C/D: Robert Plant's Pictures at Eleven and The Principle of Moments

good shit.

I've curious about the box set. I own Shaken 'n ' Stirred, which has got some interesting synth-pop textures and not-quite hip-hop.

One sounded like Robert Palmer, the other like Chris De Burgh.

Yeah.

I bought the box set -- Nine Lives -- just to get PAE, POM and Shaken N Stirred (which featured the Blunt/Woodroofe band minus Collins -- Little Feat drummer Ritchie Hayward was on it) remastered.

It sounds a lot better. Plus, there's a pretty cool one hour DVD documentary on Plant's solo career.

The liner notes are OK. I was hoping for interviews with Blunt, Woodroffe but didn't get that.

sw

One sounded like Robert Palmer,

"Johnny & Mary" and "Looking for Clues"-era or Power Station/"Addicted to Love" Palmer?

Although he was worse when he got to Manic Nirvana and was reduced to copying Simple Minds.

"Big Log" and "In The Mood" are awesome.

Yeah, those first two and Shaken 'n Stirred are all fairly unique. I can appreciate 'em now more than when they were new. Good band - I like that fake-Arabic blues thing. And I love how Plant counterbalanced potential pomposity with self-mocking Zep allusions, like calling a track "Easily Lead" or squeezing a lemon in the "In The Mood" video. Not as guitar-heavy as I wished, at the time; but seems to me that Plant had intelligibility-issues at loud volumes after, oh, 1975 or so. What in the hell was up with those song titles?

From the Feb 2007 Classic Rock cover feature on Plant's box set:

Horizontal Departure from POM --

Plant: "We all went to Ibiza to get in the groove of writing The Princple of Moments. Our bassist Paul Martinez is a lovely guy, but could come across as a stroppy fucker. He could be so off hand that people would take it as an insult. One night he was in a club and someone he offended decked him. He flew through the door and hit the door as he came out. We all rushed out to the street after him, and there he was on the curb, which was covered in his blood. We'd watched him come striaght through the door. And that inspired the song Horizontal Departure."


Fat Lip from PAE --

Woodroffe: "The song Fat Lip was called that because Robert's son, Logan, who was six at the time, used to fo round telling people he was going to give them a fat lip."


Burning Down One Side/Big Log -- PAE/POM

Plant: "Burning Down One Side was about a spliff. Big Log was about a spliff as well....In fact it's all just one big spliff attack."




sw

great records, I probably like them more than any led zepplin albums actually.