This year, Every Sunday Evening, Album Rock WXYG, The GOAT will be featuring a full album at 8:00 PM from the halcyon musical days of 1976. 1976 was one of the top Years in Album Rock history. Another year of tough choices every week. So many great ones to choose from. After 52 Weeks of featuring so many of the great albums that debuted in 1975, next Sunday we will be moving on to another amazing year of ALBUM ROCK EXCELLENCE, 1976.
Tune in at 8:00 PM, on the Evening of September 27th for “The Song Remains the Same”, the pristine live soundtrack album of the concert film of the same name by Led Zeppelin. The soundtrack was recorded July 27–29,1973 and released on October 22,1976 on Swan Song Records.
The recording of the album and the film took place during three nights of concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden, during the band's 1973 North American tour. All songs were recorded by Eddie Kramer using the Wally Heider Mobile Studio truck, and later mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York and Trident Studios in London.
The sleeve design depicts a dilapidated movie house on Old Street film studios in London, where the group rehearsed for their 1973 tour.
The soundtrack to Led Zeppelin's concert movie The Song Remains the Same is one of those '70s records that has aged better than its reputation -- it's the kind of thing that's more valuable as the band receded into history than it was at the time, as it documents its time so thoroughly. Of course, that time would be the mid-'70s, when the band was golden gods, selling out stadiums across America and indulging their wildest desires both on and off stage. It was the kind of excess that creates either myth or madness, and this 1976 live album -- comprised of highlights from their three shows at Madison Square Garden during July 1973 -- has its fair share of both, as Zeppelin sounds magnificent as they blow up songs from their first five albums to a grand scale.They no longer sound hungry; they sound settled, satisfied at their status as rock overlords, and since a huge part of Zeppelin's appeal is their sheer scale, hearing them at their most oversized on “The Song Remains the Same” is exhilarating.
This makes it a valuable historical document, as it captures both the grandiosity and entitlement that makes this live album so powerful. Plus, there is a certain sinister charm to the sheer spectacle chronicled on The Song Remains the Same. At this stage, Zeppelin only seemed concerned with pleasing themselves, but they only did so because they could -- others tried to mimic them, but nobody could get the sheer size of their sound, which was different yet equally monstrous on-stage as it was on record.
The very fact that Led Zeppelin could take things so far is part of their mystique and nowhere is that penchant of excess better heard than on The Song Remains the Same.
Tune In and Turn On This evening, September 27th at 8:00 PM for The GOAT'S "The Long Play with Al Neff”.
