Led Zeppelin - D'yer Maker

I pre-ordered the 2-cd edition, but meanwhile I managed to download a 320 kbps mp3. When compared to the cd rip of my old HOTH, I found little to no difference. Not that the album needed too many adjustments, in my opinion, but finding that the "annoying" dropout at the beginning of "Dancing Days" could not be fixed was a letdown. I guess is beyond repair.

 

The new HOTH isn't as much a revelation as the first couple but it is more powerful and sonically detailed, especially Plant's vocals. Interestingly only "Dyer Maker" doesn't have an alternate version or mix. Perhaps a sign Zep considered it a bit of a goof?

 

You aren't suggesting that Page plagiarized this, are you??? Jimmy wouldn't do that not a bit, unless it was the blues ....

 

I don't think there's that much depth in it. They saw parallels between that joke and blues lyrics, and then they went for a reggae style because Jamaica is where the woman goes in the joke. Jokes like this are hardly a British thing, they are present in plenty of bad US sitcoms too.

As Led Zeppelin's genre experiments go I definitely feel this song is better than The Crunge and Fool In The Rain.

Could have been. Thanks for sharing, I hadn't heard it before.

 

Someone's already fixed it, taking the un-scrunched start from the companion version. Sounds great!

 

But they didn't fix the original mix. It's true, the alternate mix sounds great.

 

I meant they spliced the first second or so from the alt mix onto the original mix.

Sure, the original mix sounds un-fixable...but if it had been fixed on the new release, people would probably bitch about it. I know I would!

 

You are correct: Houses of the Holy is far and away the best Led Zeppelen record.

And as an American, I will always say Dyer Maker - phonetically.

 

I never liked the song and my respect for Led Zepplin always went down a notch when Robert Plant would cackle in interviews about how clueless Americans were for not understanding that D'yer Maker would be pronounced "jermaker" --- as in Jamaica.

So we're not well-versed in the nuances of English accents and vernacular, or the bizarre spelling thereof. It's a perfect example of 2-dimensional canned humor... something the English inexplicably pride themselves on.

 

It's true! With these classic albums, you can't even correct sonic errors without enraging some fans

 

I agree. "D'yer Mak'r" and "The Crunge" seem to me to be less about "diversity" and more just a couple of lame tracks. The Rover and Houses Of The Holy would have made it a much stronger album.

 

The story at the time was that when The Osmonds released "Crazy Horses", they claimed that they could be as heavy as Led Zeppelin if they wanted. So when Led Zep released "D'Yer Maker", Jimmy Page claimed that they could be as bubblegum as The Osmonds if they wanted.

 

I'm still enraged that EMI took out the "CLICK" when John Lennon changed his pickup selector in the 2009 remaster of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". God forbid if they were to remove the drum pedal squeaks from "Since I've Been Loving You"!

 

See also:

 

Love those squeaks! When I was ten or eleven I hated that noise coming from my drum kit, I thought it was something that could not happen to real bands, but I was wrong.

 

or the drop out in Day Tripper! sacrilege!

 

Agreed. This song is a LEVEL TEN CODE RED (shared only with Journey songs), meaning it's an automatic dive and kill toward any sound system playing it.

 

Beatle-themed post alert!

 

I always thought those songs would work better on a double album like Physical Graffiti where you can do more of a kitchen sink approach. Zeppelin albums pretty much only had 8 tracks at most so to use up 2 of those spots on "goofy" tracks always disappointed me. Not a fan of either one.

 

Hey! I love D'yer Mak'er! Such a sweet tune ! (and I love The Crunge too.. and Fool In The Rain, as a matter of fact)
But I can see why some would dislike them.
(there are other songs in Zep's catalogue I can't stand)

 

Well, people, be ready to throw things at me.
I love, as I posted before, "D'yer Mak'er" and I think "Kashmir" it's a "meh" song.

 

Loath as I am to damn it with faint praise, D'yer Mak'er is no worse than anything on ITTOD. My liking for it is probably influenced by the fact that by the time I heard it (1975, when I got HOTH next after buying PG), it was already part of LZ's back catalogue, and therefore unimpeachable.

The same principle is possibly responsible for most latercomers' inability to identify ITTOD as the blatant runt of LZ's litter.

 

That comment is gonna go over in this forum like a lead balloon...

 

I used to dislike "Kashmir" immensely. I thought it was the most boring, repetitive, uninteresting song in the Zeppelin catalog, and I could never understand why it got so much FM radio airplay. I mean, a Zeppelin song without a guitar solo? Why? However, I came around a few years ago after becoming more interested in World Music and was able to hear the hints of India and Morocco in the track. To me, "Kashmir" is a far better example of Zeppelin branching out and diversifying their sound than either "D'yer Mak'er" or "The Crunge." And I somewhat agree with Plant, who I understand once said that "Kashmir" is the definitive Zeppelin track rather than "Stairway to Heaven."