The Year 2023 in Music

Continuing with our year in review, Matt Lynn Digital invites you to look back at the last year in reviews of books, movies, music and television. We look at these with individual categories, one per day through Sunday. Today we share music reviews offered by Matt Lynn Digital in 2023.

(Cover art for the Weathervanes album by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit).

Beginning with our most recent review with a guest review of the Weathervanes album by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, as reviewed by friend of the blog Cobra. The 2023 album presented alternative country-rock that mixed in with roots rock and southern rock to entertain their fans. Our review of the Rick Rubin book The Creative Act: A Way of Being also represented 2023 with a top notch look into how creativity works in music production and other fields as well.

(Cover art for the 2011 Tedeschi Trucks Band album Revelator).

The 2011 release of the album Revelator by the Tedeschi Trucks Band offers the first of two albums from the 2010s in our annual review. Offering a taste of American traditional rock, blues rock and roots rock from a guitar virtuoso opens an album that I can and do listen to over and over again. The 2010 A Christmas Cornucopia album by Annie Lennox also presented a more contemporary music mix.

(The biopic Walk the Line depicted aspects of the lives of Johnny Cash and June Carter).

The movie Walk the Line (2005) provided a mostly autobiographical portrayal of the musical life of country musician Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter. Music from both performers were featured throughout the movie, which offered a compelling movie experience of the respective lives of the couple up to the point of their marriage.

(Cover art for the R.L. Burnside album Mr. Wizard).

A modern sound for the delta blues comes to us with the 1997 album Mr. Wizard by R.L. Burnside. The music tends to more of a jam format than some of Burnside‘s earlier work with influences on musicians making music into the current day.

(Cover art for the Van Halen album OU812).

The 1988 album OU812 (Oh, you ate one too!) by Van Halen incorporates the most hard rock or pop metal sound for the three albums we reviewed for the 1980s. Both the 1986 album The Way It Is by Bruce Hornsby and the Range and the 1985 No Jacket Required album by Phil Collins delve more into the so-called adult contemporary genre with a focus on message and sound this still hit for a somewhat different audience.

(Cover art for the Christopher Cross album Christopher Cross).

We’ve taken the 1970s decade seriously with a review of nine separate albums. The self-titled 1979 album Christopher Cross by Christopher Cross continues the adult contemporary appeal before the 1974 soft rock appeal of the Jackson Browne album Late for the Sky. Second Helping by Lynyrd Skynyrd gave 1974 a more southern rock or boogie rock sound with their second album.

(Cover art for the Dr. John album In the Right Place).

The 1973 Dr. John funk and piano blues album In the Right Place gives way to the more progressive rock sounds of Pink Floyd‘s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon and Yes‘ 1972 album Fragile.

(Cover art for the Chuck Mangione Quartet album Alive!).

The contemporary jazz and easy listening album Alive! by Chuck Mangione Quartet from 1972 introduces the final three albums with a largely instrumental sound. The soft rock album Teaser and the Firecat by Cat Stevens stands next to the blues rock, hard rock and heavy metal sound of Led Zeppelin IV by Led Zeppelin for the music of 1971.

(Cover art for the Miles Davis album Sketches of Spain).

Jazz and rock and roll provide our 2023 soundtrack for the 1960s. Holiday music for 1968 leads us to Christmas Album by Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass. The seventh album for The Beatles gave us the rock and roll in the form of 1966’s Revolver. The John Coltrane album Giant Steps and the album Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis round out 1960 with jazz performances that warm our heart.

Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have albums that you’d like us to review, please be sure to let us know.

Matt – Friday, December 29, 2023

Led Zeppelin and the album commonly called ‘Led Zeppelin IV’

The fourth studio album by Led Zeppelin never received a proper name. The eight song album commonly called Led Zeppelin IV was released November 8th, 1971 with style labels including pop/rock, blues, album rock, arena rock, blues-rock, British blues, British metal, hard rock, heavy metal and regional blues. The core band for the album, as one would expect, included singer and harmonica player Robert Plant, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and mandolin player Jimmy Page, drummer John Bonham and bass, electric piano, mandolin, recorder and synthesizer player John Paul Jones.

(Cover art for Led Zeppelin‘s fourth studio album. The album, commonly called Led Zeppelin IV, was released November 8th, 1971).

Black Dog is named for a Labrador retriever that wandered the grounds where the song was recorded, per Songfacts as referenced here. The opening idea for the song came from John Paul Jones having “wanted to try “electric blues with a rolling bass part,” and “a riff that would be like a linear journey.”” The 1968 Muddy Waters album Electric Mud proved an inspiration for Black Dog, which charted as high as fifteenth in the United States.

(Black Dog was released as a single and charted in several countries with Misty Mountain Hop as the B-side, though the songs were not released as a single in the United Kingdom).

Ian Stewart contributed piano playing to Rock and Roll, the second song on Led Zeppelin IV. Having charted as high as forty-seventh in the United States, the drum work for this reportedly was inspired by the Little Richard song Keep a Knockin’. John Bonham had become frustrated with “a pretty much unplayable drum pattern” for the recording of Four Sticks, per this background. The inspiration from Keep a Knockin’ became part of the signature sound for Rock and Roll, whose lyrics were written by Robert Plant.

(Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin was released as a single with Four Sticks as the B-side in February 1972).

Sandy Denny contributed duet vocals on The Battle of Evermore, the third song on the Led Zeppelin IV album. Robert Plant wrote the song’s lyrics, per information found here, “after reading a book on Scottish history. The lyrics are about the everlasting battle between night and day, which can also be interpreted as the battle between good and evil.”

Per this feedback from Songfacts, “[t]he most famous rock song of all time, “Stairway To Heaven” wasn’t a chart hit because it was never released as a single to the general public. Radio stations received promotional singles which quickly became collector’s items.” To the best of my reckoning, the lyrics themselves are rather opaque. Two message are clear. The first is that material wealth makes getting to heaven challenging. The second message is that a wealthy woman got everything she wanted without giving anything back.

Misty Mountain Hop references the Misty Mountains that reportedly exist in Wales. The location itself is referenced in The Return of the King, the third book in The Lord of the Rings series of books by J.R.R. Tolkien; Robert Plant is reportedly a fan of the books. As mentioned here, the song itself “is about a “love-in” near London that was broken up by the police.” Jimmy Page wrote the song.

Four Sticks reportedly “was named because drummer John Bonham played it with four drumsticks – two in each hand.” Bonham reportedly had difficulty physically playing this song. The song “contains elements of Indian music.”

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote Going to California, reportedly “drawing inspiration from Joni Mitchell, specifically her song “California.” In the Led Zeppelin song, “the guy in the song is looking for a girl just like [Mitchell], one with “love in her eyes and flowers in her hair” who “plays guitar and cries and sings.”

Based on a 1927 Memphis Minnie song about The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 in Mound Landing, Mississippi, the Led Zeppelin song When the Levee Breaks offers a distinctively different sound to Memphis Minnie‘s When the Levee Breaks. As reported here, the Led Zeppelin song was “[h]eavily produced in the studio.” “All this studio wizardry made the song very difficult to perform live, which Led Zeppelin did only twice: once in a “warm up” gig in Denmark before their 1975 US tour, and again on their second night in Chicago.”

Matt – Wednesday, November 8, 2023