Log #156 - Whole Lotta Led Zep

Mouse On Mars Vulvaland

 Emeralds Does It Look Like I'm Here

Cluster Zuckerzeit

Cluster II

John Legend Once Again

Led Zeppelin II

Just the one survivor from last week's log #155: John Legend's growing album Once Again. Growing in this context meaning it's a grower on me.

The early chop fell on Beirut to whom I had promised to give more time but it only confirmed initial impressions: I don't like the singing and don't really like the instrumentation either to be honest (has a ukulele ever made it in rock?); so that's probably it for me and Beirut.

Feed the flowers, cut the weeds. 

I don't really get Wilco either. I do love Americana and Alt-Country but don't appreciate Wilco that much. Again, maybe it's the singing? Or maybe the persistent glum mood. As well as Yankee Hotel Whatsit I have their equally revered Being There double album which will get a spin one of these days.

Once Again Again From John Legend

As for last week's soul boys Anthony Hamilton, and John Legend in particular, I really started to enjoy their albums. The John Legend has some very catchy tunes and even some moments of raw Hendrix like guitar (although Legend's main instrument is the piano as on this lovely tune below). 

Let's go to the park

I wanna kiss you underneath the stars

Maybe we'll go too far

We just don't care

What is PDA (the name of the above track) anyway? It took me a while to figure. In this context it's not "pathological demand avoidance" or a "personal delivery assistant" but a "public display of affection".

Who is the guitarist elsewhere on the album - I assume it's not Legend (real name Stephens)? I can't find out (and not worth trying to read CD inserts is it?).

For this sort of super smooth mega produced soul music the mood and timing has to be right and the underlying songs have to be good enough to carry it off and they are on the whole in Once Again.

Cluster Leap

On to the new entries. Well not really new. As recent readers will have noticed I've been on a major Cluster trip for a month or two now and two of their albums return for further assessment. So this Sunday we have Cluster no. II and the follow up Zuckerzeit. Both excellent, both different. 

Whole Lotta Led Zep 

Why Led Zeppelin now? Well, you know, it's just great stuff and sometimes you just need to rock out. A more specific reason is I heard Whole Lotta Love on the car radio during the week and wow, what a track. I remember hearing it for the first time (even just the curtailed Top Of The Pops version) and it was everything I wanted in rock music. I purchased the live album The Song Remains The Same as it had a 15 minute version of Whole Lotta Love on it, but actually it disappointed. You really did need Led Zep II. 

So my first experiences of Led Zeppelin and Whole Lotta Love would have been around 1980. By then they were pretty much defunct (calling it a sad day after John Bonham died in September 1980, just two months before John Lennon) (Lennon was 40, Bonham just 32). 

I can't remember the order I purchased the Led Zep albums but I guess it would have been something like The Song Remains The Same, II, IV, III, Houses Of The Holy, Physical Graffiti, I, Presence, In Through The Out Door, Coda. Pretty exciting stuff even 10 years after the event but imagine hearing Whole Lotta Love and II in October 1969 on its original release. It must have blown a lot of people's minds.

Sometimes I realise I have 2 of the same albums in my collection. This is the case with Physical Graffiti, not clever...

The cover for Led Zep II was designed by David Juniper, an art school colleague of Jimmy Page's. He took an old German WW1 photo of the Red Baron's Flying Division and superimposed faces of the band and various members of their entourage including manager Peter Grant. The cover also allegedly includes Neil Armstrong and Miles Davis but this is debatable as the faces are heavily disguised. 

Mouse On Mars and The Emeralds

The Mouse On Mars album Vulvaland, their debut, is excellent powerful electronica with heavy beats and bass, and sprinklings of lush ambience too. It's scarcely believable this is music from 1994. The Emeralds album has all the elements I love but somehow doesn't quite float my boat (just yet) in the same way.