The Rewind Button: Let It Bleed

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

Rolling Stones - Let It BleedLet It Bleed Pie

Preparation time: 1 year
Cooking time: 1 month

Ingredients:

1 oz. of vanilla
3 tbsp of clove
4 cups of sugar
1 dash of cayenne pepper
5 eggs (include the yolks)
6 cups of flour
3 cups of water
2 cups of blackberries
Salt and black pepper to taste

Put the flour and eggs in a large bowl and stir it until the mixture becomes solid. Slowly, like you’re recovering from a hangover, add one cup of water and the clove to the mixture as you continue stirring. Set aside for at least 12 months. After enough time, add the other two cups of water to the mixture, along with the sugar, cayenne, vanilla, and blackberries. Mix it fast with angst and the feeling of impending old age until solid as a rock. Take the harden piece out of the bowl and place in a large pie pan like you would crawl into bed with a beautiful man or woman and put it in the oven for one month at a temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Be careful when removing it from the oven, as the pie will be hot to the touch and will burn your mouth if eaten directly from the pan. Wise cooks take the pie from the pan and leave it on a plate near an open window where the scent of blackberries and clove whoosh throughout the neighborhood, causing men and women to stop what they’re doing and follow the scent to your door like a band of merry men traversing across a great land sampling every thing they sense . Once enough people are in your house wanting a taste of the pie, slice it proportionality and serve with red wine, or if you’re in a festive mood, Champagne, because surely all this time spent making this pie warrants more than a common libation. Raise your slices and glasses to the Moon Goddess and thank her for the bountiful nourishment, and remember your belly will always fill as full as it needs to be. There should be no leftovers.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

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Posted in <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/music/" rel="category tag">music</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/rewind-button/" rel="category tag">Rewind Button</a> Tagged <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/1960s/" rel="tag">1960s</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/1969/" rel="tag">1969</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/blues/" rel="tag">blues</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/britain/" rel="tag">Britain</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/music/" rel="tag">music</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rewind-button/" rel="tag">Rewind Button</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rock/" rel="tag">rock</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rolling-stone/" rel="tag">Rolling Stone</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rolling-stones/" rel="tag">Rolling Stones</a> 1 Comment

The Rewind Button: Led Zeppelin

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

Led Zeppelin - Led ZeppelinI listen to the album first before reading anything about it. Often, I don’t even read anything about the album, because I want to experience listening to the music as someone did before the Internet made infinite knowledge available. Led Zeppelin is another album in which I don’t care to know about its production, writing, or reception. I slip on my headphones, turn the volume up 100 percent, and let the songs soak through me.

“Good Times Bad Times” and “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” are killer opening songs, with “Babe…” being one of my all-time favorite Zeppelin songs. I could listen to it on repeat forever. It’s sluggy with a streak of classical clarity guiding its melody.

Then we get to “Dazed and Confused,” and I’m reminded of Everything is a Remix, Part 1. It was through this video that I learned how much Zeppelin ripped off other artists for some of their biggest hits. Remixing other artists, appropriating their work and making it your own is a practice I’m on the fence about. Part of me wants to believe that creativity stems from true originality. The other part of me knows that nothing is really new, even if you think it is. With a song like “Dazed and Confused,” I’m in the camp of not approving its downright thievery. Go ahead and quote Eliot to me. It’s still theft. Zeppelin just didn’t remix it enough to make it their own. (By the way, “Babe…” is a cover and properly attributed as such, unlike “Dazed…”)

Moving on. “Communication Breakdown” is another all-time, original, Zeppelin favorite of mine. If I could just listen to “Good Times Bad Times,” “Babe I’m Gonna to Leave You”, and “Communication Breakdown,” I’d be totally happy with this album and rank it much higher on Rolling Stone‘s list. Adding the other songs on there weighs it down, placing it exactly where it should be on the list.

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Posted in <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/music/" rel="category tag">music</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/rewind-button/" rel="category tag">Rewind Button</a> Tagged <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/1960s/" rel="tag">1960s</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/1969/" rel="tag">1969</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/blues/" rel="tag">blues</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/heavy-metal/" rel="tag">heavy metal</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/led-zeppelin/" rel="tag">Led Zeppelin</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/music/" rel="tag">music</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rewind-button/" rel="tag">Rewind Button</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rock/" rel="tag">rock</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rolling-stone/" rel="tag">Rolling Stone</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/t-s-eliot/" rel="tag">T.S. Eliot</a> 1 Comment

The Rewind Button: Abbey Road

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them. There will be a new album and review each Thursday (or there about).

Abbey Road by The BeatlesListen, I love The Beatles. It makes me happy to see so many of their albums in the top 20 of Rolling Stone’s Top 40 albums of all time list. But being a fan of a band has its consequences. When I start to write about them, I struggle with what to say.

Because I’ve listened to their music for so long, I’ve become numb to it. No, this isn’t saying their songs don’t affect me. What I’m saying is that they’ve become so much a part of my life that I rarely give a second thought as to why I like them. It would be like me trying to go into detail why I like my right arm. I just do. It’s always been there for me. It helps me through life. Sure, I could survive without it, but having it is so much better. The end.

Stopping to consider why you like or dislike something can contribute to personal growth. But I wish you’d had asked me  20 years ago why I like Abbey Road. Then, it was more fresh on my mind. I could have told you that “You Never Give Me Your Money” is perfect until it speeds up, that by doing so it becomes a cluttered mess. I would also tell you that George Harrison pretty much owns this album with his two tracks, “Here Comes The Sun” and “Something.” I agree with Frank Sinatra’s assessment of it as “the greatest love song ever written.”

Twenty years ago I’d have more solid opinions about the rest of the album. But it’s ingrained in me now. It’s so clumped together with my being that it would be impossible to run it through a criticism sieve without destroying myself in the process.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

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Posted in <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/music/" rel="category tag">music</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/rewind-button/" rel="category tag">Rewind Button</a> Tagged <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/1960s/" rel="tag">1960s</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/1969/" rel="tag">1969</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/abbey-road/" rel="tag">Abbey Road</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/england/" rel="tag">England</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/frank-sinatra/" rel="tag">Frank Sinatra</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/music/" rel="tag">music</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rewind-button/" rel="tag">Rewind Button</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/rolling-stone/" rel="tag">Rolling Stone</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/the-beatles/" rel="tag">The Beatles</a> 2 Comments