of age she shows absolutely no sign of either slowing or cooling down. But amazing shows don't necessarily translate into amazing live albums, and this is an example of that. MTV Ao Vivo could be viewed as a follow-up to Lee's (commercially very successful) live album Acústico MTV, from 1998. Just as then, the repertoire here consists of some of Lee's most popular songs -- though not the same ones as on the acoustic 1998 effort. There can be no doubt about the inherent quality of the songs, of course, but they simply don't sound as good here as they do on the studio albums. The biggest general stylistic difference between the versions of Lee's songs here compared to the original versions is that they have been given a harder and heavier rock sound.