Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I love you. Today has been quite busy for me, and I suppose it's these kind of days that help every now and then. I'm still barely sleeping so I'm too quick to get tired and I just don't feel like I can get properly refreshed at night, doing this every day helps me more than anything.
Tonight, as promised we're listening to Sketches of Spain, Davis' first album of the sixties and the first album after his first great masterpiece Kind of Blue. Miles had something quite special, a sense of timing and scale and how to use it to absolutely great effect. He also gives us an incredibly accessible version of jazz, although it feels as if that was merely an added bonus. What we get is something that's incredibly easy to listen to on the surface but very challenging when you get down to it.
His style of composition flows really well but at the same time there's never anything overtly unexpected until he gets into his fusion period. He was also not scared of moving away from the hard bop style of small bands and brought in nearly 20 musicians to play on this album. It does give the album a very interesting feel especially for someone mostly used to hard bop. Miles Davis was essentially the pioneer of modal jazz with his previous albums and continued to experiment with the jazz sound ever since.
Jazz is one of the styles of music that I absolutely adore however I'm incredibly ignorant when it comes to the goings on outside of the album releases themselves. I know what I like within jazz and it doesn't take me long to find out if I will like something. However I don't have the slightest clue about most of the history and the stories surrounding the scene other than the most basic information that can be gleaned from who played on what album and in what year.
There is probably a whole wealth of information about the jazz scene but I never found it as interesting as the rock of blues side of musical history, even if the music itself is generally superior.
I love you my angel, I hope you enjoyed Sketches of Spain, it's a great album to just chill out to, and we'll continue that tomorrow with some cool hard bop, unless something else takes my fancy. Goodnight my darling Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Monday, 17 October 2011
Day 40: Charles Mingus - Pithecanthropus Erectus
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I hope you're having a great time my love. I miss you my angel.
Tonight I wanted to go back to Jazz, I should probably have chosen something a bit more standard but I felt like I needed something more off the wall after Led Zeppelin before we settle back into the standard. This is one of my favourite Jazz albums, recorded in the middle of the hard bop era this experimental style was quite far ahead of its time.
The interesting thing about jazz is the concept of band leaders and members of that band, while a band leader generally has the most influence over the recording given the improvisational nature of the band a lot of the brilliance comes from the members involved with the recording. Mingus himself contributes the bass on the album which while important doesn't have the same role at the forefront as the piano or saxophones, however his influence and direction is clearly evident and easily distinguishable as being his style.
Of course Mingus also created a lot of the compositions that are played, or at least the arrangement of them. One of the finest examples of his direct composition is the title track which tells the story of human evolution and subsequent devolution. However the concept of the band leader I find quite important. It is quite rarely that you will find someone playing on a strong record that haven't served as a leader themselves.
The Jazz scene at the height of hard bop was rife with collaboration and a huge amount of music was created, thankfully. It's incredibly easy to link all the great artists together, for example Charles Mingus has played with Bud Powell, my favourite jazz pianist, Miles Davis, one of the absolute greats of jazz and Duke Ellington who can simply be described as the Duke. Miles Davis himself has played with Coltrane, who we have already had a small listen of, and a huge list of other musicians.
We're going to listen to some Miles Davis tomorrow and will definitely be revisiting Mingus as well at some point. I think over the next week we'll be exclusively be playing jazz before moving into the jazzier side of Progressive Rock and the Canterbury scene and then we'll start to focus a bit on fusion with Miles Davis' later work, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report probably starting with Soft Machine to bridge the gap between prog and fusion. It will also be a great excuse to play some more Zappa.
I absolutely love this style of jazz, it really showed the potential of the piano outside of classical music, and probably one of the last ways in which the piano was still relevant as a main player on a whole album, with Billy Joel of course being the exception. It was of course mostly replaced by the keyboard and the Hammond organ in relation to progressive rock especially, the same can be said for the saxophone which has unfortunately been relegated as a novelty instrument in pop songs.
I hope you've enjoyed this album as much as I do my angel. Sleep well Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, I hope you're having a great time my love. I miss you my angel.
Tonight I wanted to go back to Jazz, I should probably have chosen something a bit more standard but I felt like I needed something more off the wall after Led Zeppelin before we settle back into the standard. This is one of my favourite Jazz albums, recorded in the middle of the hard bop era this experimental style was quite far ahead of its time.
The interesting thing about jazz is the concept of band leaders and members of that band, while a band leader generally has the most influence over the recording given the improvisational nature of the band a lot of the brilliance comes from the members involved with the recording. Mingus himself contributes the bass on the album which while important doesn't have the same role at the forefront as the piano or saxophones, however his influence and direction is clearly evident and easily distinguishable as being his style.
Of course Mingus also created a lot of the compositions that are played, or at least the arrangement of them. One of the finest examples of his direct composition is the title track which tells the story of human evolution and subsequent devolution. However the concept of the band leader I find quite important. It is quite rarely that you will find someone playing on a strong record that haven't served as a leader themselves.
The Jazz scene at the height of hard bop was rife with collaboration and a huge amount of music was created, thankfully. It's incredibly easy to link all the great artists together, for example Charles Mingus has played with Bud Powell, my favourite jazz pianist, Miles Davis, one of the absolute greats of jazz and Duke Ellington who can simply be described as the Duke. Miles Davis himself has played with Coltrane, who we have already had a small listen of, and a huge list of other musicians.
We're going to listen to some Miles Davis tomorrow and will definitely be revisiting Mingus as well at some point. I think over the next week we'll be exclusively be playing jazz before moving into the jazzier side of Progressive Rock and the Canterbury scene and then we'll start to focus a bit on fusion with Miles Davis' later work, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report probably starting with Soft Machine to bridge the gap between prog and fusion. It will also be a great excuse to play some more Zappa.
I absolutely love this style of jazz, it really showed the potential of the piano outside of classical music, and probably one of the last ways in which the piano was still relevant as a main player on a whole album, with Billy Joel of course being the exception. It was of course mostly replaced by the keyboard and the Hammond organ in relation to progressive rock especially, the same can be said for the saxophone which has unfortunately been relegated as a novelty instrument in pop songs.
I hope you've enjoyed this album as much as I do my angel. Sleep well Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Day 39: Led Zeppelin - Coda
Dear Nathaniel,
I love you my little angel, I hope you know just how much. Tonight we're listening to the last Led Zeppelin studio album released after the band had disbanded following the death of John Bonham. Coda is the shortest Led Zeppelin album, due to the lack of material given that most of the songs that had previously been unreleased were featured on Physical Graffiti.
Given the massive effort Jimmy Page has taken since the release of Coda in remastering all of Led Zeppelin's catalogue this album sounds infinitely better remastered than it did when first released which was the version of this album I had been familiar with previously. Because of the remasters Coda becomes very much a good Led Zeppelin album, in my eyes even better than In Through the Out Door.
Coda also has the distinction of featuring live performances on a studio album with previously unreleased cover of We're Gonna Groove and then a live version of I Can't Quit You Baby which is the only song featured on two Led Zeppelin albums (the first and the last). Of course the live feel has been edited out of the recordings giving them more of an energetic studio feel, but it's still very noticeable on I Can't Quit You Baby.
The second side of Coda is undoubtedly the strongest of the album and if not a fitting end to the greatest band of all time, at least an adequate one. It includes a drum solo by John Bonham and three albums cut from In Through The Out Door. The In Through the Out Door rejects are much better examples of Led Zeppelin sound than the songs that made it onto the album.
While Led Zeppelin were incredibly instrumental in defining the sound of their own era their like was never to be seen again. This style of hard rock essentially died with John Bonham and it's such a huge shame because even as heavier bands have come along they were never able to recapture the stripped down yet complex sound of Led Zeppelin.
Of course Led Zeppelin has still been able to influence a lot of great music but nothing has ever come close to surpassing them. I'm not sure exactly where to go tomorrow. I know I can't exactly be playing something similar to Led Zeppelin because it won't compare well at all. We might explore some more progressive rock or jump straight into punk, or better yet play the music that inspired Led Zeppelin, blues. Maybe we'll look at jazz a bit more and then ease ourselves into Jazz Fusion, that would probably be the best way to go about it.
I hope you're okay with that Nathaniel, and I hope you've really enjoyed listening to what is essentially Led Zeppelin's full discography, missing a few b-sides and bonus tracks from Coda, but it can't really be helped. We might have to go revisit the band at some point in the future. I love you Nathaniel, good night.
Love from Dad.
I love you my little angel, I hope you know just how much. Tonight we're listening to the last Led Zeppelin studio album released after the band had disbanded following the death of John Bonham. Coda is the shortest Led Zeppelin album, due to the lack of material given that most of the songs that had previously been unreleased were featured on Physical Graffiti.
Given the massive effort Jimmy Page has taken since the release of Coda in remastering all of Led Zeppelin's catalogue this album sounds infinitely better remastered than it did when first released which was the version of this album I had been familiar with previously. Because of the remasters Coda becomes very much a good Led Zeppelin album, in my eyes even better than In Through the Out Door.
Coda also has the distinction of featuring live performances on a studio album with previously unreleased cover of We're Gonna Groove and then a live version of I Can't Quit You Baby which is the only song featured on two Led Zeppelin albums (the first and the last). Of course the live feel has been edited out of the recordings giving them more of an energetic studio feel, but it's still very noticeable on I Can't Quit You Baby.
The second side of Coda is undoubtedly the strongest of the album and if not a fitting end to the greatest band of all time, at least an adequate one. It includes a drum solo by John Bonham and three albums cut from In Through The Out Door. The In Through the Out Door rejects are much better examples of Led Zeppelin sound than the songs that made it onto the album.
While Led Zeppelin were incredibly instrumental in defining the sound of their own era their like was never to be seen again. This style of hard rock essentially died with John Bonham and it's such a huge shame because even as heavier bands have come along they were never able to recapture the stripped down yet complex sound of Led Zeppelin.
Of course Led Zeppelin has still been able to influence a lot of great music but nothing has ever come close to surpassing them. I'm not sure exactly where to go tomorrow. I know I can't exactly be playing something similar to Led Zeppelin because it won't compare well at all. We might explore some more progressive rock or jump straight into punk, or better yet play the music that inspired Led Zeppelin, blues. Maybe we'll look at jazz a bit more and then ease ourselves into Jazz Fusion, that would probably be the best way to go about it.
I hope you're okay with that Nathaniel, and I hope you've really enjoyed listening to what is essentially Led Zeppelin's full discography, missing a few b-sides and bonus tracks from Coda, but it can't really be helped. We might have to go revisit the band at some point in the future. I love you Nathaniel, good night.
Love from Dad.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Day 38: Led Zeppelin - In Through the Out Door
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, we went to a "wave of light" tonight, we got a little angel and wrote your name on it and we lit two candles for you too. After that we went to visit you and I'm really happy that your light is still working it looks lovely in the middle of the night. We were also able to give the money we got to the charity tonight and that was really nice.
Tonight we're listening to Led Zeppelin's last studio album as an active band, a year after this was released drummer John Bonham died. This is the least Zeppelin-esque album of their back catalogue, due to most of the writing being done by John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. Jimmy Page and John Bonham had both wanted to go back to a harder rocking Led Zeppelin with their next album that never was.
Having been listening to Led Zeppelin almost exclusively over the last week or so I'd have to say this is my least favourite of their albums and the quality of Coda was improved tremendously with the remasters so I had to completely change my opinion of it as an album. Of course this is still a very good album in it's own right. The guitar work by Page is really good if a bit buried in the mix especially given the prominence of John Paul Jones' keyboard work.
Because of the excessive keyboard usage this Led Zeppelin album doesn't have the same stripped down and primal feel of their previous albums and it's usually somewhat of a disappointment to go back and listen to it. It is still a good album of course but it just doesn't compare to the rest of their albums, especially not with back to back listening.
Led Zeppelin at this point were plagued with significant personal problems. Not only was Bonham suffering with alcoholism and Page was addicted to heroin but Robert Plant had lost his five year old son while Led Zeppelin were touring which had put the band on hiatus for a long time. The song All of My Love on this album is dedicated to Plant's son Karac. While the remaster of this album has put the guitar a bit higher up in the mix it still doesn't change the overall lighter style of the songs.
I love you my angel Nathaniel I hope you liked everything we did for you today and I hope you're having a wonderful time. Goodnight.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, we went to a "wave of light" tonight, we got a little angel and wrote your name on it and we lit two candles for you too. After that we went to visit you and I'm really happy that your light is still working it looks lovely in the middle of the night. We were also able to give the money we got to the charity tonight and that was really nice.
Tonight we're listening to Led Zeppelin's last studio album as an active band, a year after this was released drummer John Bonham died. This is the least Zeppelin-esque album of their back catalogue, due to most of the writing being done by John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. Jimmy Page and John Bonham had both wanted to go back to a harder rocking Led Zeppelin with their next album that never was.
Having been listening to Led Zeppelin almost exclusively over the last week or so I'd have to say this is my least favourite of their albums and the quality of Coda was improved tremendously with the remasters so I had to completely change my opinion of it as an album. Of course this is still a very good album in it's own right. The guitar work by Page is really good if a bit buried in the mix especially given the prominence of John Paul Jones' keyboard work.
Because of the excessive keyboard usage this Led Zeppelin album doesn't have the same stripped down and primal feel of their previous albums and it's usually somewhat of a disappointment to go back and listen to it. It is still a good album of course but it just doesn't compare to the rest of their albums, especially not with back to back listening.
Led Zeppelin at this point were plagued with significant personal problems. Not only was Bonham suffering with alcoholism and Page was addicted to heroin but Robert Plant had lost his five year old son while Led Zeppelin were touring which had put the band on hiatus for a long time. The song All of My Love on this album is dedicated to Plant's son Karac. While the remaster of this album has put the guitar a bit higher up in the mix it still doesn't change the overall lighter style of the songs.
I love you my angel Nathaniel I hope you liked everything we did for you today and I hope you're having a wonderful time. Goodnight.
Love from Dad.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Day 37: Led Zeppelin - Presence
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, we got a nice new bear for your grave and it looks lovely and the jar matches the sun in a jar. I miss you a lot my love. I'm also renewing my Australian visa so we might be able to go there for awhile too but it might have to be quite a bit later.
Well here we are, the finest moment of Led Zeppelin's studio career. Presence starts with Achilles Last Stand which is in my mind undoubtedly their finest moment. Achilles Last Stand is epic in itself not only the feel of the song but the huge task Jimmy Page had in recording and mixing the song given the huge amount of guitar work that was put into it. Not only that but also given the short time Led Zeppelin spent in the studio recording and producing the album it's an incredibly impressive feat.
I think the reason I love this album so much is because of the tremendous amount of control Jimmy Page had over the writing and recording. Robert Plant was in the process of recovering from a car crash and was joined by Jimmy Page where they started writing songs, the album itself was recorded before Plant himself had fully recovered so Jimmy Page had significantly more control over the album because Plant was simply not up to it. Bonham and Jones had never traditionally been part of the writing process either so that didn't change with this album, however In Through The Out Door was dominated by Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.
This album has Led Zeppelin back to their roots, the songs are primal and full of life, and is quite probably the heaviest Led Zeppelin album. I just absolutely love every single moment of it. Nobody's Fault But Mine is most likely my second favourite Led Zeppelin song, not only is it great in the studio but it's absolutely amazing live. It's too hard to concentrate to write when listening to something this good, so just relax and listen with me my angel.
Goodnight Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, we got a nice new bear for your grave and it looks lovely and the jar matches the sun in a jar. I miss you a lot my love. I'm also renewing my Australian visa so we might be able to go there for awhile too but it might have to be quite a bit later.
Well here we are, the finest moment of Led Zeppelin's studio career. Presence starts with Achilles Last Stand which is in my mind undoubtedly their finest moment. Achilles Last Stand is epic in itself not only the feel of the song but the huge task Jimmy Page had in recording and mixing the song given the huge amount of guitar work that was put into it. Not only that but also given the short time Led Zeppelin spent in the studio recording and producing the album it's an incredibly impressive feat.
I think the reason I love this album so much is because of the tremendous amount of control Jimmy Page had over the writing and recording. Robert Plant was in the process of recovering from a car crash and was joined by Jimmy Page where they started writing songs, the album itself was recorded before Plant himself had fully recovered so Jimmy Page had significantly more control over the album because Plant was simply not up to it. Bonham and Jones had never traditionally been part of the writing process either so that didn't change with this album, however In Through The Out Door was dominated by Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.
This album has Led Zeppelin back to their roots, the songs are primal and full of life, and is quite probably the heaviest Led Zeppelin album. I just absolutely love every single moment of it. Nobody's Fault But Mine is most likely my second favourite Led Zeppelin song, not only is it great in the studio but it's absolutely amazing live. It's too hard to concentrate to write when listening to something this good, so just relax and listen with me my angel.
Goodnight Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Day 36: Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, it was nice going to see you today and your new flowers look absolutely lovely. I'm so happy that I'm able to do this to talk to you, it makes things just a bit better when I'm writing. Our cats are all being quite amusing really and whenever they're playful I just think about how nice it would have been for you to play with them.
Tonight we're listening to Led Zeppelin's only double album Physical Graffiti. Although given Led Zeppelin's penchant for long concerts; I spent two and a half hours last night listening to a great 1973 bootleg recording, it's not the longest Led Zeppelin experience. I'm really enjoying this rediscovery of Led Zeppelin's music with you, it has been awhile since I've listened through all of their albums and bootlegs and watched the DVD's.
It's easy to forget just how much you enjoy the music of a certain band and In My Time of Dying is a perfect example of that. Listening to this song now it just brings back all of those great feelings that I associate with Led Zeppelin and really enjoying their music. While that is present on all their albums I can feel it more now that I've spent so much time listening to the band in the past few days. It's a small obsession based on a huge passion of mine and it makes me feel so good. I think I'll probably end up listening to Presence tonight after this and then of course again tomorrow with you. I might listen to another bootleg show as well.
This album wasn't originally intended to be a double album but when they went to studio they found that the songs they had recorded were too long to fit on a single album, and being incredibly satisfied with the quality of the songs they decided to make it a double album and release some other songs that had yet to make the cut from previous albums since they had enough great songs to fill out the remainder of the needed time.
One thing I find interesting is Houses of the Holy's inclusion of the album, the band had recorded and mixed it to Led Zeppelin standard but felt it didn't fit on it's namesake album. I think it takes a lot to eventually make that decision of removing the title track from an album and it shows an incredible devotion to the concept of the album and how an album should feel.
Led Zeppelin also experiment a bit more with funk on Trampled Under Foot and it just pumps you full of energy, which you really need for Kashmir. Kashmir is a really special song and along with In the Light is probably the high point of the album, but I suppose it depends on your favourite Led Zeppelin style. Kashmir's sound is incredibly far ahead of its time in a way that I find slightly disappointing. It features essentially a constant barrage of sound which is great for short passages in an album, but now generally most songs are recorded like this and I for one really like bands to have the confidence to have things go silent for even a split second, it's really hard to describe.
It's so amazingly lucky that this did end up being a double album or many of the tracks might not have received the extra attention and studio work to be acceptable to be released. I love the interesting sound to Down by the Seaside which should have been on Led Zeppelin IV. I don't think it would have fit on that album which is why I assume it wasn't included in favour of one of the other songs that made it onto the album.
Ten Years Gone is a great example of the silence I was talking about, Led Zeppelin are confident enough in their musical ability and timing to let the record go silent at times. This is especially admirable live with various timings since it shows a great deal of chemistry within a band to be able to pull it off well and Led Zeppelin were one of those bands that were basically able to achieve whatever they wanted musically, in part due to how well they play together.
The song Black Country Woman was recorded in the backyard of Mick Jagger's mansion at the time. It has a great outdoor sound that I find quite familiar when thinking of lo-fi black metal bands. Of course the sound is acoustic and quite far away from metal but it has that certain feeling.
I love you my angel. I hope you enjoyed the first double album we've listened to so far. It might only be a little bit longer than some CD albums released nowadays but it's still quite a long slog when being used to 30-40 minute albums. I miss you so much, every day. Goodnight Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, it was nice going to see you today and your new flowers look absolutely lovely. I'm so happy that I'm able to do this to talk to you, it makes things just a bit better when I'm writing. Our cats are all being quite amusing really and whenever they're playful I just think about how nice it would have been for you to play with them.
Tonight we're listening to Led Zeppelin's only double album Physical Graffiti. Although given Led Zeppelin's penchant for long concerts; I spent two and a half hours last night listening to a great 1973 bootleg recording, it's not the longest Led Zeppelin experience. I'm really enjoying this rediscovery of Led Zeppelin's music with you, it has been awhile since I've listened through all of their albums and bootlegs and watched the DVD's.
It's easy to forget just how much you enjoy the music of a certain band and In My Time of Dying is a perfect example of that. Listening to this song now it just brings back all of those great feelings that I associate with Led Zeppelin and really enjoying their music. While that is present on all their albums I can feel it more now that I've spent so much time listening to the band in the past few days. It's a small obsession based on a huge passion of mine and it makes me feel so good. I think I'll probably end up listening to Presence tonight after this and then of course again tomorrow with you. I might listen to another bootleg show as well.
This album wasn't originally intended to be a double album but when they went to studio they found that the songs they had recorded were too long to fit on a single album, and being incredibly satisfied with the quality of the songs they decided to make it a double album and release some other songs that had yet to make the cut from previous albums since they had enough great songs to fill out the remainder of the needed time.
One thing I find interesting is Houses of the Holy's inclusion of the album, the band had recorded and mixed it to Led Zeppelin standard but felt it didn't fit on it's namesake album. I think it takes a lot to eventually make that decision of removing the title track from an album and it shows an incredible devotion to the concept of the album and how an album should feel.
Led Zeppelin also experiment a bit more with funk on Trampled Under Foot and it just pumps you full of energy, which you really need for Kashmir. Kashmir is a really special song and along with In the Light is probably the high point of the album, but I suppose it depends on your favourite Led Zeppelin style. Kashmir's sound is incredibly far ahead of its time in a way that I find slightly disappointing. It features essentially a constant barrage of sound which is great for short passages in an album, but now generally most songs are recorded like this and I for one really like bands to have the confidence to have things go silent for even a split second, it's really hard to describe.
It's so amazingly lucky that this did end up being a double album or many of the tracks might not have received the extra attention and studio work to be acceptable to be released. I love the interesting sound to Down by the Seaside which should have been on Led Zeppelin IV. I don't think it would have fit on that album which is why I assume it wasn't included in favour of one of the other songs that made it onto the album.
Ten Years Gone is a great example of the silence I was talking about, Led Zeppelin are confident enough in their musical ability and timing to let the record go silent at times. This is especially admirable live with various timings since it shows a great deal of chemistry within a band to be able to pull it off well and Led Zeppelin were one of those bands that were basically able to achieve whatever they wanted musically, in part due to how well they play together.
The song Black Country Woman was recorded in the backyard of Mick Jagger's mansion at the time. It has a great outdoor sound that I find quite familiar when thinking of lo-fi black metal bands. Of course the sound is acoustic and quite far away from metal but it has that certain feeling.
I love you my angel. I hope you enjoyed the first double album we've listened to so far. It might only be a little bit longer than some CD albums released nowadays but it's still quite a long slog when being used to 30-40 minute albums. I miss you so much, every day. Goodnight Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Day 35: Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel. We're seriously considering moving to Norway now, there are a lot of jobs and such to get there and it would probably do us a lot of good to have some change in scenery. It feels like things are getting harder rather than easier as the time goes by and I think we need to start looking forward to the future more than anything.
We're staying with Led Zeppelin here on their fifth effort, the first one with an actual title. I think Led Zeppelins work after IV is often ignored for some reason when I feel the quality of music is essentially the same throughout their career. Houses of the Holy bring Led Zeppelin in yet another direction after IV. There is a bit of experimentation here and just a generally different sound from their earlier work. It's still unmistakably Led Zeppelin, it's just different.
I think the fact that Led Zeppelin have had very subtle changes in sound throughout their career was incredibly beneficial to their success. They weren't belting out the same songs over and over again rather showing certain transitions that make their back catalogue very varied and continually interesting to listen to. With Led Zeppelin listening to all their albums back to back doesn't give off a feeling that you're listening to the same thing over and over again and it's really nice.
With Led Zeppelin you know every single song is going to be notable in some way. It is even true for the album we'll be listening to tomorrow where over half of the songs are new material interspersed with older cuts that didn't make it onto previous albums due to time constraints. Jimmy Page has a very interesting acoustic guitar style that is present on Black Mountain Side, White Summer and it can also be hinted at with Over the Hills and Far Away. It's always interesting to see him use this live especially on all his different versions of White Summer/Black Mountain Side recordings that are available as bootlegs or on official releases.
I love Led Zeppelins funky number the Crunge it's so different to everything they've done before and since, the same can be said with D'yer Mak'er a reggae inspired number where the title itself is a play on Jamaica. Despite the mix of styles present on this album it flows really well and they don't make anything seem out of place. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why but it's one of the reasons Led Zeppelin are so great is that all of their songs are instantly recognisable as Led Zeppelin songs.
I love the usage of Theremin in No Quarter, the whole song itself is incredibly reminiscent of Progressive Rock on the whole which adds yet a whole new dimension to the album and Led Zeppelin itself. In a way I wanted to comment on how far Led Zeppelin have come from their debut album but it feels like that doesn't do enough credit to their earlier albums, it's merely meant as a comment on their stylistic changes over time.
I hope you've enjoyed Houses of the Holy my angel. I love you and I miss you so much. Not a second goes by where I didn't wish you were here. Goodnight my sweet Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel. We're seriously considering moving to Norway now, there are a lot of jobs and such to get there and it would probably do us a lot of good to have some change in scenery. It feels like things are getting harder rather than easier as the time goes by and I think we need to start looking forward to the future more than anything.
We're staying with Led Zeppelin here on their fifth effort, the first one with an actual title. I think Led Zeppelins work after IV is often ignored for some reason when I feel the quality of music is essentially the same throughout their career. Houses of the Holy bring Led Zeppelin in yet another direction after IV. There is a bit of experimentation here and just a generally different sound from their earlier work. It's still unmistakably Led Zeppelin, it's just different.
I think the fact that Led Zeppelin have had very subtle changes in sound throughout their career was incredibly beneficial to their success. They weren't belting out the same songs over and over again rather showing certain transitions that make their back catalogue very varied and continually interesting to listen to. With Led Zeppelin listening to all their albums back to back doesn't give off a feeling that you're listening to the same thing over and over again and it's really nice.
With Led Zeppelin you know every single song is going to be notable in some way. It is even true for the album we'll be listening to tomorrow where over half of the songs are new material interspersed with older cuts that didn't make it onto previous albums due to time constraints. Jimmy Page has a very interesting acoustic guitar style that is present on Black Mountain Side, White Summer and it can also be hinted at with Over the Hills and Far Away. It's always interesting to see him use this live especially on all his different versions of White Summer/Black Mountain Side recordings that are available as bootlegs or on official releases.
I love Led Zeppelins funky number the Crunge it's so different to everything they've done before and since, the same can be said with D'yer Mak'er a reggae inspired number where the title itself is a play on Jamaica. Despite the mix of styles present on this album it flows really well and they don't make anything seem out of place. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why but it's one of the reasons Led Zeppelin are so great is that all of their songs are instantly recognisable as Led Zeppelin songs.
I love the usage of Theremin in No Quarter, the whole song itself is incredibly reminiscent of Progressive Rock on the whole which adds yet a whole new dimension to the album and Led Zeppelin itself. In a way I wanted to comment on how far Led Zeppelin have come from their debut album but it feels like that doesn't do enough credit to their earlier albums, it's merely meant as a comment on their stylistic changes over time.
I hope you've enjoyed Houses of the Holy my angel. I love you and I miss you so much. Not a second goes by where I didn't wish you were here. Goodnight my sweet Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
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