By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

ROBERT PLANT – NOW AND ZEN (1988)

Yes, Yes. I know…oooh Robert Plant. Frontman for the greatest rock band ever. Sang on the greatest song ever recorded…ooh!

Okay, while the above is said with tongue-in-cheek and a heavy dose of sarcasm, there isn’t a whole lot that can be said about Robert Plant during his time with Led Zeppelin that hasn’t already been said by any number of people in the past.

But despite its success, I think Plant’s solo career, which features so many stylistic changes from album to album that you might get whiplash with each new change of direction, is still somehow underrated despite its highly successful nature as well.

And that’s what led me to writing about the fourth studio album Now and Zen this week. I just wanted to go back and check out one of his earlier albums given I hadn’t dug them out in a while.

I went with the album because it is the first one I can remember really paying attention to back in the day. While I went back and got the other earlier albums, this was the first Plant solo release that I actually bought.

The first side of the album is just four songs and two of those were among the three singles released from the album. Now and Zen opens with “Heaven Knows”, which was the first single. The song has a mid-tempo pacing that isn’t quite a full-on rocker but it does get pretty intense with all the instrumentation giving a growing intensity to the music. Plant’s vocals are pretty smoothed out here and the backing vocals on the chorus gives an extra bit of pep to the overal vocal. That guitar solo was pretty rocking (see NOTES OF INTEREST for who played the solo). From the guitar solo on the pace of the song gets more of a rocking beat and the guitar playing really kicks in full to have the song rock out through to the end.

For “Dance on My Own”, the pacing is pretty lively from the start. I love the musical score on this one and Plant seems to really be warming up to more of a rocker stance with his vocals on this one. The funny thing is that this particular song has a great hook and it left me wondering why they didn’t try to release this one as a single. I think at the time, it would’ve done pretty well for itself on the singles chart. It is probably one of my favorite Robert Plant solo tracks.

Now the second single released from the album is where I really became aware of Now and Zen. The song “Tall Cool One” just hit me like a two-by-four the first time I heard it and I was hooked into the song. You’ve got a full on hard rocking music soundtrack and Plant is REALLY rocking out with his performance on this song. It’s a flat out killer track in every respect and if I was going to be allowed to pick a setlist for a Plant solo show, this one would definitely be on it. The fact that it samples at least five Led Zeppelin songs musically and a couple of lyrical takes from the group as well might have been Plant’s beginning of NOT running away from his musical past. Just a great rocking number that features a new solo from the same special guest that played the solo on “Heaven Knows”.

The final song on Side One of the album Is “The Way I Feel”. It’s got a nice little bit of atmospheric moodiness in the musical presentation at the start. The song is quite intriguing throughout even if it is probably looked upon as an “album” track these days. Of course, that’s definitely doing a disservice to the song because there’s a lot of cool musical stuff to check out. The guitar playing is phenomenal here as it pops up and surprises you with some fleet-fingered playing in at least two spots that grab your ears.

The second side of the album opens with the song “Helen of Troy” and it has a really cool kind of epic feel to it. But the fact that instead of being a long drawn out musically dramatic score, the song has a cool hard rocking drive to it. And plenty of riffs to draw in the listener. Plant’s delivery of the lyrics is pretty cool as well.

By the way, I should point out that by now I’d realized that it had been long enough since the last time I listened to Now and Zen that songs like “Helen of Troy” had admittedly slipped a bit from my conscious memory. So I got to listen to the song almost as if I was hearing it for the first time. Which means I also got to rock out in my head because the song was so engaging. Just a straight-shooting rock and roll song!

The song “Billy’s Revenge” might’ve been done in 1988 but the intro started out and it kind of gave off a 50s rockabilly vibe for some reason. The production on the song makes sure it sounds of the decade it was actually released but the way the song was crafted musically and how it was performed vocally, it really got your foot tapping to the beat. It’s a nice way to combine two different eras and still produce one hell of a track.

The third single from the album was “Ship of Fools” which is the signature ballad track and it is astonishing to me just how damn cool it was then and how it remains so even now. The music is a bit softer in the beginning, more methodically played and feeding perfectly into the vocal performance where Plant really is delivering the goods. This one is so damn good that you’d almost think this could’ve been a Zeppelin song. When the drums kick in after the first lyrical passage, you can feel the song becoming even more dramatic. As Plant sings, “turn this boat around…”, you can just find yourself lost in the mood the song establishes. I saw one place that called “Ship of Fools” one of the best songs Plant has ever writtend and recorded and I think you’d be hard-pressed to really find any kind of flaw in the song.

The opening music for the song “Why” sounds like the intro music you might hear in one of those quintessential 80s movies that introduce some character who is going to become a hero and get the girl by the end of the 90 minute film. I know it might seem a weird connection to make with the song but that was my impression as I listened to the track in the here and now. It’s got a very upbeat and highly electric tempo so you do get a bit of a charge from the music.

The closing track from the cassette version of the album is “White, Clean and Neat”. I was never quite sure what to think about this song before now. I got curious so I used the Net to look up what the meaning of this song was supposed to be. I have no problem admitting that I didn’t get it all these years. The song itself is good with a jaunty tune and some cool guitar riffing powering the song. But the meaning of the lyrics escaped me. When I looked it up, finding out it was criticizing the difference between how celebrities lives got presented to the public and what they really were like definitely gave me a different kind of perspective on the song.

I’ve seen a quote from Robert Plant where looking back at the album, he feels some of the songs got lost in the various technologies employed to craft them. He’s of course the final arbiter of his music, but for me I really loved the Now and Zen album a lot. It’s got great songs that even more than thirty-seven years after its release still have quite the zesty vibe to them. As I listened to the album for this article, I was swept back up into what made Now and Zen such a magical experience the first time I listened to it!

NOTES OF INTEREST – The Now and Zen album peaked at #6 on the Billboard album chart and has been certified triple platinum. While the original cassette included only nine songs, the CD had the bonus song “Walking Towards Paradise”. There was a reissue in 2007 that added three live tracks as bonus cuts. By the way, I checked out “Walking Towards Paradise” and found that I really liked the way it came out. It’s got a cool rocking feel to it and as the closing song on the CD version of the album, really brought things to a different crescendo as the album finished.

Jimmy Page played the guitar solos on “Heaven Knows” and “Tall Cool One”.

I saw Robert Plant at the Providence Civic Center on the tour for Now and Zen. Sadly, I was not thrilled with the show. The volume was so loud that Plant’s vocals got buried too much in the mix. He had Cheap Trick opening up for him and they were miles away better…because you could actually understand and HEAR the vocals from Robin Zander.