Led Zeppelin—[Untitled]

Led Zeppelin—[Untitled] (1971)

[Untitled]—There are various reasons why writing about Led Zeppelin's fourth album is pointless. It doesn't need promotion—it's already one of the best-selling albums of all time anywhere. Even those who don't own it have more than likely heard something from it, be it the ubiquitous "Stairway to Heaven," "Going to California, "or the singles "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll," either in their original forms or mangled badly by high school classmates. More than that, however, the album is notable for its continuing popularity; other all-time bestsellers like Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell or the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever have faded into relative obscurity, being relics of their time, but the nominal Led Zeppelin IV has more or less retained its significance since its release.

Nowadays, giving a piece of product no title is nothing extraordinary, but when Led Zeppelin did it, it was considered a risk. The Beatles released their eponymous all-white album four years prior, but the Beatles were also the Beatles, and the band's name was nonetheless printed in all capital letters on the front cover. Led Zeppelin's fourth album has nothing distinct on the cover relating to the band, though it has become iconic itself: an antique painting hung against a run-down wall. Fittingly, its songs in one way or another share this arcane quality. The military cadence "Black Dog" is a twisted blues that's hard to count, inspired partially by a black dog whose antics were a source of amusement for the band. The frenetic "Rock and Roll" features an augmented rhythm section with Ian Stewart of Rolling Stones fame (who also played on "Boogie with Stu," which was recorded during these sessions along with "Night Flight" and "Down by the Seaside," all three of which would later appear on Physical Graffiti [1975]) and is made by the always-stellar drumming of John Bonham. It can be seen as a response to the more insipid reactions to Led Zeppelin III ("It's been a long time since I rock-and-rolled").The diacritic "The Battle of Evermore" is the band's most explicit citation of The Lord of the Rings, written on the mandolin (which was first introduced by John Paul Jones on Led Zeppelin III) and supplemented by the singing of Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention).

"Stairway to Heaven," for all that's been said about it both good and bad, probably is their crowning achievement. No matter how overplayed it may be, it's a marvelous three-part suite, even if the first segment is admittedly very similar to Spirit's "Taurus"—but that's only one small part of the song, and the rest of it, from Robert Plant's inspired lyrics to Jimmy Page's astonishing guitar solo, John Paul Jones' arrangements, and John Bonham's steady beat are a mix they never quite equaled again. The plodding, sardonic "Misty Mountain Hop" grates, though it is amusing. The primordial "Four Sticks" was the song that turned into "Rock and Roll" during rehearsals because of Bonham's frustration with the song's meter (it was named so because Bonham played it with four drumsticks), and gets its point across more on abstruse textures than it does its throwaway lyrics. The tranquilizing Joni Mitchell tribute "Going to California" obliquely references her songs "I Had a King" ("To find a queen without a king") and "California." The magnified Delta blues apotheosis "When the Levee Breaks" adequately evokes the sense of doom inherent in the original piece (by Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie), if turgidly.

A less appreciated aspect of Zeppelin's fourth album is the chirality between its two sides: the related compositions "Rock and Roll" and "Four Sticks," the mandolin excursions "The Battle of Evermore" and "Going to California," and the epics "Stairway to Heaven" and "When the Levee Breaks." It's ultimately an inessential observation to the listening, but it adds to the cohesive, timelessly cyclical nature of the record. Beyond that, it's a masterfully performed and produced album, and the fact that it's been so persistently conspicuous for more than forty years is a testament its excellence.

Joni Mitchell—Blue

Joni Mitchell—Blue

Blue—During the 1960s, Joni Mitchell was known more as a songwriter by repute than recognizance. Her songs "Both Sides Now" and "Chelsea Morning" had been performed by several artists, most notably by Judy Collins, who won a Grammy for her recording of the former. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed the best-known version of "Woodstock" on their album Déjà Vu, among others. But Mitchell's own Song to a Seagull (1968), Clouds (1969), and Ladies of the Canyon (1970) were received with increasing acclaim; when the next decade rolled around, Mitchell's star began to grow, and she became known more for being a performer in her own right. However, she lacked a signature record, as her first two were produced uniformly as middle-of-the-road folk, and her third played more like a collection of disparate tunes than anything that spoke to a concept.

Following Ladies of the Canyon, Mitchell took time off to travel, interrupted only by a performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, when she played eight songs from Clouds and Ladies, as well as three new songs: "California," "A Case of You," and "My Old Man." Those three upbeat, optimistic songs came about with the onset of Mitchell's relationship with a young James Taylor, both as lovers and musical comrades; aside from touring together, Taylor would play guitar on the studio recordings of the three aforementioned songs, while Mitchell would provide backing vocals on Taylor's Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. But the restless Mitchell and the troubled Taylor would only last about a year together, and the split would send them in different directions. Taylor would go on to further his highly successful if uneven career, while Mitchell would return to Los Angeles to record Blue, her bright outlook now marred by a string of failed (and well-publicized) romances.

The frolicking opener "All I Want" exhibits Mitchell's free-wheeling spirit in contrast to the reserved approach of contemporary female artists. "I want to wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive," she proclaims while simultaneously acknowledging the hurt that has arisen from her missteps and the hints of self-criticism that she allows only so briefly ("I love you when I forget about me"). "My Old Man" details the ups and downs of new love, how "He's the warmest chord I've ever heard," and "when he's gone/Me and them lonesome blues collide/The bed's too big/The frying pan's too wide." The cozy "Little Green" predates the rest of the album; it became known decades later that Mitchell wrote it about her daughter, whom she gave away in 1965. The joyous "Carey," the album's most colorful song, is about a real person she met in Matala, Crete, the self-proclaimed "best cook in the area" with a "flaming red personality" (source). The encapsulating dirge "Blue" addresses directly the melancholy that peppers the album—around half the songs mention the color by name, sometimes in more intriguing ways like her daughter's eye color ("Little Green") or the glow of a television screen ("A Case of You").

"California" opens the second side with the same sort of whimsy as the first, with Mitchell contrasting her adopted home of California with the places she'd seen in her travels, sometimes with amusing anecdotes that suggest her resilience ("I met a redneck on a Grecian isle/Who did the goat dance very well/He gave me back my smile/But he kept my camera to sell"). The vortical "This Flight Tonight" represents her burning desire for a lover she's just left behind, but also the turbulence ("I hope it's better when we meet again, baby"). "River," a masterstroke, morphs "Jingle Bells" into a threnodic admittance of self-disdain, hopelessness, and escapism. "A Case of You" is a deceptively cute song about knowing the tragic flaws in a relationship will someday be too much to overcome, having evolved from an earlier incarnation as a simpler maritime analogue. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" sees Mitchell refuting a cynic, only to later find herself in the situation he forewarned; nevertheless, she assures herself, "Only a phase, these dark cafe days," ending the album on a curious but poignant note of optimism.

Joni Mitchell generally kept a healthy distance between herself and her music for the most part until Blue, choosing more to embrace the holistic ways of the folk scene. With Blue, she broke that barrier, reemerging from her hiatus with an evolved approach that continues to be emulated. It may not sound like such at times, but Blue was the most major work by a woman in the rock era—at the time most certainly, and it possibly still is.

David Bowie—Hunky Dory

David Bowie—Hunky Dory

Hunky Dory—Usually regarded as David Bowie's first bona fide classic LP, Hunky Dory bears the overlooked quality of being a summation of the first segment of his career. David Bowie (1967) was a classicist excursion in early British Invasion and baroque pop, with a touch of the strangeness that would always be present in his work—the Beatles with a more archaic touch, essentially—David Bowie (1969), the second album to bear that title, often referred to as Space Oddity or Man of Words/Man of Music, mixed in progressive elements in the same manner as Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, and The Man Who Sold the World (1970) furthered layered his sound with hard rock elements and obscure, dark, often maniacal lyrics. Hunky Dory is a step back from the last iteration, possibly a sign that producer Tony Visconti was responsible for the compression in sound—Visconti does not return in that role nor as Bowie's bassist as he had been on the previous two albums—but it does continue Bowie's move into more personal territory as well as observations on the latest in space fare.

"Changes," iconic for its stuttering chorus among all else, is also one of Bowie's best chord progressions, with some credit to Yes piano player Rick Wakeman. However, Bowie quickly tops himself in this respect with with "Oh! You Pretty Things," which esoterically honors outsiders. The pair of songs is interesting in the sense that both seem to embrace campy arrangements that are slyly undercut with hints of real meaning and true vision in melody that separate it from the novelty music that no doubt influenced them. The amusing but slight vignette "Eight Line Poem" was probably a real observance from Bowie. "Life on Mars?" has transcended its origins as a "My Way" parody to become one of Bowie's most rightly beloved space songs, mostly due to Mick Ronson's string arrangements. The idyllic "Kooks," written for Bowie's recently born son Duncan, is one of Bowie's most unmysterious songs ever; if it sounds vaguely like "Sugar Mountain," the Neil Young connection was deliberate. The abasing "Quicksand," which switches from mono to stereo near the end of the first passage, references the occult, Heinrich Himmler, Greta Garbo, and Winston Churchill in its apocalyptic vision, concluding, "Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief/Knowledge comes with death's release."

"Fill Your Heart," the Biff Rose/Paul Williams composition, the first in a long series of once-per-album covers, fits right along with "Kooks," but it is interesting to note that the outtake "Bombers" was initially supposed to lead off the second side, which arguably better fits with the themes throughout the rest of the album. "Andy Warhol," a funny tribute to Bowie's friend with a killer acoustic arpeggio, was initially written to be performed by Dana Gillespie, just as "Oh! You Pretty Things" had been for Peter Noone (combined with the fact that Bowie had intended to write his own version of "Comme d'habitude" for Frank Sinatra, one must wonder if Bowie fantasized being a professional songwriter). The languid "Song for Bob Dylan," which came during Dylan's lean period in '71-'73 that saw very little progress from the artist, uses Dylan's own words against him ("Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song") in criticizing him for abdicating his lofty position in popular music. "Queen Bitch," the only indication that Bowie would get heavier in the years to come, ennobles Lou Reed. "The Bewlay Brothers" is a characteristic Bowie closer: complete nonsense (Bewlay being a brand of tobacco pipe) that nonetheless conveys his message effectively in texture.

By trimming the excesses from all aspects of his music (with help from new producer Ken Scott), David Bowie was able to make his most effective record to date with Hunky Dory. With the basic elements of his songs—that is to say, his singing and principal melodies—mixed in front, the world got to see just how inspired a songwriter he was, and it resulted in the first of many masterstrokes.

More David Bowie reviews by The Old Noise:

David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
"Heroes" (1977)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
Let's Dance (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
'Hours...' (1999)
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)