Led Zeppelin catalogue now on Spotify:

Spotify – the music streaming service, has acquired the rights to the catalogue of Led Zeppelin. The news, initially reported by The New York Times, was announced at Spotify’s event at their New York based headquarters on Wednesday. It is the most high-profile rights acquisition since Spotify brought Pink Floyd to its service earlier this summer.

 In a press conference, the music streaming site’s founder and CEO Daniel Ek announced that the band’s music will now be available to listen to for free on the service. He also announced that Spotify will now be available for free on any platform – including mobiles and tablets. Spotify had previously required people to be paying subscribers to use its smartphone and tablet apps, with its free service restricted to desktop use only. The move is seen as a response to competition from Apple’s iTunes Radio, which is so far only available in the US.

 “Today we’re giving people the best free music experience in the history of the smartphone and the tablet,” Ek said in a statement. “Whether you’re going to the gym, or having a party with friends. Just sit back and let Spotify serve you great music for every moment of your life.”

 To offer some perspective on what all this means, TBL contributor Chris Wright reveals his thoughts on the Spotify link up:

 Zeppelin Now Streaming on Spotify – The Levee Has Broken….

Zeppelin’s online streaming music service debut on Spotify this week has received huge worldwide publicity, giving the band its biggest headlines since the fall of last year, when it took the cinema world by storm with Celebration Day.

The Zeppelin launch is unquestionably one of the holy grails of streaming services and fills a huge void in the Spotify repertoire. Will this finally pave the way for The Beatles’ back catalogue one wonders?

In reality, this is probably bigger news as a coup for the music streaming industry than as any sort of musical liberation for fans. It’s technically simple to use your own music files bought on iTunes, or similar, via Spotify apps on your PC or mobile device, so a good number of fans have for some time been able to mix their own Zep material with that of artists that have previously committed to Spotify.

The big change comes in the social connectivity of Spotify, which earlier this year announced that it had over 24 million active users, six million of which pay a monthly subscription to avoid advertisements, be able stream in high quality and enjoy unlimited use of the service on mobile phones and tablets.

It’s now very simple to tell the world what you’re listening to on Spotify via Facebook, Twitter et al. The concept of sharing, in the sense of spreading the word about the music you love to listen to the most is, of course, great fun and fantastic free publicity for the artist(s) concerned.

Small wonder, then, that most major artists now allow their repertoire to appear on streaming services. Pink Floyd, Metallica, Frank Zappa and Bob Dylan are among relatively recent converts and, in truth, it was only a matter of time until Zeppelin followed suit. Meantime the aforementioned Beatles, plus AC/DC and, for the most part, Def Leppard , are among those artists presumably taking the view that a presence on streaming services will hurt sales of their music? One assumes that they will also take the plunge when the right deal is put in front of them, has one imagines as happened between Spotify and Zep.

So are we approaching a time when we can store or sell our physical media of LP’s and CD’s and indulge in a world where everything is available in the cloud, as it were? Well, to use the Shakespeare-influenced title of a well-known 70s album, there’s the rub.

Spotify only offers resolutions up to 320kbps, which is rather low quality in comparison to a “lossless” file, with no compression. Although lossless streaming services are beginning to surface in some European countries, there is no apparent road map for such an innovation on internationally available services such as Spotify.

This essentially means that your physical media still sounds better on the right equipment, if you’re prepared to accept all the ritual of playing CDs and vinyl, which is undergoing a major revival in popularity, of course.

I do play Spotify tracks through my hifi system on the highest setting and they do sound remarkably good, but will not stand up to side by side comparison with lossless physical media, of course.  How long that situation continues probably depends, more than anything else, on how ubiquitous fast growing services like Spotify become, enabling artists to earn sufficient royalties to be less dependent on CD and, to a growing extent again, vinyl sales.

While all this is going on, there is a growing market for sales of ultra-high resolution files through sites such as HD Tracks (www.hdtracks.com) . These files have the potential to sound even better than vinyl, without any of the fuss and ritual of record ownership. On the right equipment, they represent the current state of the art. Expect further innovations in the months and years to come, including Pono, a new high end music service backed by Neil Young, due to launch in 2014.

For now, however, listening to the Zep back catalogue on Spotify enables you to access the finest overall collection of rock music in perfectly decent sound quality wherever there is an adequate internet connection. It’s a glimpse of the future, but it looks likely that there are even more exciting things to come. Will next year’s highly anticipated remasters and outtakes be available as high res files? – now that would be something to really get excited about!

Chris Wright

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Led Zeppelin Celebration Day and Kashmir receive Grammy nominations:

The Celebration Day album has been nominated for Best Rock Album and the performance of Kashmir from the album in the Best Rock performance category. The 56th Annual Grammy Awards will be televised live in the US on Sunday, January 26, 2014 on CBS.

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Robert Plant Sensational Space Shifters summer 2014 Europe Dates:

Robert and SSS are lining up a series of summer dates for 2014– already announced is a date at Cork in the Live at the Marquee series on June 25^th.

See link at

http://entertainment.ie/music/news/Former-Led-Zeppelin-man-Robert-Plant-to-play-Corks-Live-at-the-Marquee-next-summer/233384.htm

Also announced is a headlining appearance at the  Colours of Ostrava festival. The festival takes place July 17th 20th in North Moravia in the former industrial area of Dolní Vitkovice.

Dates are also lined up for Berlin (July 16^th) and Dresden (July 17^th). Keep an eye on Robert’s official website for further news. 

http://www.robertplant.com/#road

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ABC Trust Jimmy Page Autographed Silk Screen Print Exclusive TBL Special Offer:

Our friends at the ABC Trust have been in touch to announce a special exclusive offer for TBL readers.   

 They are offering the final batch (25 only) of their exclusive Jimmy Page silk screen art prints created by Sandra Lawrence and all personally signed by Jimmy at special reduced rice for TBL readers only.

This beautiful art print normally retails at £500 – the ABC Trust are offering a discount for TBL readers reducing the price to £350 – all proceeds of course benefiting the ABC Trust which aids underprivileged children in Brazil.  This is a fantastic limited edition Christmas gift.  

To order go to the following link:

http://www.abctrust.org.uk/get-involved/shop-with-abc/14-sample-data-articles/170-jimmy-page-signed-portrait

Important Note: To qualify for the TBL  discount, when you fill in the order form please mark the email subject as ‘Jimmy Page print order TBL offer.’

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TBL Celebrates Jimmy Page at 70: The TBL Poll:

As part of the TBL celebrations of Jimmy Page’s impending 70th birthday in January, we are conducting a TBL poll to attain your favourite Jimmy Page guitar performances across his 50 year career. This will take the form of a series of reader polls for which we want you to list your ten favourite Jimmy Page guitar performances in a series of categories. 

We begin with the following:

Your All Time Top Ten Jimmy Page performances with The Yardbirds:

What we would like is for you to list in order of preference, your all time top ten favourite Jimmy Page performances during his time with The Yardbirds. This takes in the Happening Ten Years Time Ago/Psycho Dasies single ,The Little Games single and album, the Live Yardbirds set and the GoodnightSweet Josaphine/Think About It single.

On a scoring basis of ten points for a number one choice, nine for a number two etc  –  we will collate the results from your All Time Top ten Yardbirds with Jimmy listings to determine the most popular choices. The results being announced on January 9th  – Jimmy’s 70th birthday.

To kick things off – here are my all time top ten Jimmy Page/Yardbirds performances:

1: Think About It ( Goodnight Sweet Josephine single B side)

2: White Summer (from the Little Games album)

3: Puzzles (Little Games single B side)

4: I’m Confused (from the Live Yardbirds album)

5: Little Games (single)

6: Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor (from the Little Games album)

7: Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (single)

8: Ten Little Indians (from the Little Games album)

9: No Excess Baggage (from the Little Games album)

10: Psycho Daisies (Happenings Ten Years Time Ago B side)

We look forward to receiving your list – to contribute just send your All time top ten Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds list either via the comments section below, the TBL Facebook page or email to davelewis.tbl1@ntlworld.com 

The second poll in the TBL Celebrates Jimmy at 70 will be announced in due course

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TBL 36 and Knebworth book distribution latest:

All pre orders and subscriber copies of TBL 36 are now in transit. UK copies should be landing anytime between now and early next week with overseas to follow… let me know what you think…and if you have yet to order what is another packed edition – here’s the link:

http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk/?page_id=22753

The Knebworth book is in stock now and all orders are being processed as received. In terms of pre-Christmas delivery, the UK orders should be good for pre-Christmas delivery if ordered before December 18th.

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Knebworth book – BBC Radio Devon Interview:

Here’s the Listen Again link to hear my interview about the Knebworth book on the Vic Morgan Late Show on BBCRadio Devon – two segments at 00:19:48 and 02.12.00.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01lh4hh

DL Diary Update:

He writes them , he packs them….he puts them in cages at the main post office in Bedford to be sent to over 30 countries worldwide……

Another intensive week here on the TBL distribution front. The unforeseen problems with the printers of the Knebworth book unavoidably delayed the planned schedule to despatch the new TBL issue –so it was only in the last few days that I was able to begin the packing and labelling. Coupled with the incoming orders for the book (and keep ‘em coming!), it has proved to be some task…but I’m pleased to say that all pre ordered and subscriber’s copies of TBL 36 are now out there and on the way. Apologies If I’ve been slow to responding to e-mails lately -I am hoping to catch all correspondence up soon.  

Music that has accompanied the sticking of stamps and stuffing of magazines and books has included Bob Dylan’s Another Self Portrait (album of the year for me), Pentangle the Lost Broadcasts, Led Zeppelin No Quarter/Earls Court  and a bit of seasonal fare via Christmas Sparkle (thank you John P) – a splendid compilation with the likes of Dean Martin, Nancy Wilson, Julie London and Nat King Cole doing their Christmas thing.

The good lady Janet and I did venture out to St. Albans last weekend where a stop off at the excellent Empire Records yielded a very fine early Christmas present for your TBL editor –namely the new mono pressing of the utterly classic Miles Davis Kind Of Blue –a numbered edition issued for the US Black Friday Record Store Day. Lovely!

Football wise, nice to see Spurs revival in fortunes although Liverpool on Sunday will be a stern test.

Can’t believe it is so near to Christmas and the next few days will be taken up with the usual pre-Christmas shopping, planning and running around –and hopefully a beer or two may well be drank all in the name of Christmas cheer. Next Wednesday I am down for my annual appearance as Father Christmas at the pre-school the good lady works at – just another extension of the TBL services! The photographic evidences will be forthcoming…

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Until next time…Keep listening, keep reading…

Have a great weekend

Dave Lewis/Gary Foy – December 13th, 2013.