Led Zeppelin - "The Best of"

"Been a Long time since a Rock and Roll" post.
After a long unintentional absence The Music Man has returned. Nice to see you all again.

Picking up where my alphabetical listings stopped about a month ago. (Last post was Carole King, check it out). Coincidentally my next album is Led Zeppelin who received a Kennedy Center honor this year.

My Led Zeppelin "Best of" collection was made for me by a gorgeous ballet dancer that was very special to me for a time, but I sadly have not seen her in many years. Anyway she and I used to trade music and she made me what she claimed was the perfect Led Zeppelin collection and I am inclined to agree. At the time the group had only released an expensive Box Set and "Early/Later Days" (the later of which was an affordable two disc set but poorly selected, no "Ramble On" what the hell?). So she made a wonderful two disc collection for me. She picked it pretty well because a few years later Zeppelin came out with "Mothership" an excellent greatest hits collection that is basically identical to the one my ballerina friend made me.

First off I want to say I enjoy a number of Zeppelin songs, "Over the Hills and Far Away" is my favorite, and the albums "Led Zeppelin II," "Led Zeppelin IV," and "Houses of the Holy" are very good. I am not a Zeppelin obsessive that thinks they are the greatest band ever, I think they are very good though.

Zeppelin make great guitar riffs, Robert Plant's vocals, and John Paul Jones is one of the best bass players out there. There is not much I can say about Zeppelin that has not been said already if you enjoy 1970s rock and have not checked them out you probably should. Pick up the compilation "Mothership" or the three album I mentioned in the paragraph above. If you are looking for they live performance (with excess jams that last 30 minutes!) check out "How the West Was Won" triple CD live album.

Well hope all is well and next time we will talk about John Lennon's "Imagine" see you then.

Michael Jackson - "Dangerous"

The last stand of the king. In the progression of the king of pop persona this is where Jackson brought back the one glove except it was not a sequin one, it was similar to a white wrist brace that went about halfway up his forearm. His hair was now always long and curly and pulled back in a ponytail. The crotch grabbing dance moves started and his skin now had lost almost all of its pigment.

This is Michael Jackson's last album in a string of nearly flawless hits as king of pop. While he did release the "HIStory" album four years later and it was a multiplatinum smash with a number of hits (including "You are not Alone" the first ever single to debut at #1)  "HIStory" was really the end of his seemingly endless success and showed that his overwhelming fame was wearying him.

"Dangerous" is a better album than "HIStory." Jackson parted ways with Quincy Jones after his last album and has hooked up with producers Teddy Riley, Bruce Swedien and Bill Bottrell who are also Jackson's song writing collaborators throughout the album. "Dangerous" has a harder edge than any of his previous releases. Many of the songs took a rough street quality mixed it with hard rock (Slash guest stars on several songs) with a dash of Rap incorporated in a couple of the songs (by Heavy D and L.T.B. ) for good measure. There are a number of winning tracks on the album "Jam," "Why you Wanna Trip on Me," "Remember the Time" and "Gone Too Soon" (Jackson at his ballad best). Interestingly though with all the collaborations on this album the three best and best remembered songs are ones Jackson composed by himself: the excellent "Black or White," "Will you Be There" and the undeniably catchy "Heal the World."

There are flaws, it is over long with some really dull songs in there, the cover is interesting and strange all at the same time. Yet, one has to only look at the influence this album has had on current artists. At the time Jackson got a fair amount of flack for the Rap guest stars, yet every other pop song today has copied his model of having a popular Rapper rap in the middle of the song (Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, No Doubt are just a few examples).

Overall this is a very good album, that still went mulitiplatinum in the middle of the Grunge explosion, that is often overlooked in favor of his three previous albums. "Dangerous" is one of the first CDs I ever owned and it is a very strong piece of music; the last really excellent album of Michael Jackson's music career.

Guns N' Roses - "Use Your Illusion II"

The second half of Guns N' Roses 1991 double release (a double album released as two single CDs) titled "Use Your Illusion I&II." Part 2 is a very different affair, while Part 1 largely retained GN'Rs blues hard rock 2 seems to take its cue from Queen and Elton John. Most of the tracks seem to take the excellent "November Rain" as a blue print which is a plus, and many of them are Rock Love Songs or more sophisticated Power Ballads, Axl's Grand Piano is featured on many of the songs.

The song writing for the most part is much stronger than on Part 1, where some of the lyrics seemed cobbled together to just get a song recorded. Here most of the songs seemed well thought out. The songs are largely slow to mid-tempo ballads and many are quite long (3 songs run nearly 10 minutes and most songs are over Five Minutes) which could have hurt the album but the longer songs are usually the better ones. "Civil War" is an ambitious social commentary which is quite good, "14 Years" and the excellent "Yesterdays" are power pop with a strong GN'R edge. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is good (of course its Dylan) but misguided electric guitar hero version. "Breakdown" is a wonderful Elton John tribute. Then there are the two "November Rain" songs "So Fine" and the truly excellent multi sequence "Estranged."

Like Part 1, there is also a half albums worth of filler and clutter, "Shotgun Blues," "Pretty Tied Up" "Locomotive" and "You Could Be Mine." The alternate version of "Don't Cry" is so minutely different that it really does not need to be here. There is the pure childish crap of "Get in the Ring" in which Axl calls out all his critics by name and tells them @*%&$ Off, over some guitar riffs. He literally uses the F-Word on every other line. The album closing "My World" is truly a WTF moment, it is Axl moaning over weird noises for a few minutes. Sadly it seems like the precursor to all that late 90s goth crap that became popular in certain circles.

Overall like Part 1, Part 2 has excellent guitars and Axl's killer voice. This is more ambitious and thus more rewarding when the songs work, but when they don't they are ten times worse. This is the perfect iTunes album because you can grab the good half album and let the rest fade away. Like I said in the previous post "Use Your Illusion I&II" could have been a perfect single album; but as the albums stand when Guns N' Roses are good they are unbelievably excellent and have some of the best songs around, when they are bad they are BAD.

Guns N' Roses - "Use Your Illusion I"

The difficult second album for Guns N' Roses was more difficult than most. Their first album, 1987's "Appetite for Destruction," was a monster that made the GN'R one of the biggest bands in the world. The recording was troubled, particularly Axl Rose is incredibly hard to work with, numerous fights and massive substance abuse took the group till 1991 to release their ambitious "Use Your Illusion I&II" albums. Essentially these are a double album but released as two single disc CDs. Pretty good marketing considering, instead of getting people to buy a double album for $25 they got them to buy two single discs for $15-$18.

Anyway to the album, Part 1 is certainly the harder rocking of the two. The problem is that on some of the songs the Guns sound like they are trying to be the fierce band that they once were like they are wearing a mask. On their first album they fully felt real here sometimes it seems like they are trying too hard. Axl in particular said he wanted the second album(s) to be different from the first, which is fine but he did not seem to know how to make them different. He also seems to feel that he needed to take up the mantle of the spokesperson of the generation writing faux social commentary and trying to send a message which really does not work. All in all it seems the group does not really know what it wants to say and thus recorded a bunch of music that jumps all over the map.

Izzy Stradlin' actually comes up with some of the best songs "You Ain't the First," "Double Talkin' Jive" and "Don't Cry." Axl's "November Rain" a nine minute piece that features a whole symphony orchestra is a powerhouse and one of the best songs of the decade. "Back off Bitch" and "Don't Damn Me" are other gems. There is a decent harder edged cover of McCartney and Wings' "Live and Let Die" but it seems odd that GN'R would cover a Wings song, come on a Wings song! it just does not match.

There is also half an album's worth of filler and lousy songs, "Coma," "Dead Horse," "Bad Apples," "The Garden" and "Garden of Eden (featuring Alice Cooper)."

Overall the guitars are constantly awesome, Slash and Stradlin' don't disappoint. Axl's voice sounds awesome as always. There are a number of strong even excellent songs but the album is messy and cluttered. Jumping all over the place this is one of those albums that will benefit from iTunes, that way one can buy the half album or so that is really good and let the rest go. In reality "Use Your Illusion I&II" had only enough good songs to make one killer album yet as the pair stands they are two flawed albums with brilliant moments among the clutter.

Guns N' Roses - "Appetite for Destruction"

In the early 2000s VH1 began airing segments of their "Behind the Music" series that instead of focusing on a specific artist they focused on a decade and its music or a specific year in music history. It was kind of like their current "I Love the (insert decade here)" but focusing only on music and in a serious vein.

This show is where I started discovering all kinds of great music and during the episode that focused on the second half of the 1980s is where I learned of the mighty Guns N' (F*&^ing) Roses. This, their debut album is one of the greats in Rock history and is a ferocious angry record with some killer guitar lines.

Released in 1987 "Appetite for Destruction" appeared in stores but it took over a year before the Guns really caught on thanks to the presence of "Sweet Child O' Mine" on MTV. But when they finally caught fire they came with every fricken barrel blazing and along with U2's Joshua Tree album (now there is a weird pairing) destroyed the Hair Metal Juggernaut that had completely taken over the rock scene in the 80s.

Guns N' Roses were a return to the 60s and 70s style rock, yet totally an original incarnation. Equal parts Rolling Stones, Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Van Halen yet they were fiercer and more angry than any of them. The first track "Welcome to the Jungle" clearly stated this was something different. Listeners were exiting their lipstick wearing, Aquanet teased hair metal and entering a Jungle filled with roses that turned out to fire big ass bullets. They were out to destroy the musical landscape and make it their own scary world. A world filled with drugs ("Nightrain"), dealers ("Mr. Brownstone"), paranoia ("Out to Get Me"), prostitutes ("It's So Easy"), pornography ("My Michelle"), homosexuals ("Rocket Queen"), where the F-Word is used just for the hell of it.

Yet in this weird jungle there was the ability to escape into tenderness and love ("Sweet Child O' Mine"), the possibility of a nicer world ("Paradise City") and the solace of a true love ("Think About You")

As for the music it is razor sharp, fast and aiming for the jugular. Axl Rose has one of the best voices in rock music, his low moan and that screeching howl that is instantly identifiable. Slash is a guitar god, just the opening riff of "Sweet Child" can testify to that. Slash and Izzy Stradlin are one of the best guitar duos in history.

This album is essential to any rock (especially Hard Rock) fan. All of us have an appetite and Guns N' Roses can satisfy it and then rip your stomach out. Nuff' Said.