Robert Plant, second winds and weaning off social media

I call my show You, Me and An Album, and with very few exceptions, it's truth in advertising. Nearly every episode features a guest chatting with me about a single album. I do the show, because I've loved listening to music in album form ever since my pre-teen years, but I probably spend more time thinking about discographies than I do albums. I'm not sure why, but there's just something really compelling about seeing the trajectory of an artist's work over the course of years or decades.

One thing that seems to be nearly universal is artists putting out their best albums early in their career. For those bands and performers who have been good and lucky enough to have been active for multiple decades, I'd be hard-pressed to think of any who hit their artistic peak more than 10 years after their first album was released. While it's debatable as to whether these are their respective artist's best albums, Todd Rundgren's Nearly Human, U2's Achtung Baby and R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi are all notable for being such vital parts of their discographies despite being released during the artist's second decade. I know some would argue that Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night and Radiohead's In Rainbows belong in this group as well.

In the case of R.E.M. and Fleetwood Mac, a lot of fans started to pay less attention to their subsequent releases, though personnel changes played a role in the bands' waning popularity. U2 managed to remain culturally relevant into their third decade, but their artistic reputation was getting tarnished long before the 2014 iTunes debacle.

We can only imagine how Led Zeppelin's late-career trajectory would have played out, and it's not really fair to compare the solo careers of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to the band's 12-year run. The band's legend was too imposing to be matched by any one of its surviving members individually. As the face and voice of Led Zeppelin, it was hardly surprising that Plant's solo career took off in the '80s, but as with most artists, fans began to lose interest after his first handful of albums.

My interest in Plant's solo career dropped off early. I bought his first two albums, Pictures at Eleven and The Principle of Moments, but balked at his third and fourth efforts, Shaken 'N Stirred and Now and Zen, when they came out. I was completely unaware of the solo albums he released in the '90s and was only marginally cognizant of his 1994 No Quarter reunion with Page.

I was a little more interested in Plant's more recent work with Alison Krauss, and after coming across his NPR Tiny Desk concert from late 2025, I decided to check out his most recent solo album, Saving Grace. Becoming acquainted with Plant's more recent work got me interested in his discography again, especially when I realized there was a gaping hole in my knowledge spanning the better part of 30 years!

I wasn't sure where to start my exploration, but the guest on the latest episode of YMAAA helped me out with that. Matt Smith—an Austin-based guitarist, producer and educator—provided me with a short list of albums that we could discuss on his episode, and Plant's 2005 release Mighty ReArranger was among them. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to dive into a part of Plant's discography that I knew absolutely nothing about.

I don't think either Matt or I would argue that Mighty ReArranger reaches the level of peak Zeppelin, but the fact that it comes as close as it does—30 years after Physical Graffiti came out—is nothing short of amazing. In discussing the album with Matt, I noted that if Mighty ReArranger happened to be Plant's first album, it would have been an impressive debut. Is there anyone else who has put out an album that sounds fresh and relevant more than 30 years after their actual debut? I'm guessing there is, but I'm not aware of it.

I don't typically go in-depth on particular episodes in this newsletter, but I'm looking to change that. My intention to write more about the episodes here is the flipside of wanting to write less about them on Instagram. I've decided to do minimal promotion of YMAAA on Instagram, which is now the only social platform where I spend any time. I don't really enjoy promoting the episodes there, and I have finally come to the realization that what I've been doing has made almost zero impact on the show's download and time-spent numbers. Even when my posts have been shared by guests with much larger accounts than mine, the impact has usually been negligible. I could probably put a lot more time and effort into promoting each episode on Instagram, but it's just not how I want to spend my time.

There has been one thing above all others that created a major spike in downloads. After Ann Powers did her episode on The Roches last year, she was kind enough to put a short blurb about the show in the NPR Music newsletter. That one bit of promotion created the biggest jumps in subscribers, listeners and time spent the show has ever experienced. I realize that the YMAAA newsletter is not the NPR Music newsletter, but gaining more subscribers or listeners is not why I want to write more about the episodes here. Mulling on that boost from NPR got me thinking about how much more powerful communication is when it's done through a longer-form platform like a newsletter than through social media.

At least for now, you can still follow YMAAA on Instagram (@youmealbum), but I'm going to be pretty quiet over there. Maybe I'll quit it altogether eventually. As a result, I'll be chattier over here. If you know someone who you think might enjoy the show, please share this post and let them know they can learn more about YMAAA right here!