Robert Plant Fate of Nations released

Fate of Nations Robert Plant

Released: May 25, 1993 Peak: 34 US, 6 UK, 12 CN, 37 AU Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.06 UK Genre: rock

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Calling to You [5:48] (5/15/93, 3 AR, 47 CN) Down to the Sea [4:00] Come into My Life [6:32] I Believe [4:32] (10/9/93, 9 AR, 64 UK, 37 CN) 29 Palms [4:51] (5/93, 4 AR, 21 UK, 11 CN, 79 AU) Memory Song (Hello Hello) [5:22] If I Were a Carpenter [3:45] (12/25/93, 63 UK, 50 CN) Colours of a Shade * [4:43] Promised Land [4:59] The Greatest Gift [6:51] Great Spirit [5:27] Network News [6:40] * On UK edition. Total Running Time: 58:53

Rating: 3.399 out of 5.00 (average of 16 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Robert Plant’s sixth album“was a more sophisticated affair than its front cover image – children watching a melting Planet Earth – might suggest.” Q On the “eco-conscious Fate of Nations” Q “Plant sounded at peace with himself.” Q Plant said he knew in 1991 that he wanted to reach into his past. He was inspired by listening to some of his favorites such as Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane, Tim Hardin (Plant covers Hardin’s If I Were a Carpenter on the album), Quicksilver, Traffic, and other “turning-point artists in rock,” WK as he called them. He said, “These people were trying to tell the listener something, joining various traditions, with the sense of a quest being insinuated and bandied in their acoustic and electronic themes. I’m also proud of what I’ve attempted to do lyrically trying to tell vivid tales that come from a hearty tradition of prose.” Examples of Plant dipping into his past including Calling to You, where he is “reprising Led Zeppelin’s old bluster” Q and “the plaintive I Believe,” Q a song about about the death of his five-year-old son Karac in 1977. Those songs were album rock hits, as was 29 Palms. That song grew out of the previous tour and his time in a small California town in the Mojave Desert called Twentynine Palms. The town is one of the main entrance points to the Joshua Tree National Park. The album was Plant’s highest charting in the UK since his debut, 1982’s Pictures at Eleven. However, in the United States the album’s #34 peak was his lowest yet. The album did still reach gold status, maintaining his streak for every one of his studio releases with Led Zeppelin and as a solo act. This was Plant’s last solo album in nearly a decade. He reunited with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page for a live album (No Quarter, 1994) and a studio project (Walking into Clarksdale, 1998) before releasing his seventh solo album, Dreamland, in 20002.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Robert Plant Q Mark Blake, Q magazine, Sept. 2010, p. 133. WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 2/9/2009; last updated 8/28/2021.

Today in Music (1893): Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9

Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World) Antonin Dvořák (composer)

Composed: 1/10/1893 – 5/24/1893 First Performed: December 16, 1893 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: classical > symphony

Parts/Movements: Adagio…Allegro molto Largo Molto vivace…Poco sostenuto Allegro con fuoco Average Duration: 40:00

Rating: 4.596 out of 5.00 (average of 9 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Work: Dvorák subtitled his ninth symphony “From the New World,” honoring the years he lived in New York City and established a music school. He “absorbed essential bits of the character of New York, and by extension America: Underpinning his themes is a deep restlessness, a sense of unresolved striving.” TM “Like other European musicians, he found himself enchanted. But he was also homesick, and that contradiction drives the piece. This dizzying, craftily integrated celebration of spirituals, Native American folk songs, and other ethnographic elements was together by someone who couldn’t wait to get back to the old country.” TM “Chauvinists among us still claim that its themes are either Amerindian or African-American, which Dvorák refuted in 1900: ‘Omit the nonsense about my having made use of ‘American’ motifs...I tried only to write in the spirit of those national melodies.’” AM “This dust-up managed to ignore influences both stronger and more subtle. Dvorák already knew Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, completed in 1888, and he likewise used a motto-theme to link the four movements in his symphony in E minor. The introduction can be made to sound a lot more Tchaikovskian, indeed, than a subsequent theme can be made to sound like ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,’ as alleged.” AM “Beyond the Slavic gravitas of both symphonies, however, Dvorák’s musical signature was intrinsically Czech, even in the Largo movement that represented, he once said, Hiawatha at the grave site of Minnehaha (a quasi-Spiritual, ‘Goin’ Home’ text was created post facto by a white American pupil). By the time he heard any Amerind music, during the summer of 1893 near a Czech settlement at Spillville, Iowa, Dvorák had finished the Ninth Symphony. From the structural standpoint, two sonata-form movements (with an exposition repeat in the first) bracket two movements in song form (ABA), all of them with brief introductions and codas.” AM Adagio: “The 2/4 Allegro molto has an Adagio preface in 4/8 time. Horns introduce the motto theme, answered by clarinets and bassoons, then strings. Flutes and oboes play a melody in G minor before the ‘Swing Low’ closing subject shifts from minor to G major. Sectional development omits the G minor tune; reprise and coda are distillations.” AM Largo: “The ‘Largo’ begins in D flat major, far from single sharped E minor. A plaintive English horn melody dominates both here and later on. In between a C sharp minor section marked Un poco più mosso, winds introduce two themes, more palpitant than the D flat section’s big tune, before the motto makes a sinister appearance.” AM Dvorák “grapples with the earthy, deeply rooted tones of African American spirituals.” TM Molto Vivace: “Song sections marked Scherzo: Molto vivace, in E minor, pay homage less to Indian pow-wows than to the scherzo movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A briefer subject in E major recalls the G major closing theme of the first movement, followed by the motto. The Poco sostenuto Trio is pure Czech, beginning in C major, with a G major second theme related to the Beethoven rhythm in sections A and A.” AM Allegro con Fuoco: “Allegro con fuoco is the marking of the final movement with a martial main theme in E minor for horns and trumpets. The clarinet counters with a nostalgic sub-theme, after which flutes and fiddles play a closing subject in G major. The development combines music from previous movements with the main theme of movement 4. Following the recap, a Grand Coda ends with a fortissimo restatement of the motto, then a diminuendo to pianissimo on the final chord.” AM Dvorák “expects the ensemble to summon an overgrown American exuberance, and anything less can cast ugly shadows on the subtle music that’s come before.” TM

Reviews: AM AllMusic.com review by Roger Dettmer TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Pages 242-3. Related DMDB Links: First posted 4/2/2008; last updated 2/27/2026.

Tears for Fears “Break It Down Again” released

Break It Down Again Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Alan Griffiths (see lyrics here) Released: May 17, 1993 First Charted: May 29, 1993 Peak: 25 US, 26 CB, 9 RR, 25 AC, 13 MR, 20 UK, 4 CN, 82 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 23.68 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Tears for Fears formed as a group in 1981 with members Roland Orzabal (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Curt Smith (vocals, bass, keyboards), Ian Stanley (keyboards, backing vocals), and Manny Elias (drums, percussion). That lineup lasted through the group’s first two albums, 1983’s The Hurting and 1985’s Songs from the Big Chair. However, Stanley and Elias were gone by 1989’s The Seeds of Love, leaving the group as a duo. Even then, Roland Orzabal had largely taken the reins, which contributed to the duo splitting. Four years later, Curt Smith released his first solo album. Orzbal released Elemental under the Tears for Fears banner, despite it effectively being a solo project at this point. However, one listen to the lead single, “Break It Down Again,” made it clear that he had retained the Tears for Fears sound. The song proved to be the last chart entry for Tears for Fears on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #25. In the UK, two more songs would reach the top 40 (1995’s “Raoul and the Kings of Spain” and 2005’s “Closest Thing to Heaven”). The song was a top-10 hit in Canada, Iceland, and Italy. Talking about the songs on Elemental, Orzabal said, “A lot of the songs were written while I was in a sense going through the ‘divorce.’ Things like ‘Break It Down Again’ refer to that to some degree…I did psychotherarpy for about six years. I stopped going regularly when I’d finished Elemental, which I think probably says something. I think I’m moving on.” SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Tears for Fears SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/6/2022.

 

Janet Jackson “That’s the Way Love Goes” hit #1

That’s the Way Love Goes Janet Jackson

Writer(s): James Harris III, Terry Lewis, Charles A. Bobbit, James Brown, Janet Jackson, John Starks, Fred Wesley Jr. (see lyrics here) Released: April 20, 1993 First Charted: April 23, 1993 Peak: 18 BB, 110 BA, 18 CB, 14 GR, 16 RR, 16 AC, 110 RB, 2 UK, 16 CN, 11 AU, 23 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, 0.21 UK, 3.0 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 25.9 video, 134.78 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Janet Jackson was one of the few artists who could compete with big brother Michael’s chart success. Her 1986 Control album was the first in history to produce five top-5 hits. RC She then outdid herself with a record-breaking seven top-ten hits, RC including four #1s, on the follow-up, 1989’s Rhythm Nation. 1993’s janet. produced six more top-10 hits, including the #1 lead single, “That’s the Way Love Goes.” The song had a longer reign than any other chart-topper released by the Jackson family. SG Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, longtime producers with Janet, showcased a style where “samples blurred together seamlessly into a smooth, heady tower of…spacious, luxurious sound.” SG It was a bold choice as a lead single. It’s a “low-key song” SG that’s “pretty brazen in its sexuality” SG and “doesn’t really jump out of the speakers.” SG It is “slow-motion strut-music” SG that “works less as a song and more as an extended groove…but it’s a gorgeous, multifaceted groove.” SG That groove owes a debt to “the drum intro from the Honey Drippers’ “Impeach The President,” a 1973 protest-funk obscurity that went on to become one of the most-sampled tracks of all time.” SG Like many early ‘90s hits, the song is also built on a loop of a classic James Brown song – in this case, 1974’s “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.” Janet listened to it while on Christmas vacation and loved it. She wanted to use it for “That’s the Way Love Goes,” which was initially intended to be a breakup song. The she “had a late-night epiphany and decided that it should be a seduction song instead.” SG Jimmy Jam said, “We were all in very happy relationships, and we were in love, not only with the people we were in relationships with but with life in general. We’d been very successful professionally, and I think we were all feeling very satisfied with our personal lives, and that came out on the album… janet. was about a confident, sexy woman in touch with her feminine side. That was what she was feeling at that time, so our job was to enhance that.” FB Resources: FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 817. RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Pages 238-9. SG Stereogum (2/7/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/22/2024.