'Stairway to Heaven' goes live on Spotify today

The popular music streaming service Spotify has won exclusive rights to provide listeners, now including mobile listeners, with Led Zeppelin's complete discography.



Four consecutive release days this week, from Wednesday (Dec. 11) to Saturday (Dec. 14), focus on Zeppelin's eight original studio albums, released 1969 to 1979.



Today, Dec. 12, marks the arrival of Led Zeppelin III and its untitled follow-up some insist on calling things like Zoso, Runes or Led Zeppelin IV.



Wednesday's releases were the self-titled debut album Led Zeppelin and its sequel, Led Zeppelin II. The balance of the discography follows Friday (Dec. 13) and Saturday (Dec. 14).

Friday will be the bigger deposit of material of those two days, for one of the two albums it includes was originally released as a double-LP set. Kids, ask your parents if you don't know what those words mean.

Houses of the Holy (1973) and the extra-long Physical Graffiti (1975) are released on Friday. The remaining two albums on Saturday will be Presence (1976) and In Through the Out Door (1979).



The most special day will be the last. On Sunday (Dec. 15), you get a lot of other stuff, including all of the live audio the band has officially released to date.

On Sunday, you get all the studio "hits" in a tidy package with the 2007 studio collection Mothership, which upon its release was meant to supersede all the previous (redundant, obsolete) collections.

On Sunday, you get the outtakes album Coda spanning moments in the studio from 1970 to 1978, with a few post-Zeppelin overdubs added in before its 1982 release. (One must remain hopeful Coda will include the eight original tracks plus an assortment of rare gems like "Baby Come on Home" and "Moby Dick/Bonzo's Montreux" that were included with the Coda editions shipped with Complete Studio Recordings. However, subsequent precedent reversed the trend as the iTunes Remastered release of Coda this year did not include those tracks. We find out on Sunday.)

On Sunday, you get all the live and studio material on BBC Sessions, recorded parts in 1969 and 1971. This will include the rarities "Travelling Riverside Blues" and "The Girl I Love (She Got Long Black Wavy Hair)."

On Sunday, you get the 1972 live performances heard on How the West Was Won.

On Sunday, you get the 1973 live performances from the soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same.

On Sunday, you get the 2007 live performance with Jason Bonham from Celebration Day, including the newly Grammy-nominated track "Kashmir."

Join me in spinning some tunes! Er, rather, streaming!

With Alison Krauss, Robert Plant hasn't met a Grammy he hasn't won

"Never a dull moment," said Alison Krauss while accepting her fifth Grammy award of the night, this one the year's top prize, for Raising Sand with Robert Plant. Her Grammy tally now stands at 26, more than any other female's.

And since Plant was in on each of the new ones tonight, as well as the Grammy he and Krauss earned last year, his lifetime Grammy count now stands at seven awards plus a Lifetime Achievement recognition that was given to Led Zeppelin only four years ago.

So, with Krauss at his side, Plant has never met a Grammy he hasn't won.

Their Grammy wins tonight were:

• Record of the Year for "Please Read the Letter" from Raising Sand: The award goes to Plant, Krauss, producer T Bone Burnett, and engineer and mixer Mike Piersante.
• Album of the Year for Raising Sand: The award goes to Plant, Krauss, producer T Bone Burnett, engineer and mixer Mike Piersante, and mastering engineer Gavin Lurssen.
• Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals: The award goes to Plant and Krauss for their collaboration on "Rich Woman" from Raising Sand.
• Best Country Collaboration with Vocals: The award goes to Plant and Krauss for their collaboration on "Killing the Blues" from Raising Sand.
• Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album: The award goes to Plant and Krauss for Raising Sand.
  

It's the kind of treatment Led Zeppelin never received in its heyday. The group was nominated for Best New Artist in 1970 but lost to Crosby, Stills & Nash. And that was it for nominations that had anything to do with the music. Other aspects of the bands were recognized, though: Led Zeppelin II was nominated for its album cover but lost, and four subsequent albums -- Houses of the Holy, Physical Graffiti, Presence and In Through the Out Door -- were all nominated for Best Album Package but lost.

But in the spirit of reassessing the past, Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album became one of 189 records or albums named to the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 1999, and the group received a Lifetime Achievement award in 2005.

Plant was nominated for new musical work two years in a row in the 1990s. The first time was for "Calling to You" from his solo album Fate of Nations, but it lost in the Best Hard Rock Vocal category to "Plush" by the Stone Temple Pilots. Then the following year's Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal went not to Page and Plant for their new version of "Kashmir" on No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded but to Blues Traveler for that hip, three-minute ditty called "Run-around." With Page 10 years ago, Plant's luck finally changed for the better, when the award in Best Hard Rock Performance went to them for their new single, "Most High," from Walking into Clarksdale. Then again in 2004, neither of Plant's Grammy bids yielded him a coveted trophy; he was nominated for Best Rock Album with his album Dreamland and Best Male Vocal Performance for his single "Darkness Darkness" -- yielded him a coveted trophy.

Not that it could have precipitated his current Grammy award streak, but 2009 marks the first time Plant attended any official Grammy ceremony. Even last year, when he and Krauss won in Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)," Plant opted to be somewhere else. It was a Grammy sweep on Feb. 8, 2009, though, when he showed up not only to perform a two-song medley with Krauss but also to accept their awards all night.

"In the old days, we would have called this selling out," remarked Plant upon receiving the Album of the Year award. "But I think it's a good way to spend a Sunday."

Interim Grammy count: Four of four, one to go

We're now halfway through the awards ceremony, and thus far Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have stolen the show with their two televised awards. They also swept the two categories that were announced prior to the telecast, which were Best Country Collaboration With Vocals and Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

And when the cameras started rolling inside the Staples Center, the awards continued to roll in. Plant and Krauss repeated last year's win in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category, and then they picked up Record of the Year too.

And of course they'll perform by the time the winner is announced for the top prize, Album of the Year. They're supposed to perform a five-minute medley of "Rich Woman" and "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)." "Rich Woman" is the Raising Sand track that earned them this year's victory in Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, and the other song is what earned them last year's award.

Another track, "Please Read the Letter," is the one that earned Plant and Krauss their Record of the Year. It was the second single from Raising Sand.

Stay tuned for a final recap later!

Robert Plant, Alison Krauss nominated for five Grammys

Five new Grammy nominations have been given to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for their work together.

Their second single, "Please Read the Letter," is up for Record of the Year against some other entries by artists including Leona Lewis, who joined Jimmy Page onstage at the Olympics closing ceremony in August, and Coldplay, which was nominated in seven Grammy categories.

As expected, Raising Sand is up for Album of the Year, squaring off in this category with some heavy hitters: Coldplay again, rap artist Lil Wayne (who tops the number of nominations at seven), R&B singer Ne-Yo (who has six nominations) and Radiohead (which has five nominations).

The feat of earning five nominations was also achieved by artists John Mayer and Jazmine Sullivan.

Raising Sand's opening track, "Rich Woman," was nominated in the category Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, affording Plant and Krauss the opportunity to repeat their win in the same category at this year's ceremony. That win in the 2008 Grammys was for their cover of the Everly Brothers' "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)," the only track of theirs eligible for nomination at this time one year ago.

Representing a genre shift for Plant, their version of Roly Salley's "Killing the Blues" is up for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals. George Strait is nominated twice in this Grammy category: once for a duet with Kenny Chesney and also for another with Patty Loveless.

Raising Sand is also up for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album against the latest from Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder and Rodney Crowell.

The Grammy winners are to be announced in February. The 51st Annual Grammy Awards is set to be broadcast live on Feb. 8.

In addition to the earlier Grammy, the Plant-Krauss collaboration on "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)" earned the Musical Event of the Year award last month at the Country Music Association's annual awards ceremony. The video for that song won a CMT Music Award in April in the Wide Open Video category.

In September, Plant and Krauss received two awards from the Americana Music Association, for Album of the Year and Duo/Group of the Year.

Zep members and the Grammys

The Los Angeles award ceremony for the recorded music industry hands out its annual trophies tonight, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss stand to gain another statue for "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)," in the category Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.

John Paul Jones will be present to conduct an orchestra playing along with the Foo Fighters at the ceremony, which will be broadcast live in the United States on CBS television.

The orchestra is to be made up of winners from a Youtube contest called "My Grammy Moment." One of three finalists will perform a solo, and votes will be online before and during the broadcast to determine which one will play the solo.

Um, can I vote for Jonesy?

They'll be playing the Foos' summer 2007 single "The Pretender." Jones guested on two Foo songs on the band's 2005 album, In Your Honor.

Monday marks the TV premiere of Plant and Krauss appearing on "CMT Crossroads"; check your local listings for time and channel. The entire show is already streaming online.

OK, am I out of it or what? The Plant-Krauss song is the only one in that category I've even heard. Here are the nominees:

• "Steppin' Out," Tony Bennett & Christina Aguilera
• "Beautiful Liar," Beyoncé & Shakira
• "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)," Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
• "The Sweet Escape," Gwen Stefani & Akon
• "Give It To Me," Timbaland Featuring Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake

Know what? I might have heard that last one, but I'm not sure.

Right now, I'm watching the Grammy pre-show on E! Something just crawled across the bottom of the screen saying: "Zeppelin fans have something to cheer about. Guitarist Jimmy Page says he's ready to get back on the road. The Led Zeppelin reunion tour could happen as early as September." Is that really Led Zeppelin news? Stay tuned to LedZeppelinNews.com.

Robert Plant picks up two Grammy nominations

The "Where are They Now?" file apparently doesn't include Robert Plant.

The one-time Grammy award winner has been nominated for a pair of the coveted phonograph-shaped statuettes at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards. Plant's release, Dreamland, is one of five nominees for Best Rock Album, and his single "Darkness, Darkness" is one of five up for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.

Not surprisingly, Bruce Springsteen is among the four other nominees in each of the two categories. He received a total of five bids for his album The Rising and its inspirational title track, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year.

Elvis Costello is also named in both of Plant's categories. Aside from him and Springsteen, Plant's competition in the rock album category includes Sheryl Crow and Tonic, and the other performers up for the rock vocal award are David Bowie and Peter Gabriel.

Plant's only other Grammy nomination as a solo artist was in 1993. His performance on the single "Calling to You" was nominated in the hard rock vocal category. Stone Temple Pilots, a Zeppelin-influenced band on the Atlantic label, picked up that award for the song "Plush."

Plant was given his one and only Grammy award when his 1998 single "Most High" with Jimmy Page won the hard rock performance category, beating out Pearl Jam, Metallica, Kiss and Marilyn Manson.

Page and Plant were not present to receive their award in February 1999. Many fans at the time read into their absence as a response to years of neglect on the part of the Grammys to recognize their music.

Three years earlier, Page and Plant's Unledded version of "Kashmir" had been nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The winner in that category was "Run-around" by Blues Traveler.

Led Zeppelin received a bid for Best New Artist in 1969 but lost to Crosby, Stills & Nash. This marked the only time Led Zeppelin's music earned a Grammy nomination.

That same year, the Led Zeppelin II artwork was nominated for Best Album Cover but lost. Four future Led Zeppelin albums -- Houses of the Holy, Physical Graffiti, Presence and In Through the Out Door -- were nominated for Best Album Package in their respective years. They all lost.

At the same time Page and Plant's "Most High" won an award, Led Zeppelin finally received some sort of an honor from the Grammys. The group's untitled fourth album from 1971 was one of 189 records or albums to be named to the Grammy Hall of Fame as part of the 41st Annual Grammy Awards.

The ceremony for the 2002 awards will be held at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2003. It will be televised worldwide. In the United States, CBS will broadcast the ceremony live.