Listen to archived episodes at mixcloud.com
Showing posts with label Led Zeppelin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Led Zeppelin. Show all posts

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Top 5 for May 15, 2014

In my time of dying – Led Zeppelin, from Physical Graffiti


Oh let's see here, the label says this is an original composition by the four members of the band from 1974. Um, wait, didn't Bob Dylan record this song twelve years earlier? I mean this song was probably 100 years old, but by this time Jimmy Page's habit of putting his name on other people's songs was well ingrained. And, after all, you get paid a lot more for writing a song than for arranging one. This is what Homer Simpson is talking about when he call Page “one of the greatest thieves of American music” (And to think he was recently honored by the institution that once granted me a degree in composition.)

(Sure, Dylan's capable of this too, but he's usually pretty blatant about it, as if he wants to get caught in order to promote the source. His recording says “traditional arr. Dylan” but he probably copped the arrangement from Dave van Ronk or somebody).

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Top 6 for March 11, 2014

Sister Marie by Harry Nilsson from Ariel Ballet

A surprisingly edgy tune with heavy beats and guitar effects that stands out from the rest off this otherwise mostly pleasantly poppy album.

Led Zepplin – Irwin with the Hoof and Mouth Sinfonia

From the finale of WFMU's 2013 Fundraising Marathon, this group of middle-aged DJ's play this tribute, originally by the group Carey's Problem, which was delivered from the point of view of a swooning teenage girl (one of series of songs portraying a contrived premature decadence that gets old fast) over a tricky 5/4 groove. I'm intrigued by the absence of any reference to Physical Graffitti, both in the verse that ticks off the Zeppelin albums otherwise in sequence, but also in the list of song titles that makes up the majority of the lyrics.