Label: Es Paranza Records (Germany), WX 149 790 863-1
Style: Hard Rock, Rock
Country: West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England (20 August 1948)
Time: 41:45
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 294 Mb
Charts: UK #10, AUS #11, CAN #4, GER #48, NLD #31, NOR #12, NZ #7, SWE #18, US #6. UK: Gold; US: 3x Platinum.
This record is some kind of stylistic event: a seamless pop fusion of hard guitar rock, gorgeous computerization and sharp, startling songcraft. Now and Zen, Robert Plant‘s fourth solo album, is so rich in conceptual invention that you barely notice that Plant sings better on it - with more tone, control and rhythmic acuity - than he has in the seven years since Led Zeppelin imploded. Better, in some ways, than ever.
The punning title is apt. The nine tracks on Now and Zen don’t simply sound contemporary; they point to new ways to transmute roots-rock verities of swing and harmony amid the technological conventions of late-Eighties pop. At the same time the songs show Plant humanizing and enlivening the cool synthetic sound of such Euro-synth units as Kraftwerk and D.A.F. In addition, there is a certain pop-Zen aspect to such songs as "The Way I Feel," in which Plant sings, "The future rides beside me/Tomorrow in his hand/The stranger turns to greet me/Take me by the hand" - one of the wittier lyrical loops since Lou Reed walked hand in hand with himself through the vinyl grooves of Loaded.
(Full version: rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/now-and-zen-250871/)
01. A1 Heaven Knows (04:05)
02. A2 Dance On My Own (04:23)
03. A3 Tall Cool One (04:35)
04. A4 The Way I Feel (05:34)
05. B1 Helen of Troy (05:03)
06. B2 Billy's Revenge (03:32)
07. B3 Ship of Fools (04:54)
08. B4 Why (04:09)
09. B5 White, Clean and Neat (05:25)
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