It’s a pleasure to fulfill this request: ROBERT PLANT 1993’s album “Fate Of Nations“, in its remastered reissue including bonus tracks. Plant has released good solo albums, however, in our opinion, his finest, sublime moment is “Fate Of Nations”.
“Fate Of Nations” is Robert Plant’s biggest artistic triumph in a solo career with oodles of them. After The Mighty Zeppelin came crashing to ground, it took our boy Bobby a few years to find his feet. ‘Pictures At Eleven’ had a few interesting moments musically. ‘The Principle of Moments’ wasn’t any better, with the exception of “Big Log”, which became a giant hit. ‘Shaken and Stirred’ was admirable in terms of musical adventurism and dismal in terms of songcraft.
It wasn’t until his fourth solo album that Plant really started to figure it out, with both the adventurism and the quality songs to produce a great album, and ‘Now and Zen’ finally gave us the strong album our Robert was capable of. While the follow-up ‘Manic Nirvana’ may not have fared as well commercially, it was even better artistically.
Which brings us to ”Fate Of Nations”, the culmination of years of restless searching by an artist seeking an album worthy of his musical wanderlust.
While the two albums that preceded it were great, this is where at all came together, the absolute pinnacle of Robert Plant’s career as a solo artist. Never had he, and never again would he, release something so effortless exotic, so emotionally evocative, so arrestingly melodic, or as unabashedly passionate.
Here was an artist in a band who had once ruled the world, who had fallen from those lofty heights and then clawed his way to the higher reaches of the charts again – and who was now ready to take all the lessons in songcraft the preceding years had taught him, and use that hard-won knowledge to make an album for himself, on his own terms.
While to some extent we got the sense that ‘Zen’ was Robert Plant aiming for the charts, ‘Nirvana’ sounded more like he was just making the album he felt like making at the time, and by ”Fate Of Nations’ he was ready to make an album where he couldn’t care less if no one ever heard it but him.
”Fate Of Nations” is an album of strong songs that wasn’t concerned about commerciality – heck, it was worlds away from the grunge and hip-hop that ruled the charts in the early-Nineties.
Take for example the opening track, “Calling to You”. Deep chords ring out with a gentle yet foreboding, mysterious chime, resonant and haunting, a lone acoustic guitar begins an exotic sounding strum – and then suddenly the song explodes with a monster riff that bursts out of the sky like a comet hitting the atmosphere. The first time you hear it that riff takes you completely by surprise, an opening as powerful as “Immigrant Song” on Led Zeppelin III, but far more sneaky and devious because you don’t see it coming.
How could the album not be a classic with an opening like that? After that explosive opening whacks you on the side of the head, the song never lets you go for its full five minutes and 48 seconds, with its heavy hypnotic riffage, doomsday descending notes on the bridge, and ultra cool electric violin solo outro.
This is an opening track almost as powerful as anything Zeppelin ever laid down, and an exceptional start to an exceptional album.
At the time, ”Down to the Sea” sounded unlike anything I’ve ever heard – I’m not really sure how to categorize it, I honestly can’t think of another song to compare it to. Think about it – how many songs can you think of that are so unique nothing else sounds anything like it? But so it is with “Down to the Sea”. With its chiming guitars, pounding beat, and irresistible melody, it’s another winner.
More melodious guitars herald the intro to the moody “Come Into My Life” – like many of the songs on the album, Plant gives the music some time to breathe, the guitars kind of gently unfurl around him as he sings that “Hopes drift in higher places / it’s easier above the gloom…” This song illustrates the dynamics and contrasts you find all over the album, the light and shade that was always so much a part of the Zeppelin mystique that Plant weaves so expertly.
Plant wrote “All My Love” from In Through the Out Door in honor of his son Karac, who died of a stomach virus at the age of five back in 1977 while his father was in the middle of a tour of America – but “I Believe” from ‘Fate Of Nations’ is by far the more moving memorial. Incidentally, the song also tells of an important change in the story of Led Zeppelin – any father would be changed forever by the loss of a young son, it’s only natural that Plant wasn’t the same person afterwards.
But when he stepped away from Led Zeppelin to grieve with his family, the balance of power in the band shifted forever from Page to Plant. There’s an old saying that the person who cares the least in a relationship has the most power, and so it was here. Where before Page called all the shots and Plant accepted it without question, in stepping away Plant discovered how much his guitarist needed him – and what a position of power that put him in.
From then on Zeppelin would exist on Robert’s terms only – they returned to the studio in Robert’s time, they “cut the waffle” in the setlist when Robert felt they should move away from half-hour long instrumentals on stage, they changed their approach to touring – and eventually after Bonham’s demise it was Robert who set the terms for when and if they got back together.
The few times they all got back together it was Robert who called the shots, and the Page / Plant collaboration of the 90s existed exactly as long as Robert had any interest in it.
In some ways, “I Believe” is as much about the death of Led Zeppelin as the death of Karac Plant. And it is one of the highlights of an amazing album.
As is “29 Palms”, where Plant pulls off the cool trick of starting out with intense, driving verses that rush and flow with Robert’s trademark wails which then like a waterfall drop into the smooth lake of a laid-back chorus. The vibe of the song shifts so dramatically and yet so naturally, from a pounding beat in the verses to a gently swaying shuffle in the chorus – it’s pure magic. I love the guitar solo after the second verse too, gliding gently across the soundscape. Easily one of Plant’s greatest moments as a solo artist.
This was the last solo Robert Plant song I heard on the radio back in the day, and what an excellent song to exit the Top 40 with. Nowadays, of course, it’s a Classic Rock Radio staple.
“Memory Song (Hello Hello)” as a cool descending riff, and while not as lyrically penetrating as the songs that precede it, there’s enough tasty guitar to make it a worthwhile listen. Plant’s cover of Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter” is gorgeous though – heartfelt and majestic, with rustic guitar and soaring strings. All the warmth and emotion in his vocals tells you how much Plant loves the song. It is also a preview of Plant’s next album, the underappreciated ‘Dreamland’, where Plant would cover the songs he loved from his youth with a fire and tenderness seldom found in the albums that came before – except on ‘Fate Of Nations’.
I have to admit that the album loses steam for me a little bit at this point, and I am not nearly as familiar with the songs that follow as I am the first seven. “Promised Land” has some wicked harmonica playing by Plant, and a chorus that kind of grabs your attention, but after seven classic songs in a row it can’t help but suffer by comparison.
“The Greatest Gift” finds Plant experimenting with swooping, histrionic string arrangements – I admire them more for their uniqueness than I actually enjoy listening to them. But there is no denying the feeling in his vocal on the chorus, it is a typically astoundingly powerful Robert Plant vocal performance.
”Great Spirit” has this funky but subdued 70s vibe which is all right. So about two-thirds the way through the album shifts from absolute classic to just pretty good – none of these last few songs are bad, they are in fact “just pretty good”, they just don’t have the same oomph of the first 2/3 of the album. And I think that’s intentional, it seems to me Plant knew which songs were strongest.
The strategy for sequencing albums was very different in the CD age than it had been in the vinyl age – in the vinyl age, you knew that halfway through the album the listener would have to flip the thing over to side B and start over, so it would be a good idea to have a strong song leading off that second side.
In the age of CDs, however, you wouldn’t have that transition in the middle, so the smartest thing to do was frontload all of your good songs and keep the listeners’ attention for as long as you could. When I look at the programming decisions made when vinyl was king versus when CDs were all the rage, I think it’s pretty clear that became the thinking when developing the sequencing of your album.
Take, for example, Queen II – the distinction between the “white side” and the “black side” is completely lost in the digital age when albums have no “sides”, and had the album been made 20 years later, the sequencing would likely have been very different.
Album closer, “Network News”, is catchy enough, it’s got a smooth, slick guitar riff, and Plant spits out lyrics about “Guns death and noise Sand oil and blood” and “propaganda’s paper fist” and “Hallelujah, hallelujah, oil oil.” As commentaries on the First Gulf War go (and such is the theme of the song that its author would betray no surprise to find there was going to be a Second one), I actually like it.
This remastered reissue add bonus tracks, mostly B-sides, album songs with different and cool mixes, and ”Rollercoaster (Demo)”, a previously unreleased song.
Never before had Robert Plant laid so much of his heart bare as he had on this album, and never would he again. His restless approach to his artistry is well known – but not all of his musical travels have been worth the rest of us tagging along.
For me, ”Fate Of Nations” was the album where the passion for the material, the strong songwriting, the neverending search for new sounds, and the exceptional vocal showmanship all came together and meshed perfectly – one or the other of these elements were found on his other solo albums, but this was the one with the alchemy that blended them together just right.
Catch me on the right day, and I might even say this album is as good as anything Plant ever did with his former band.
1 Calling To You
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Pete Thompson
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Violin – Nigel Kennedy
Written-By – Chris Blackwell (2), Robert Plant
5:48
2 Down To The Sea
Bass, Performer [Everything Else] – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Hughes
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Oliver J. Woods
Written-By – Charlie Jones, Robert Plant
4:00
3 Come Into My Life
Backing Vocals – Maire Brennan
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Hughes, Pete Thompson
Guitar – Francis Dunnery, Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Richard Thompson
Harmonium – Phil Johnstone
Hurdy Gurdy – Nigel Eaton
Written-By – Chris Blackwell (2), Doug Boyle, Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Robert Plant
6:32
4 I Believe
Backing Vocals – Julian Taylor (2), Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Steve French (8)
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Hughes
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Hurdy Gurdy – Nigel Eaton
Piano – Phil Johnstone
Written-By – Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
4:33
5 29 Palms
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Hughes
Guitar – Doug Boyle, Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Written-By – Charlie Jones, Doug Boyle, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
4:51
6 Memory Song (Hello Hello)
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Michael Lee
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Oliver Jones*
Keyboards – Phillip Andrews*
Written-By – Charlie Jones, Chris Blackwell (2), Oliver Woods*, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
5:22
7 If I Were A Carpenter
Arranged By [Strings] – Lynton Maiff*
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Hughes
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Mandolin – Martin Allcock
Written-By – Tim Hardin
3:45
8 Promised Land
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Blackwell (2), Chris Hughes
Guitar – Francis Dunnery, Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Robert Plant
Organ – Phil Johnstone
Written-By – Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
4:59
9 The Greatest Gift
Arranged By [Strings] – Lynton Maiff*
Backing Vocals – John Flynn
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Chris Hughes, Pete Thompson
Electric Piano – Phil Johnstone
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Written-By – Charlie Jones, Chris Blackwell (2), Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
6:52
10 Great Spirit
Backing Vocals – Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
Bass – Charlie Jones
Drums – Pete Thompson
Electric Piano – Phil Johnstone
Guitar – Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Written-By – Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
5:27
11 Network News
Bass – Charlie Jones
Dilruba, Sarod – Gurbev Singh*
Drums – Chris Hughes, Michael Lee
Guitar – Doug Boyle, Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Sarangi – Sursie Singh*
Synthesizer [Electric Orchestra] – Phil Johnstone
Violin – Navazish Ali Khan*
Written-By – Chris Blackwell (2), Robert Plant
6:42
Bonus Tracks
12 Colours Of A Shade
Performer [All Instruments] – Martin Allcock
Written-By – Charlie Jones, Chris Blackwell (2), Doug Boyle, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
4:46
13 Great Spirit (Acoustic Mix)
Guitar – Rainer Ptacek
Written-By – Kevin Scott MacMichael*, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
3:54
14 Rollercoaster (Demo)
Written-By – Charlie Jones, Chris Blackwell (2), Doug Boyle, Phil Johnstone, Robert Plant
4:02
15 8:05
Guitar, Harmony Vocals – Kevin Scott MacMichael*
Written-By – Don Stevenson, Jerry Miller
1:50
16 Dark Moon (Acoustic)
Steel Guitar – Rainer Ptacek
Written-By – Rainer Ptacek, Robert Plant
4:57
Robert Plant – Fate Of Nations 2007 Remaster+5
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