Customer Reviews

Nine Lives [Digital Version]

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This remastered career-spanning career retrospective box set is titled NINE LIVES, to coincide with the nine studio albums released by Robert Plant between the years of 1982-2005. These twenty-three years are twice as long as his tenure in Led Zeppelin, and they help the listener to imagine what could have been had John Bonham lived. One of the most tantalizing morsels of what could have been was found within the PAGE AND PLANT UNLEDDED project, which was part of the MTV Unplugged series, which took place in the mid-1990's. Plant teaming up with Jimmy Page for the album, tour, and the Clarksdale album that followed is the reason why there was a nine year gap in between 1993's FATE OF NATIONS and 2002's DREAMLAND.

Each of these nine solo albums contain either B-Sides, Live tracks, demos, remixes, or songs formerly released in special territories, such as Japan-only bonus tracks. This material had either never been released on CD before, or was difficult and expensive to obtain. The NINE LIVES box, coupled with 2005's SIXTY-SIX TO TIMBUKTU provides a veritiable smorgaborg of bonus material, over which all true long-time fans are certain to salivate.

The remastering was tasefully done, and wasn't the usual fader-pushing into the red-zone, which has a habit of abusing audiophiles and the care and expense that we have taken to assemble high-end multimedia systems right in our homes. I was very pleased to hear this, and none of the resultant over-compressed frequencies fell victim to the usual audio abuse.

THIS IS PLUS NUMBER ONE OF THIS SET!

Next, there are TWENTY-SIX bonus tracks in this complete set, and with the exception of two of the NOW & ZEN live tracks (Billy's Revenge and Tall Cool One), these are all high-quality gems. These include the hard to obtain B-Sides FAR POST and OOMPAH (WATERY BINT), and the wonderful remixes of LITTLE BY LITTLE, TIN PAN VALLEY, THE ENCHANTER, and SHINE IT ALL AROUND. For those of us who simply cannot get enough of the musicians we love and who have become such a deep part of our lives, this box set is well worth the cost, which comes out to about eight dollars a disc.

Then, after the listener has taken in all that aural greatness, there is a two and one-half hour DVD to wade through. It begins with a sixty-two minute documentary/interview with Plant and a melange of his fellow musicians, admirers, and those who have felt his influence in some way.

Finally, there are the twenty full-length music videos that have been shown on the MTV, MTV2, VH1 and VH1 Classic music channels. It is ALL here, including an excerpt of the 1990 Knebworth performance, when Robert Plant received the Nordoff-Robbins Silver Clef Award for his lifelong committment to music AND charity. Perhaps someday THAT entire performance will be released on DVD, as it features Robert's high-energy MANIC NIRVANA band, who were also responsbile for NOW & ZEN and the politically charged FATE OF NATIONS.

I highly recommend this set to anyone who loves and appreciates HIGH QUALITY music, and those who may have missed what all the fuss was about, because of their young age. This NINE LIVES set documents an important sector of music history, featuring the lead singer from the greatest band of all time, Led Zeppelin.

Rating: 100 stars (out of five)

"All I am is a singer who writes a few songs."
- Robert Plant

Yeah, Coming from the man who wrote and sang the lyrics to the #1 song on virtually every list of the all time greatest classic rock songs. (Stairway To Heaven)for those not paying attention.

After the death of John Bonham and the ending of Zeppelin, Plant hoped to establish a musical identity separate and apart from his Zep persona.

Roger Daltrey, Phil Collins, and Lenny Kravitz are some the muscians who appear in the documentary that's included in the box.

The set includes nine of Plant's solo albums. Including The "Honeydrippers, Volume 1" (an assortment made up of Plant, guitarists Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Nile Rodgers, and Keyboardist Paul Shaffer.

Each CD includes bonus tracks of live versions and unissued studio tracks. In addition to the documentary, the DVD includes 20 Plant music videos. The sound quality of the re-masters is noticable right away. The clarity is phenominal. My only complaint is with the packaging. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful box. My complaint is you can't take the cd sleeve with you. All of the sleeves are bound together in book form. So you'll need an empty case to transfer the disc to the car or wherever you take it. Other than that, it's a great set and you should feel compelled to buy it. It's worth it.

First up let's disclose something up front--if you are not a huge Plant fan and can wait for the individual releases Rhino will be putting this out sometime during March of 2007 with bonus tracks and remastered sound. So Plant's solo albums finally receive the deluxe treatment they deserve. Why get this? Because it has a terrific biography discussing Plant's career after Zep featuring interviews with Tori Amos, Roger Daltrey and many of his contemporaries discussing the highs and lows of his solo career.

If you want the DVD (which may or may not be released individually. My guess is that eventually it probably will be but not for at least a year or two to enhance the value of the box set)then this is the set to get. In addition to the documentary there are also 20 music videos included from throughout Plant's solo career.If you want all of his solo albums at a good price this is the set to get. My only complaint are the way the CDs are housed--they could easily get scratched--other than that this is nicely packaged and designed.

The individual CDs will be released in on March 7, 2006 with the same bonus tracks. While I can't say for certain it will have the liner notes included here usually Rhino will include a portion of them relevent to the album (as they did with the Doobies boxed set among others).

My advice--unless you must have everything NOW wait until they release the albums individually particularly if you don't care for all of Plant's solo albums. Personally even the worst of them for me always had something worthwhile on them. Plant never gave up on searching and trying on different musical styles to continue to grow without losing the essence of who he is. You should be aware, however, that nothing from the Page/Plant albums are included here.

Robert Plant's solo career has been as interesting as one can imagine. From trying on the minimalist arrangements on "The Principle of Moments" to the larger than life production (and sampling of LedZep classics)on "Now and Zen" Plant has been willing to experiment and try out new musical styles without sacrificing the quality songwriting that made his work with LZ so worthwhile. This collection has all of his solo albums with bonus tracks many of which would have been good enough to be included on the original albums. While not every album Plant recorded solo was a gem all of them have moments that are worthwhile (hence the 4 stars).

This is a worthwhile set for fans of Plant's solo career. While not all of his solo albums were great there was enough outstanding material to make this set worthwhile. Unlike most sets this doesn't take highlights from each album and package them with rarities but instead gives you the WHOLE album plus the rarities making it a cut above most anthologies released (which I usually end up selling because I end up picking up the individual releases instead).

This was a bargain because I owned only 4 of the 9. Also there's the dvd that's not sold seperately. BUT..... THE reason I bought the set was for the REMASTERING. Unfortunately, the difference is NOMINAL. There are however enough unreleased or unavailable in the U.S. tracks to make up a cd of their own, plus there's lots of good live tracks and at least 1 enjoyable remix. The packaging looks great and is original, but it's also very cumbersome putting a disk back in it's sleeve. The sleeves are bound in book form, but the style of binding keeps the front pages from staying out of the way when you access the rear sleeves. You almost need one hand to hold the top pages back, one to spread the carboard sleeve open so it doesn't scratch the disk, and a third hand to put in/take out the disk. The best thing for me has been discovering everything released after Manic Nirvana. It's possible Mighty Rearranger could become my favorite Plant cd. So....... Pros: Fair price, great music, nice extras, sounds a little better than the original releases, VERY attractive and high quality packaging. (The guy that wrote the booklet was a bit gushing, but nearly all of these retrospectives have the same "feature". I remember after reading the booklet in The Babys anthology, I nearly believed they were the biggest band in the world.) Cons: Only a LITTLE better sounding than the original releases, inconvenient packaging.

Long an enthusiastic fan of both Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant's solo work (and an owner of all the CDs), this collection is more than worthwhile for a true fan with all Plant's solo work remastered ("Pictures at Eleven" and "The Principle of Moments" particularly benefit), over 20 live/remix/B-side never-before-released goodies (check out "Far Post," a fantastic song I hadn't heard in over 20 years!), the hour-long documentary, and all his videos, including "Big Log," "Calling to You," and "I Believe." This box set of Plant's solo work reaffirms his versatility and musical/lyrical acuity. The photos/liner notes, well-written essay, and beautiful packaging are icing on the cake. If you love Robert Plant, this collection will make you positively giddy. It has made me ecstatic. Best $80 spent in a long, long time.

This is a box set of Robert Plant's first nine solo releases (he includes in this the Honeydrippers release, although it's not really solo Plant), as well as a DVD documentary that includes also his promotional videos. The design of the set is unique, with the nine CDs and one DVD fitting into little sleeves, with a 60-page booklet sliding in and out of its own sleeve. Nice.

The presentation of the set is absolutely beautiful, with haunting "Ship of Fools" artwork on the cover, the back cover, the inside pages and all throughout the booklet. It was done by Grahame Baker-Smith, the same person who did the work on Mighty ReArranger, the ninth of the nine lives, and Plant's most recent album at the time of the 2006 box set (he's had two since - Raising Sand with Alison Krauss in 2007, and Band of Joy in 2010). For the first 12 pages of the booklet, we only get pictures of Plant (nice one of him wearing a Jimmy Page t-shirt, another one of him playing an acoustic guitar), but eventually other band members drift in. The highly flattering essay eventually drifts into case studies for each album, some of which include conceptual album cover art (Honeydrippers Volume 1, Now and Zen, Mighty Rearranger) that was never used, and descriptions of what sets that release apart from the other career work that Plant's done; the purple prose notes that Plant outdoes himself with each release (ho hum). There's a nice set of pictures of Plant and his band around each album section, like a picture of him rocking out with the Stray Cats in 1985, pictures of him in concert, pictures of him on the sets of his videos, Plant wandering the deserts of the world, the covers of some of the singles, a picture of Plant at a bar juggling six lemons (!!!), and a random concert poster of a 2003 gig in Belorussia. One anomaly, however, is the Fate of Nations chapter, which only shows pictures of Plant.

"Pictures at Eleven" (1982) - Robert Plant's first solo LP, this is the one that put the pressure on the man to come up with something worthy of his Led Zeppelin material (and something that neither Jimmy Page or John Paul Jones has done). Very ballsy, but of course he pulls it off, probably because he had a crack band that included Robbie Blunt on guitar and Phil Collins on drums (Collins not only recorded on Plant's first two albums, but he also toured with him on his second tour - wasn't he doing anything else from 1981-1983? ...actually, he released a solo album in 1981, "Face Value" and also "Genesis" with his band, and in 1983 there was "Abacab". Did the man never sleep?). The album has three two songs that were played on the radio at the time, "Pledge Pin" and the album opener "Burning Down One Side", which is a rocker with a nice solo. "Midnight in Samosa" is Spanish-themed and a pretty funky little number with great moods. "Pledge Pin" rocks in a sort of simple new wave way and is not over-produced, just a solid straight track. There's a cool sax solo and some spooky keyboard outro parts that the sax plays over, something new for Robert Plant (but also very early-80s). "Slow Dancer" is a spooky bluesy haunter with a wailing Robert Plant going crazy and some middle eastern strings. In the middle, after the brilliant solo, there's this weird keyboard moment, and some chanting (!?!), then another brilliant solo. Maybe the best song on the album, and very Led Zeppelin/Kashmir grandiose (drummer on this song is Cozy Powell, not Phil Collins). "Worse Than Detroit" has boring lyrics from Robert Plant, but good band jamming on chilled out guitar and some great harmonica and slide guitar. "Fat Lip" is a light, groovy little rocker. "Like I've Never Been Gone" is a great haunting song that is initially dominated by Plant's voice. Cozy Powell is also the drummer on this track (although Collins plays on the excellent live version from the 1983 "Principle of Moments" tour). Great little solo there. "Mystery Title" is a rocker with wailing vocals and a bit of jazz aside and some screaming guitar freakout at the end, while "Far Post" is a bit of a jaunty, poppy rocker. "Far Post" is the B-side from the UK "Burning Down One Side" single release, which was, like the album and all of its singles, released on Swan Song records, one of its last before it folded in 1983 (I guess "Pictures at Eleven" was Swan Song's swan song).

"The Principle of Moments" (1983) - The second album starts off with "Other Arms", a fast number that is pretty groovy, but not too exciting. Better, in some ways is "In The Mood", a trippy, dreamy number that is good fun and has a wild little solo. Unfortunately, the fun is put off a little by the dated breakdancing and other nonsense from the accompanying video, but that's probably besides the point - it's a great song. "Messin' With The Mekon" is a bit of a boring number with weird timings, and a "Phil Collins roll" at the beginning that sounds like it was lifted from "Sussudio". "Wreckless Love" is a righteous rocker that steamrolls with compelling might and some wild middle eastern sounds (and some cheezy keyboard blasts and electric drumming). "Horizontal Departure" is tight and punky, while "Stranger Here... Than Over There" is weird and moody like a Cure song and there are amorphous lyrics and bizarre keyboard blasts, it sounds like a B-side. Curiously, this oddity comes just before "Big Log", the last song on the album and probably one of the best things that Robert Plant has ever recorded solo (and maybe better than plenty of Led Zeppelin tracks). No problems here about the imagery from the video marring appreciation of the song - it's a great video. No need to say much about this masterpiece, everybody's probably heard it. I only wish that the distracting programmed clap beat were a little lower in the mix. But what a song, what guitar, what singing!

The bonus tracks are good. The live version of "In The Mood" is okay; better is an 11:11 version of "Through With The Two Step", a song that (like the shorter regular release version) starts off very slow, with cheezy keyboard, and promises to be very boring, but before too long begins to blaze with a really amazing moody guitar solo at mid-song that sort of lingers on and on and on; there's another verse, and then another blazing solo, with vocal groundout. Great! The penultimate track is a cover of Bob Marley's "Lively Up Yourself", which is good fun, although the boys never really pull off a true reggae feel. Maybe they were never trying to. I don't know how many covers Plant played in those early days, but this is an early example of what became a habit of his - he has since released two covers albums (Honeydrippers and Dreamland - Band of Joy has quite a few covers on it too). "Turnaround" is an unreleased song, it's a funky cool number with nice slide guitar and a bit of a funk feel. No idea why it was rejected for the release, it's certainly tons better than "Stranger Here... Than Over There".

"The Honeydrippers (Volume One)" (1984) - A mega project that Robert Plant had been trying to put together since even before his first solo album, "Picures At Eleven", the Honeydrippers assembles Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Nile Rogers on guitar, and Paul Schaffer on piano. But it is very much Plant's project, along with Atlantic chairman Ahmut Ertegun who is billed as the producer "Nutegre" (Ertegun backwards). "I Get A Thrill" has great Plant vocals and doo-wop backup singing, and a blistering little guitar solo from Jimmy Page. "Sea of Love" is, of course, well known and syrupy smooth with a nice Jimmy Page solo. "I Got A Woman" is a Ray Charles song and comes off as very Elvis-y, and has a sax solo and a bit of Jeff Beck's backing guitar (no solo). "Young Boy Blues" is a lot like "Sea of Love" with its syrupy vocals and the soaring strings, but this song has no guitar solo. "Rockin' at Midnight" is a very horn-y song that is supposed to have a bit of Jeff Beck too, but you can hardly hear anything below the horns - no, wait, there's a Jeff Beck mini-solo. The release also has a bootlegged recording of "Rockin' at Midnight" done one year after it was released, with a full horn section and plenty of horn solos. Great!

"Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985) - This was the final release of the original Robert Plant solo band with Robbie Blunt and the others (Ritchie Hayward of Little Feat replaced Phil Collins on drums). It's very experimental, with lots of synthesizer and synthesized guitars (ugh... why would you do such a thing to a guitar?), as well as strong backing vocals from Toni Halliday. The album is called avant garde in the liner notes, but it's not really that. Opener "Hip To Hoo" is all over the place, with light guitars, funky bass, some jazzy bits, keyboards all over the place, female accompaniment as well as backup singers blurting out "cheap, cheap." "Kallalou Kallalou" starts off with busy keyboards, and then moves into a funky/choppy/angular rocker a la something from Led Zeppelin's "Presence" (but with backing vocals). The solo is damn funky, too bad the backing track is so busy. "Too Loud" is very synthy and new wave, with tons of wanky keyboard bleats, odd breaks and jarring synth blasts. "Rings on your fingers, bells on your toes", I've heard that lyric somewhere before... Plant raps! Then there's some gay Spanish man talking over the track - brutal. Probably Plant's worst song so far (or ever - the man doesn't really put out bad music), it's hard to grasp that this song was actually selected as a single! "Talk to me Victor, talk to me Victor," Plant says at the end of the other guy's monologue. Huh? "Trouble Your Money" is a better, with cool vibes and guitar shades, tappity percussion, and a chilled-out vibe. "Pink and Black" is pretty standard rock 'n' roll, moving along with a busy beat that is more bass and drums than guitar, and Plant howls and yelps about love. "Little By Little" tries to be this album's "Big Log," but suffers from being a bit too keyboard-heavy. Nonetheless, it's a pretty nice song, and the disc includes a remix that adds about half a minute to its 4:46 running time. Nice bridge in the middle - a whole song based on that riff (which reappears at the closeout, along with some cool guitar and vocal wailing) would have been splendid. "Doo Doo A Do Do" is not a song about poo poo, but it's full of nonsensical/smutty lyrics like "Nobody can do the jerk, like you do/Oh, no no no, come on, dance in the dark." Go, Robert, go! The song has a good bass- and keyboard-driven beat, and lots of moaning and groaning and 'oh yeah' and 'oh no no no' and all sorts of other preening and posing. The the background singers come in with their "Shoop shopp, sha-la-la-las." Crazy. "Easily Lead" (yes, that'd not a typo, it's "lead", as in the lead of a pencil, or "lead," which rhymes with "need"; it's not "led", as in "Led Zeppelin", which rhymes with "deadhead") doesn't seem to be about Led Zeppelin at all, and the typo must be a deliberate dodge, because it's actually about a woman who's "so professional". The song is fast and rockin' without any annoying production elements - except maybe some powerful keyboards - but some pretty funky bass, and a nice lead-out solo. "Sixes and Sevens" has a very synthesized guitar feel to it and is very dated in parts.

Now and Zen (1988) - When I was listening to Robert Plant today, my son noticed this title - "Hey, 'Now and Zen'!" he said to me, ha ha - the boy's name is Zen, which is why he'd take note. Here Plant records with a new bunch of musicians from his first three solo releases, "Pictures At Eleven, "Principle Of Moments" and "Shaken 'n' Stirred"; his primary songwriter is now band keyboardist Phil Johnstone. In fact, Johnstone and engineer Dave Barrett co-wrote the opening track, "Heaven Knows", the first time so far that Plant hasn't had a hand in writing one of his band's original numbers. That song is quite majestic, although some of the lyrics are questionable ("You were pumping iron while I was pumping irony". It is also sprinkled with great Jimmy Page guitar parts and has a furious original Page solo as well. Great! "Dance on my Own" is synth pop with groovy guitar bits and an addictive chorus. "Tall Cool One", the well-known song with its melange of Led Zeppelin songs distraction in the middle, is serious fun, and totally whacked out. Not only are the lyrics pretty cool "Lighten up, baby, I'm in love with you", but it's got Jimmy Page playing guitar throughout (an improvement from their last joint ventures, "I Get A Thrill" and "Sea Of Love"), as well as samples from old Led Zeppelin songs. It's a modern masterpiece. "The Way I Feel" is a moody rocker that's a bit jangly, nice song. "Helen of Troy" is great guitar-based rock 'n' roll with cool riffs, while "Billy's Revenge" has elements of doo-wop and Link Wray at the same time, with a nasty old guitar riff blasting away - magic. "Ship of Fools", meanwhile, tries to recapture the mood and majesty of "Big Log" with a pretty riff and some nice singing, but the big drum roll in the middle that moves it into second gear kind of breaks the spell. "Why" is a chunky new age song with sexy backup singers (one of whom was Kirsty MacColl!) and their "oh-oh-oh". "White, Clean and Neat" is a slow song with a groovy guitar riff and finger snaps, and it's about a young man discovering the blues. In a keyboard-driven outro, strange, haunting speech samples fill out the end of the song and add to the mystery. It's a tall, cool tune. "Walking Towards Paradise", by one J Williams (who I can't seem to find out much about) is a slack pop song. The disc comes with three bonus songs, a blistering live version of "Billy's Revenge" (it should be a blistering version - it's a blistering song), a very long version of "Ship of Fools" (way too long, actually), and "Tall Cool One" (boogie! boogie!! and included are some bits that weren't in the album version!!); these live tracks were all lifted from "bootlegs" recorded in the 1990s, according to the liner notes.

It's funny - at the time, I thought that "Now And Zen" was a great album, but now I see it as practically his creative nadir - as good as it is, each of the releases that follow this one exceeds it, and they seem to progressively improve on their predecessors as well.

"Manic Nirvana" (1990) - A real rock 'n' roll album, with few of the arty and keyboard-driven flourishes of the previous two; the production also seems less dates and more hard-driven. Opening track "Hurting Kind (I've Got My Eyes On You)" could be Zep-like, except maybe for the backing vocals (need to make it different somehow). "Big Love" starts out with big drums, then big organs, then big voice, but it still has a bit of a doo-wop feel to it somehow, and a big ole chorus with lots of hollerin'. It's BIG! "S S S & Q" blazes with a rockin' blues blaze and slide (stellar), it's a horny love song. The chorus "Here comes the rain again" sounds a bit like a ripoff of someone else's song, but that's okay - it rocks in ways that the cool and collected "Here Comes The Rain Again" by the Eurythmics just didn't. "I Cried" is a very soft, sad song, led by acoustic guitars and thumping percussion. "She Said" is sort of a squawking rocker that blazes after the softness of "I Cried," while "Nirvana" is a nutty rocker with jangly INXS "New Sensation"-style guitars, and a cool (ironic?) chorus of "Nir-VA-naaaa." "Tie Die On The Highway" is a cool trip-hop-ish rocker that starts out with a quote from Wavy Gravy at Woodstock, "Good morning. What we have in mind was breakfast in bed for 400,000" and some spooky organs that jumps into a great riff. It blazes! Oddly, Plant's normally-strong vocals are a bit outclassed by the band here - if that's possible - and the production, which is great fun. The song has a great harmonica solo, with some techno wave, another Woodstock sample ("We must be in Heaven, man..."). More blaze, great song. "Your Ma Said You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night" is a funky dirge, with lots of 'na na na na na' and Plant parsing his own "Black Dog." Cool drum stomp. "Anniversary" is a spooky keyboard-driven dirge that picks up with scary drum beats, building up to something ominous... like a cool guitar solo. "Anniversary" is a short acoustic and vocal ditty, probably the first such a simple arrangement on a Robert Plant solo album so far (he had many more - most of "Raising Sand" is simple arrangements). "Watching You" starts off with a heavy percussion-led stomp, then gets into other cool moods - keyboards, shimmering guitar - and then Robert Plant's majestic voice. The song includes voices from Siddi Makain Mushkin and some heavenly Robert Plant wailing. Stellar. Wow! "Oompa (Watery Bint)" is a cool, lite number with a funky keyboard sound and some googly guitar spritzes to keep things groovy, it's a very dramatic, humorous number with a glorious keyboard break in the middle. Great fun! "One Love" is a boppy number with very nice guitar grooves and some tribal rock 'n' roll drumming mood that evokes Buddy Holly. "Don't Look Back" is part popper, part call-and-response from the band. Good fun, great vibes, fantastic album - wish there was more Manic Nirvana!

"Fate of Nations" (1993) - Robert Plant's last album for nearly a decade starts off with "Calling To You", noisy and hot and bothered, an orgy of really cool noise with a very tight band really unfolding, from the spooky glistening shades at the beginning to the crazy Nigel Kennedy fiddlework at the end. Rob really cuts loose too, one of his best solo songs. The album is a very British affair, with all sorts of traditional English sounds and musicians. "Down To The Sea" starts off with some keyboard, some tabla, then some cool guitar, Plant's voice, and the song soars over and upward. "Come Into My Life" is a great soldiering song that includes background vocals from Maire Brennan of Clanaad and guitar from Richard Thompson - nothing sounds quite like that guitar. Lots of different sounds coming through here. The album loses momentum with "I Believe", which sounds very much like a mid-80s super-produced pop song (coming out well after the end of that era, even - what's up with that?). Even worse is "29 Palms", which is not only poppy, but also more than just a bit kitschy. Things get back on track with "Memory Song (Hello Hello)", which starts off with some cool Eastern-influenced guitar, a scary bass sound, and some real Plant crooning. Somewhere in the middle there's something in a major key, but then Plant gets back to full-throated yells, and the blues guitar comes back in. Wilderness. "If I Were A Carpenter" is a straight-forward acoustic cover of the Tim Hardin song, with strings too, of course (and sitar!). It sounds great. "Promised Land" is totally nutso - it sounds like it has big fat Jimmy Page guitars on it, and some great tribal percussion and wailing blues harp. "The Greatest Gift" starts off moody like a Sade song, and then continues on like a moody Sade song. Very nice. "Great Spirit" is sung in falsetto and is almost like smooth R&B, sorta, but is still a very nice song, still full of Led Zeppelin puns ("the accident remains the same"). There's also a great Mississippi blues version of this song with Rainer Ptacek as one of the extras. "Network News" is an impossibly funky guitar rocker that just zooms on and on, spliced occasionally with background vocals, then wild Indian instruments and an "electric orchestra", whatever that is. Crazy crunchy guitar sounds coming out of this song. "Colours of a Shade" is a very Gaellic song, probably the most Gaellic offering from Plant since the "Battle Of Evermore" on Led Zeppelin IV. "Roller Coaster", an unreleased demo, also has a sort of upbeat smooth Sade feel to it, "a roller coaster in my heart". "8:05" is a sappy old country standard originally written by Moby Grape (Plant loves Moby Grape, not to mention its misguided genius Skip Spence), played solo acoustic with Cutting Crew's Kevin Scott McMichael providing backing vocals, it sounds great. "Dark Moon" is a spooky old blues song that Plant sings, accompanied by swampy steel guitar from Rainer Ptacek.

At 16 tracks, four of them bonus tracks, and over 78 minutes of music, this is probably the most generous release on "Nine Lives" - it's full of great songs and lots of bonuses.

"Dreamland" (2002) - After a nine-year hiatus, where he put out two albums with Jimmy Page ("No Quarter" and "Walking Into Clarksdale", which mainly presented both Led Zeppelin versions, but also had some new songs on the latter), Robert Plant came back with a new album, filled mostly with covers (and two originals). Listening to the album is huge fun, because it encourages me to investigate the originals (and even some famous covers by other artists, like Nazareth's version of Bonnie Dobson's "Morning Dew"), some of which I'd not been familiar with before this. It's also probably his best solo album, and it debuts a new band, The Strange Sensation, which among its many multi-instrumentalists includes members of Portishead and the Cure. Plant recorded with them on Dreamland, and co-billed with them on its followup Mighty ReArranger. The album starts with a huge bang with "Funny in my Mind (I Believe I'm Fixin' to Die)", a Bukka White song to which the band added its names to the song credits due to the the extreme revisions they put the song through (kind of like what Led Zeppelin did on their first album, actually). It's no longer this, but it's this. It starts off with a droning Middle Eastern keyboard instrument, then great thundering bass and frantic drumming, and then Plant's sandy voice. The song later freaks out with some fantastic wah guitar. Bukka White this ain't! "Morning Dew", a post-apocalyptic folk song written by Canadian singer Bonnie Dobson in 1962 and covered by many famous artists, is pretty mellow, has strings, and no unusual flourishes, other than a really cool swaying guitar "solo". Here's the original, and the AMAZING Nazareth version. "One More Cup of Coffee" is a Dylan cover, probably one of the first ever by either Plant or anybody else from Led Zeppelin, it's a great song. Chilling how he shouts "to the valley below." The song will haunt you. "The Last Time I Saw Her" is an original composition with Plant and all band members credited, it's so-so, and very much about wah effects. A short remix (trims over a minute from the song), spruces it up with some techno flourishes, and some groovy female vocals ('da da da, da-da da da da' and 'c'mon c'mon!'). There's even a magnificent new slide guitar solo thrown in, while the moody wah-based solo of the original is put aside. It works. "Song to the Siren" is a beautiful, faithful-to-the-original acoustic cover of the Tim Buckley song that also has some sweeping orchestral keyboards to prop it up. The masterpiece of the album is probably "Win My Train Fare Home (If I Ever Get Lucky)", an original song by Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation that "contains elements of "If I Ever Get Lucky" (Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup), "Milk Cow's Calf Blues" (Robert Johnson), "Crawlin' King Snake" by John Lee Hooker, and "That's Alright Mama" (Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup" again). The song is swampy and boils along with Plant's moan, some percussion, and some eery (and eerily Middle Eastern-sounding) blues guitar. A stunner. Apparently, Plant and Justin Adams sang a killer version of it live at the Festival in the Desert in Mali that can be heard on another compilation album, "Sixty Six to Timbuktu", which has album releases on one disc and unreleased tracks from 1966 (Band of Joy era, pre-Led Zeppelin) to 2003. The most obvious borrowings are from "If I Ever Get Lucky" and "Crawlin' King Snake", with "lucky" and "crawl" oft-repeated words in the song. I can't really hear "Milk Cow's Calf Blues" or "That's Alright Mama" (except for a snatch of lyrics). The song starts off spooky and swampy, like The Doors' "The End", then builds into some cool jammin'. "Darkness, Darkness" by Jesse Colin Young is another spooky, swampy number, starting off with Plant's voice and gurgling organ, before "hitting it" with guitar cords and drums, eventually crescendoing in a full-on guitar solo. Great keyboard sounds, great guitar sounds, and Plant's voice is in fine form, the song ends with a total grunge-out. Stunning. "Red Dress" is a band song, and it's a bit of a jam, with wailing Plant vocals, some guitar and blues harp jamming, but is nothing special. Next up is a swampy, spooky version of "Hey Joe" (nearly every other song on this recording is swampy and spooky) that builds and builds with strange pluckings, electronic mood sounds, and spasms of guitar squeal a la Grinderman. After some buildup, the band launches into a phrase of the Jimi Hendrix version of the great song (there are few similarities besides this one - the pace, and even the lyrics, are different), before building up into a great deal of feedback and guitar squeal feedback, with the band just going nuts on drum and percussion, the song quietens down. This happens once in the middle of the song, and once at the end. Magic. "Skip's Song" has a very Led Zeppelin feel to it, as heard in the keyboard wander/guitar blast of "Thank You," right down to a section that reminds you of the "little drops of rain" bridge. Close your eyes and it's Led Zeppelin II time again, at least until the female vocals come in. It's by Skip Spence, the Windsor, Ontario musician who was a co-founder of Moby Grape and who played in Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service (!!). Original song "Dirt in a Hole", a bonus track, is fast-moving and bluesy.

"Mighty ReArranger" (2005) - By "Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation", and the first time in his 25-year solo career that Plant has had his name on an album cover next to his band's and co-songwriters' (he would repeat the faour on his next album, "Raising Sand", with Alison Krauss, before returning to form with "Band of Joy" in 2010, which is credited on the cover to Robert Plant only). Interestingly, conceptual artwork included in the "Nine Lives" box shows that at one point there was no "and the Strange Sensation" on the cover. According to the "Nine Lives" booklet, Plant turned down an invitation to attend the Grammy Awards to receive a special prize because he was putting this album together. Opening track "Another Tribe" is pounding in its use of percussion, but is otherwise sweet and pure and lacks the edge of most of the songs on previous release "Dreamland", which came after a nine-year absence from a solo career. "Mighty ReArranger" only comes three years after its predecessor, and it has on it some funky techno sounds along with the acoustic strumming, the Arabian strings and the world music percussion. "Shine It All Around" is kind of trip-hoppy, with sledgy beats, and a great blasting, soaring chorus that sounds nearly Soundgarden-ish (weird that Plant would sound like Chris Cornell, who has built a career out of emulating Plant; or is he being playful here? Blame the producer, I say...). The sarcastic "Freedom Fries" is a groovy number that quotes "American Pie" ("The Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast") and name-drops "Raising Sand", the title of his next album... and then goes into some groovy guitar boogie. "Tin Pan Valley" starts off with some cool electronics, percussion, and Plant's voice, then jumps into some crunchy guitars and hollering. Night and day - great! "All The King's Horses" is a sweet acoustic number laced with a touch of moody electronics. "The Enchanter" starts off swampy, with a groovy blues bass and guitar grindout, but then gets busy with some techno flourishes and guitar squeals, very trippy. Some very nice electronic sounds at the end of the song, to take it into "Takamba", a rockin' political number that talks about UK being the 52nd state. Whatever. It's still a righteous blues-based blaster with great droning vocal delivery. Plenty of whipping guitar duels at the end of the song and fiery yelps from Mr Plant himself. "Dancing in Heaven" is a pretty standard popper, while "Somebody Knocking" is more Middle Eastern and Led Zeppelin, like maybe "Celebration Day", with somewhat aimless jamming and big moody backgrounds, fat ringing chords and all sorts of flavours and colours. "Let The Four Winds Blow" is a bit of a rockin' boogie number with mood and attitude, very happy to know this song - beautiful. "Mighty ReArranger" is a big, funky boogie with monk-like background vocals and mouth harp, then smashing boogie tile. "Brother Ray" is about the passing of Ray Charles (not a companion piece to "Sister Ray", but I think there might be a reference here - I wonder if Plant and Reed get along...), and it's a fragment of a longer blues jam. It's also the last song on the album proper, but here is still followed by five bonus tracks. "Red White and Blue" is a country song masked in the blues, that somehow also has similar "Celebration Day" colours. "All of the Money in the World" is a pretty boring pop song. "Shine It All Around (Girls Remix)" is a bit of Plant techno, that builds up with beats, has some Plant wails, has some vocorder voices, goofy keyboard, and snazzy drum samples. Good fun - sounds better than it sounds (?!?). It is a bit repetitive, and you do get the feeling that maybe the DJ cut and pasted the first half of the song onto the end in order to double the length (do DJs get paid by the beat?). "Tin Pan Valley (Girls Remix)" has the cliched flourishes of a techno track, but it also has a fun break beat that just goes on and on, and there's a bit more of Plant's whispy vocals to drive it along. The song builds up to a crunch-out, and Plant's vocals are shattered and spliced and thrown into the technoblender. "The Enchanter (Unkle Reconstruction Remix)" is a pretty conventional remix, meaning that it retains a lot of the original song, mainly adding busy beats, then zooming it along into the rest of this funky song.

Bonus DVD - A crafted and produced docu-interview that covers the years of these nine CDs accompanies the set. It's not great, as it mainly highlights how boring Robert Plant is as a person/interviewee (although there are moments of crafty/arty brilliance nonetheless). And in some ways, the guest interviewees balance Plant a lot, giving a lot of character (Lenny Kravitz, John McEnroe) where Plant lacks. "It's a very unusual marriage and relationship between the nine albums," he says, blandly. But then Lenny Kravitz talks about hearing "Black Dog" the first time he smoked pot, which changed the direction of his life. Phil Collins, no great flame as an interviewee, nonetheless talks about the days drumming for Plant's first solo albums, it's a cool little slice of history. Then Tori Amos, who I think was one of Plant's lovers, talks about the man. "When I heard the men at the church saying that Led Zeppelin was bringing the devil to their daughters, I thought 'oh, yippee - finally!'" Roy Harper, lookin' cool, talks about how he saw Plant walking around followed by five women. Roger Daltry notes that "Robert was a tower or rock 'n' roll passion, sensuality an sexual energy." Plant talks about how it was disconcerting to be solo, because at age 32 he had to learn a new role, lost his friends, had no instructions for the future. Talked about getting the band together again. Ahmet Ertegun, sounding shaky, also gave his recount of those days (Ertegun died on December 14th 2006 at age 83 after sustaining a head injury; this prompted a Led Zeppelin concert reunion on December 10th, 2007). Phil Collins, a force of energy, creativity and professionalism, helped launch his first solo album. Phil got excited and tearful. Dubious videos, like "In The Mood" are still good fun. John McEnroe talks about cliches on fighting with umpires, playing "Stairway to Heaven." Nudie suit. "The good news is that people will remember you for the rest of your life; the bad news is that you have to live up to yourself." Plant wept at his first solo gig in Peoria when he saw the crowd eruption. He begins one of his stories as "one night in a sex club in Tokyo..." with Ahmed Ertagun. Tori Amos sounds so stoned... About "Tie Die On The Highway": "I don't know about the summer of love, but I know that the year after I finally found a tribe to belong to. They were turning the world upside down." Tori Amos: "Watching Robert Plant perform made me re-think how to be a woman. Because there's a real femininity with the hammer of Thor in him. There's this duality he possesses. At a time that women in music were circumcisin

I just took delivery of this set. I know the catalogue well so I knew what I was getting. The sound is terrific.

Rhino needs to give their heads a shake in box set design. Every single disc has scuff marks. I was very careful to remove the discs and put plastic sleeves in each slot so the discs will slip in and out easily. The scuffing is a result of the discs being housed in hard cardboard sleeves with no protection. Although this has been brought to their attention time and time again, they continue to do this sort of thing ie 'Where the Action Is: the L.A. Nuggets'

This sounds superb and the bonus tracks are largely excellent. The packaging is great and user friendly. The only disappointment is the book which while OK is overly reflective, even for a retrospective such as this. Box sets like everything else come in a variety of types from great to poor, this one is great, get it!

This is an excellent way to grab all of Robert Plants releases in one go at a very fair price.
There is an omission that I have on an old In The Mood 12" single. That being "Pledge Pin Live in Dallas" with Phil Collins on drums! Why is this not included?

If you are a real Robert Plant fan you should already have this box set but if you don't have it, get it RIGHT AWAY! It is so worth it, EVERY CD is amazing and some of the songs I never heard before are so exceptional you just cannot miss them. The way he can combine, rock with Moroccan, African and Indian influences is just genius. One Song on Principle of Moments called "Wreckless Love" combines all of the above along with a Tango beat! It's orgasmic! Can't say enough good things about his music. Well worth the money. Plus you also get a beautiful book that contains some amazing photos of Robert and a live DVD. Just perfect!