|
| 
| Artist: Robert Plant And Alison Krauss
Label: Decca
Category: Music
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £5.98
You Save: £11.01 (65%)
New (29) Used (7) from £4.99
Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 118
Media: Audio CD
Running Time: 57
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4
UPC: 028947802051
EAN: 0028947802051
ASIN: B000Y932GQ
Release Date: October 29, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
|
| Customer Reviews:
 This should be called Raising StANDards February 2, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Some eyebrows were raised when this album was announced. Bluegrass meets old rocker. I havent listened to much Plant and came to this more from a Country side of things. I have the excellent Knopfler / Emmylou Harris 'Roadrunning' album so the concept was not a problem. The result is more than the sum of its parts, a rootsy album thats neither rock nor bluegrass (although some songs do have a country feel). Its an absolutey stunning album, with superb versions of these songs. Excellent. If this is what happens when these talents are brought together, keep them coming and bring me some more!!
 More Disappointment January 29, 2008
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
Music to fall asleep to, not exciting at all. How do they get realistic sounds of dust on the needle when using digital equipment? Many tracks have a mix of clear vocals and fuzzy instruments. Plant and Krauss' voices blend surprising well, but then they are certainly not put under any stress. I've given it a solid testing and it gets annoying (especially the muted instruments) the more I hear it, never opening up. I might buy more Krauss albums, but I think RP's just gained an "i" as middle initial for me, what ever happened to that bright talent from the Principle of Moments?
By the way do you need me to remind you about their history? Hope not, the album's only worth a few listening to's, but then it will just gather dust. Warning, if it grows on you, it'll be like ivy, and I'd suggest you pinch yourself and check your pulse.
Something Different January 24, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
There's been so much opinion flying around about this collection that it's hard not to go in without preconceptions. Whatever preconceptions you may have, some of them are likely to be dashed when you listen, but here I go anyway loading you up with some more!
I've never been a big fan of Led Zep. I always enjoyed listening to their stuff, always respected their canon, but never committed any moolah to it. I like Alison Krauss enough to have one of her albums, but similarly wouldn't say I was a huge follower. So what you're not going to find here is a fanatic's perspective. Sorry for any disappointment this may cause.
You shouldn't, however, be disappointed by the music. Krauss's and Plant's voices blend perfectly, musicianship is first class, and so is the production.
The set shifts easily between styles: between the third and seventh track they move from gypsy violin to Cowboy Junkies to Rockabilly and through to a Country intro evoking an expectation of Tammy Wynette's voice. What we get instead is Krauss's sweet-and-rich-as condensed milk tones, the best they get on this collection. It's true that the lyrics get a little confusing, with Krauss bemoaning her lover sleeping with "another man". But I'm assuming she's grown up enough to be able to choose her own songs. Or maybe it's a Brokeback Mountain moment?
Later, the arrangement for Stay With Me Baby is reminiscent of the Everly Brothers, Fortune Teller is a hip-shaking bossa with some great flamenco clapping in the middle, and Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson opens with a guitar break worthy of Hank Marvin (The Shadows - I believe Neil Young was/is a big fan).
Apologies for all the comparisons. No implication intended of copies; there are just a lot of influences in evidence here that show how simplistic is the classification of the collection as "Folk", one preconception you can bin straight away.
The emotional epicentre of the album is Please Read The Letter, which admittedly is folky, a tear-jerker in which the singers' plaintive voices are affective and appropriately brittle, on the verge of breakdown. Plant's singing in particular makes this track.
If Please Read The Letter is the emotional centre, the centre of power is in the duo's rendering of Townes Van Zandt's Nothin. Plant's blues-soul voice again proves its value here, and is accompanied by Krauss's best fiddle on the album - harsh, grinding, uncompromising. Complementing the leads are Marc Ribot's blistering electric guitar and, adding further texture, his banjo. Overall, T Bone Burnett's best work on the album. Marc Ribot is also in evidence, this time on dobro, on the atmospheric Trampled Rose, which uses Krauss's vocals well.
The set closes with Your Long Journey, a lovely sounding song but one whose lyrics probably play better in the US than in Europe, constituting the "god spot" apparently obligatory within a certain community of musicians. It's a beautifully executed piece of music, but nevertheless is a perpetuation of the kinds of fairy story that many people never grow out of. Let's leave this stuff to Cliff Richard, eh? Though it's true old Harry never managed anything this soulful.
Before purchasing this collection I had bought Levon Helm's Dirt Farmer. Apart from being an excellent piece of work, I was pleased to have it as an added dimension to my overall music collection; Raising Sand is a similar addition. Something to play for its own sake, or for when I feel like playing something for a change.
Brilliant!!! January 19, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Bought this album, largely on the strength of the Sunday Times recommendation (Album of the Year) and the reviews on this site. I've never heard of Alison Krauss before, and Robert Plant is more known to me through his likeminded devotion to 'The Old Gold and Black', HOWEVER, this album is magnificent! I'll admit it needed a few plays before I really got into it - bluegrass is not normally my thing, sounds like a combination of folk and country - but I've not stopped playing it ever since I bought it. There's something Stevie Nicksish about Krauses voices, while Robert Plant's is immense - his voice seems to have got better with age. This isn't an album of duets as such, but the individual contributions work together very well indeed. Buy the album and you won't be disappointed.
Not what I expected but worth listening to January 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I listened to this CD without any ideas of the musical styles that would be used. It was only through having heard solo songs composed by Robert Plant some years earlier (think "Big Log") that I wanted to listen to 'Raising Sand' to see what all the hype was about. When I heard the first few bars of each song I thought 'how the hell is this going to develop?' and then it would evolve and go somewhere I was not expecting it to go and it was quite pleasant and thought provoking. Some of the song arrangements will grow on me; a few of them I thought were good. I definately will be listening to this again. It is an album to chill out to whilst lying on the couch after a heavy day at work. The two vocal styles intertwine and complement one another and they take you off to explore new lands you've never heard about.
|
|
|
| |
