If any one guitarist defined rock and roll, it was Jimmy Page.
\nWith the three other musicians that made up Led Zeppelin, Page
\nchanged the face of rock forever with his flowing, sometimes sloppy
\nleads that captured all the emotion one could pour into a Les
\nPaul.<\/p>\n
Being too young to appreciate Zeppelin during their heyday (and
\nbeing too stupid to care about them until I was 16 years old), the
\nrelease of Page’s first solo album in 1988,
\nOutrider<\/i>, was a cause for celebration. At last, Pagey could
\nshake off the ghosts of Led Zeppelin and the forced supergroup The
\nFirm, and cut loose on his own.<\/p>\n
Too bad we learned he needs that supergroup behind him most of
\nthe time for his magic to work.<\/p>\n
The album starts off fine with “Wasting My Time,” a cut that
\nthrows together power riffing and fluid solos on top of Robert
\nPlant-wannabe John Miles (who would be the touring vocalist). For
\nthe first five minutes, things looked incredibly good for Page.<\/p>\n
But things sour on the very next track, “Wanna Make Love.” The
\nbump-and-grind beat is a distraction, and the song itself never
\ntakes off into greatness. And while we’re on the subject of making
\nlove, can someone tell me why Miles and secondary lead throat Chris
\nFarlowe, on the track “Prison Blues,” continually sing about
\ngetting laid or wanting to? These guys got more action when they
\nwere 18 than I did, and they still need to whip it out and try to
\ndo the middle-aged nasty in the songs? (Line from “Prison Blues”:
\n“I got a weasel in my pocket \/ I’m gonna stick that weasel right
\ndown that little hole” – give me a fuckin’ break.)<\/p>\n
And who else drops by Mr. Page’s neighborhood but – you guessed
\nit – former Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant, on the track “The
\nOnly One” – which really isn’t a bad track. Seems like Plant came
\nby to re-pay the favor Page did for him by playing on two tracks on
\nhis 1987 album
\nNow And Zen<\/i>.<\/p>\n
It is when Page ditches the vocalists on
\nOutrider<\/i> that the album is at its best. “Writes Of Winter”
\nhas Page squeezing out licks that many critics thought he’d never
\nbe able to play again. And the track “Emerald Eyes” is one of the
\nmost beautiful songs Page has played on in a long time. It should
\nalso be noted that drummer Jason Bonham (
\nyes<\/i>, the son of deceased Zeppelin drummer John Bonham) plays
\nhis best on “Writes Of Winter,” when he’s allowed to break out
\nrhythmically. (And while his work left something to be desired, it
\nwas good to hear ex-Jethro Tull drummer Barriemore Barlow
\nagain.)<\/p>\n
Besides some weak songwriting and a mish-mash of three singers
\non one album, the only other big mistake Page makes is playing
\nsynthesized guitar – a technology Page has apparently never been
\nthrilled with – on the cut “Blues Anthem.” The lyrics here are a
\ntad corny, and should be taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n
If Page had chosen to do a mostly-instrumental album, there’s no
\ndoubt
\nOutrider<\/i> would have been a masterpiece. But the way it
\nstands, it’s only a marginal solo album that is geared for the
\ndiehard fans only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5640],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-24288","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jimmy-page","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/24288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/24288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24288"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=24288"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=24288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}