Now and Zen

Now and Zen is an album by the former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant, released in 1988 via the record label Es Paranza. The album spawned two mainstream rock hits, "Heaven Knows" (Number 1 for six weeks) and "Tall Cool One" (Number 1 for four weeks).

Overview
With a new band and a new perspective on his music, Plant returned in late 1987 with more of the sound that had previously defined him in Led Zeppelin. Although Plant continued to utilise computerised audio technology in a similar fashion to his previous solo albums, for this album Plant re-integrated blues-rock that had all but been deserted on his previous release Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985). Plant, who often uses mysterious and mystical lyrics, writes some of his most direct songs, and the way in which the lyrics complement the melodic arrangements are partially responsible for the commercial success of Now and Zen. A prominent guitar and an exotic texture to the recordings also marked another transformation in Plant's sound, who now added Middle Eastern colouration in compositions like "Heaven Knows". This is a musical direction that he would eventually return to in the mid-1990s with the Page and Plant project.

This album is also notable in that it marks his first collaboration with keyboardist Phil Johnstone, who would continue to play and write with Plant on subsequent albums. The tracks "Heaven Knows" and "Tall Cool One" featured Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page (On the liner notes, Page's participation on the recordings were noted with a ZoSo symbol). In response to the Beastie Boys' unauthorised sampling of Led Zeppelin songs on their 1986 album Licensed to Ill, Plant also sampled Led Zeppelin songs ("Whole Lotta Love", "The Ocean", "Black Dog", and "Custard Pie") on "Tall Cool One", additionally singing lyrics from "When the Levee Breaks". "Walking Towards Paradise" was originally a bonus track available only on CD versions of the album. Rhino Entertainment eventually released a remastered edition of the album, with bonus tracks, on 3 April 2007.

Plant performed "Ship of Fools", "Tall Cool One" and "Heaven Knows" at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert in 1988. "Ship of Fools" was also featured on the final two-hour episode of Miami Vice titled "Freefall".

In an interview he gave to Uncut magazine in 2005, Plant commented:

By the time Now and Zen came out in '89, it looked like I was big again. It was a Top 10 album on both sides of the Atlantic. But if I listen to it now, I can hear that a lot of the songs got lost in the technology of the time.