Written by Fumo Verde
Here’s a groovy little three-pack for all of us Led Zeppelin fans out there. Mothership has two CDs and a DVD that contain twenty-four audio tracks and twenty live-performance video tracks. It also comes with a sweet liner-note booklet bringing us a quick history of the band and the music they played. Those who love the music of Zeppelin will truly enjoy this, and though I bitch about music we already have being re-issued, this set shuts me up because it is that good.
The CDs sound as if they were compiled by radio DJs playing the band’s top-requested hits from over the years. Disc One covers the first four albums. It starts with “Good Times Bad Times,” a timeless rock song about love and friendship, and ends with “Stairway to Heaven” with its haunting strings and mythical words (forwards and backwards). In between are “Dazed and Confused,” the bass-driven rant of lunatic love, and “Immigrant Song” with its lyrics from the old Viking legends of fighting for Odin and Valhalla. Plants voice echoes the attack horn the Vikings would blow as they raided their neighbors. “When the Levee Breaks,” another blues track, rolls by like an easygoing freight train. With that harmonica blowing time and those worrisome lyrics, one gets the feeling of desperation; now that’s a blues song.
Disc Two drops “The Song Remains the Same” as its lead-in track followed by “Over The Hills and Far Away.” “No Quarter” with its disturbed keyboards played by Jones and infused with bizarre lyrical effects has to be one of those “I think I’m tripping on some really weird acid” songs, or at least that’s the vibe I get when I hear this tune. Down the line is “Houses Of The Holy,” a tough, motivated rock song where bass, drum, and guitar collide to get us up onto the dance floor.
Amongst some of the best Zeppelin songs of all is another winner that needs to be played more often, “Kashmir,” one of my favorites. It has this building climatic symphony, lifting you off of the planet and taking you out past the stars. Plant’s vocals take lead and effortlessly directs the orchestra as the song slings you out into the unknown universe. If you popped either of these music discs into your changer and hit random, you would never be disappointed when the laser eye stopped on either one of these discs.
Article comments
1 - JC Mosquito
So... why release Mothership as well as the revamped Song Remains the Same both at the same time? Yes, I know it's right at the start of the shopping season, but I wish they'd've come up with something a little more original than another compilation, please, no matter how fine it is.
How about taking the existing masters (I understand there are really no alternates or outtakes) and issuing them by session? If they did so, you'd have one heck of a great lost Zep album - the expanded Houses of the Holy, which wuld include all the stuff used on Physical Graffiti, including the title track. Zep III & IV wouldn't sound too bad either.
Or, how about a reassembly job a la the Beatles' Love album? Or some official bootlegs? Sumpthin' differ'nt, in any case.
2 - Belle2
I would get this, but without "Thank You", I'm just not sure.
3 - bobby
Here, here. Long live the music of the greatest rock band of them all, the mighty Led Zeppelin. Although I think that Zep's music is still best experienced in the context of the original brilliant albums, the Mothership collection is well worth your time because the remastering job is unprecedented on these Zep gems. I have virtually all of the Zep configurations over the years, including the 'Complete Studio Recordings' which had the best sonic quality available. Well I played the songs from Mothership side by side with the 'Complete' version of the songs, and the difference is not just instantly noticeable, but astounding. In short, get the Mothership collection to hear these Zep masterpieces as you have never heard them before!
4 - El Bicho
I agree, JC. Zep is a band like The Beatles or Van Halen (Roth), The Police where they have so many good albums I don't understand why people bother with best-ofs.
5 - al in the uk
why not release the full earls court 24.05.75 & knebworth shows 04.08.79 ? ive got soundboard cdr boots of both & they are awesome, i also attended the knebworth gig plus 2 of the 5 e.c. concerts, now those dvds would be worth buying
6 - al in the uk
actually ive listened to the 2cd mothership set albeit in mpr format & i now agree with bobby above, pagey has remastered the sound to the degree that the old songs sound so new & fresh, wow, even in supposed substandard mpr format they sparkle, id still like the classic live earls court/knebworth gigs in official dvd
7 - ryan malmsteen
led zepplin kpn manggung k'indonesia
8 - Clarence Yu
"Now that's the blues?" The truth about Zeppelin is that they stole a whole bunch of songs and positioned themselves as the writers. Never mind the screaming and the posing, I wouldn't mind if they acknowledged the original blues artists, but they didn't do this very clearly and that deceived a lot of fans in the beginning. Jimmy even ripped off Beck. They are really nothing now without Bonham. But as long as the "legend" remains, people will always be deceived. They were a great band. Were.
9 - JC Mosquito
I don't remember the context, but John Lennon once said, "The blues is a chair... we we're building our own chair." A poor excuse for appropriating writing credits (and the Beatles never did, at least not in the more blatant Zep fashion), but my understanding is that it was a fairly common occurrence back then based on a fairly common attitude about the blues. In any case, whether or not it appeals to any particular aficionado of musical furniture, Zeppelin ended up building their own version of a chair too.