Quaco wrote:OCT wrote:Quaco wrote:I don't think so...? What I mean is "TSRTS", "The Rain Song", "Stairway", "Going to California", Misty Mountain Hop", "No Quarter" ... real songs with real lyrical ideas, confident musical development. Not the "Jimmy does some riffs and I'll sing along till something comes out whether it makes sense or not, so we'll just bury the vocal and put a very fast delay on it giving it that thin wiry sound" that you get with "Custard Pie", "The Rover", "Trampled Underfoot", "The Wanton Song", "Sick Again", and most of Presence.
YES - what I’ve always thought about those albums/songs.
Nice to see IV getting its due here. I thought it was undergoing some kind of snotty revision.
That;s definitely how these things go. I didn't rate
IV that highly a couple years ago, it being so overplayed. But then I listened to it in a different light a couple times, and I saw again what was so good about it. This time it will stick.
I have this feeling that once a song or album becomes great, once you can see what's great about it, it won't really diminish. It's a long road getting everything up to that level where you love everything.
- which means digging the less-obvious songs, the ones you don't hear on the radio. That even applies in the case of
IV.
There's a phrase I've seen used a few times lately - 'strong flavour'. You know, Zappa is a 'strong flavour', The Fall are a 'strong flavour', Suicide are a 'strong flavour'. It's handy. The opening track on
IV is LZ dishing up their strongest flavour. "HEY HEY MAMA SAID THE WAY YOU MOVE". It's one fuck of a start and for years I
hated it! Plant sounds like a wanker, right? It's something a young Smiths' fan would run a mile from. It's uncompromising.
I'm never going to love 'Black Dog' but it's as bold a musical move as anyone could make. And I admire the way the musicianship is used to serve the song - there's no showing off, really, no soloing. They're all playing together. It's something very very few bands could manage - the drums especially are phenomenal. I don't even know what the fuck's going on.