Jimi Hendrixsablespecter's Album of the Year for 1971 (RDF: 87.5%)
Well, duh, no surprise here. Predictable I suppose, but...how could this not be my AotY for 1971? And yet, this is the *first time* in the entire run of the SotD Journal that I have chosen a track from this album. Maybe I've been subconsciously holding out on this album because I specifically DON'T want to be predictable. In fact, every other studio album except In Through the Out Door has provided a track for SotD, as has The Song Remains the Same. So anyway, it's about time!
At the same time, what more could I write that hasn't possibly been written about the album? Whether the various names it's known by - "Zoso" shouldn't be one of them since Jimmy Page's symbol isn't really a word - or the 40 million copies that have sold or its continued presence on countless "best albums" lists (even though it didn't manage to hit #1 on the charts), there's not much more that I can add objectively.
In terms of my own experience, I can't tell you when I first actually listened to it all the way through as an album. I can remember its most-heavily-played songs in my earliest music memories from radio airplay, and I suppose it was in the late 70s that I first heard it at the house of one or other of my friends that either had their own copy or had an older brother who did. I purchased my own copy in junior high, sometime in early 1983 as I was beginning to build my collection, so it's been in there as one of my earliest albums and was the first Zeppelin album that I purchased.
Largely, of course, due to today's selection, which I also can't say anything new about. It is (or was during the 70s anyway) the most requested & played song on radio here in the States,and has been played enough to make it prohibited in some guitar shops (though I don't have personal experience with that). First began forming in December 1970 and first performed live in Belfast on March 5, 1971, then played at every show after. The solo is #1 on my list of the Ten Defining Solos of The 1970s. And of course, there's the wonderful fretting over the backmasked message!*
As for the rest of the album...
Side 1
Black Dog: First performed on the UK tour in April 1971, and most recently performed live by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their tour together this year. Like the opening a cappella vocal line? Then thanks due to Peter Green, whose
Oh Well lent the inspiration for it.Rock and Roll: Born of an impromptu 12-bar blues jam during a break from the frustration that eventually yielded "Four Sticks"
The Battle of Evermore: The only Zeppelin song recorded with a guest vocalist, the late Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention, for whom the fifth symbol stands. Only played live during the 1977 tour here.
Side 2
Misty Mountain Hop: One of the touches-on-Tolkien, with hippy idealism and John Paul Jones on electric piano. A good one for "reading between the lines for hidden meanings" if you're given to that sort of thing.
Four Sticks: Another Bonzo showcase, and one that I almost considered for the recent tribute to John Bonham. One way to get a raging four-stick performance from Bonzo was apparently to frustrate him by mixing riffs based on odd time signatures! Only played live once, in Copenhagen in 1971.
Going to California: Folk rock about groupies and earthquakes, and my least-favorite song on the album. It's the one that prevents it from scoring a full 100% RDF.
When the Levee Breaks: Another way to get a raging performance out of Bonzo...get a new kit and put him and the kit at the bottom of a stairwell. Listen then as this oft-hailed Bonham performance gets sampled to eternity! You may have seen this live if you saw some early dates of the U.S tour in 1975.
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Rounding out the Top Five of 1971 (in order of descending RDF):
Black Sabbath: Master of Reality: Choosing an AotY for 1971 is virtually a dead heat between LZ IV and Sabbath's third album. In fact, Black Sabbath is in the running for my first FOUR AotY given the strength of their early catalog. This album scores virtually the same RDF at 85.7%. (At only 28 seconds long, the interlude
Embryo doesn't count in the RDF calculation.) In fact, I listen to this album more now than I listen to IV.However, when awarding an AotY I take into consideration the prominence an album holds in my life & personal collection and try to consider how I have felt about an album for my entire listening life, rather than just a present ranking. And with that in mind, IV ends up winning out because it's had a place of prominence longer and had more of an impact on my listening life overall. I actually came to MOR later (high school), and it was always part of a group of the first six Sabbath albums plus We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll, which I bought and worked my way through all at the same time, while IV had always been a landmark milestone on its own.
Blue Öyster Cult: Blue Öyster Cult: BÖC started strong right out of the gate. This rates a 50% RDF, but four of them are infrared dots, and two of them have been previous SotD.
The Doors: L.A. Woman: The Doors make a (what turned out to be final) fantastic return from the weaker efforts of 1969-1970. This album is a bittersweet revelation of what might have been in the early Seventies. 50% RDF
Pink Floyd: Meddle: This album is another example that shows the limitation of the RDF when using it with albums that have few songs but one or more is really long. It rates a 50% RDF, but those three songs command 76% of the total length of the album.
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order by band/artist name):
Budgie: Budgie
Alice Cooper: Love It to Death
Alice Cooper: Killer
Deep Purple: Fireball
Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Tarkus
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On
Hawkwind: In Search of Space
Jimi Hendrix: Cry of Love
Humble Pie: Rock On
John Lennon: Imagine
The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers
Santana: Santana III
Traffic: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Weather Report: Weather Report
The Who: Who's Next
Yes: The Yes Album
ZZ Top: ZZ Top's First Album
Is your favorite album from 1971 on this list? Are there any others you would add?
\m/ (ò_ó) \m/
*"Oh here's to my sweet Satan.
The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan.
He will give those with him 666.
There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan."
(If you dig all that, you might dig Erik Davis' framing of LZ-IV in terms of a journey into the mystical roots of the songs.)
