Led Zeppelin are my favorite band. Now, from a purely objective, critical standpoint, I will concede that the Beatles are probably the best band of all time (and I’ll concede from a subjective standpoint they were the best songwriters of all time, obviously), but this isn’t an objective site, now is it? It’s MY site, and so I’m saying right now that Led Zeppelin are the GREATEST BAND IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. I love ‘em. With the possible exception of those four aforementioned Liverpudlians, I can’t think of a band (at least of those I’ve been able to delve into) that’s had as awesome a six-album stretch as Zeppelin’s first six records. And In Through The Out Door is an underrated classic, to boot. I mean, every kid has their Zeppelin phase, just like they have their Pink Floyd phase. It’s like a rite of passage. I “discovered” the band my senior year in high school, when, disgusted with all the Creed-ish crap on what used to be my favorite radio stations, I turned to the classic rock station, and ofcourse they play a Zeppelin song every twenty minutes, so it didn’t take long to get hooked. By the way, I’m a JUNIOR in college now, and the Zepsters are STILL my favorite band, so I don’t think it’s a phase. “Phases” usually end after two and a half years. This one didn’t.

Like a lot of great bands (read: Nirvana), however, Zeppelin were not the greatest influence. Actually, those they directly influenced (Aerosmith, Van Halen, whatnot) were fine, but it was the second generation influences that were pure and utter shit, since those 70’s rock bands gave way to HAIR-METAL, which, next to rap-metal (whose idea was that? Satan’s?), is probably the worst genre of popular music there is (not counting bubblegum pop and the like, which has always been and always will be around). The problem with imitators is that they only focus on certain facets of the music, and not the whole package. Namely, with Zeppelin, many bands focus on the ass-kicking part, cite Led Zeppelin II as one of their favorite records, and proceed to try to kick as much ass as possible while neglecting the more diverse sides of Zeppelin, as seen on albums like Led Zeppelin III and Houses Of The Holy. Plus, they’re not NEARLY as talented. But how many guitarists are as talented as Jimmy Page? Not many. In addition to him, John Bonham is my favorite drummer of all time. He manages to bash the HELL out of the kit but still do interesting little tricky things as well. Bonham-disciples like to bash their kit, bash their kit some more, and that’s it. See what I mean about not considering ALL facets of something when imitating it? John Paul Jones was a damn good bassist (though not in the John Entwhistle or Chris Squire league), but he played all of Zep’s keyboards too, which THOSE guys never did. And Robert Plant, while not talented in the same sense Page or Bonham was, nevertheless represented the quintessential frontman. Often imitated (by doofs like Sammy Hagar), but never duplicated. He also played harmonica occasionally. And did I mention I LOVE this band?

Pedro Andino (pedroandino@msn.com) writes:

count me in. led zeppelin is the biggest band in the world! before the internet, zeppelin were and still always a massive force to be reckoned with! bootlegs are everywhere and even if you do not have a bootleg, go check them out at your local record store or the net. oh yes! go check out the dvd of led zeppelin with footage of them being very young! led zeppelin 1 was released and the blues covers are everywhere! you shook me!, dazed and confused, how many more times, babe I'm gonna leave you, black mountain side, and communication breakdown! led zeppelin 2 was released and then came whole lotta love!, ramble on, thank you, moby dick, and heartbreaker. nobody does it like jimmy page! that is what sells! like 90 million records! even if metallica sold 90 million records the would still be the biggest band in the world if they do not become jack offs! boy did classic rock stations love zeppelin as if they were encountered by a sexy female and falling in love with it! like an orgasm! led zeppelin 3 is here! immigrant song, tangerine, since I've been loving you, gallows pole, celebration day, and friends. led zeppelin 4 is the ultimate rock orgasm! stairway to heaven, going to california, the battle of evermore, four sticks, rock and roll, black dog, misty mountain hop, and when the levee breaks. houses of the holy is next and then came dancing days, no quarter, the rain song, the ocean and over the hills and far away. physical graffiti is the 2 record set that has the wanton song, kashmir, on my time of dying, trampled underfoot and houses of the holy. the double live record the song remains the same is a total master session of wanking! presence is a step down but still it has good songs like candy store rock! in through the out door was the last one and boy they come out with a bang! hot dog, fool in the rain, in the evening and all my love. and that is the end.

Jesse Kennedy (axis.boldaslove@verizon.net) writes:

hahaha you're a zephead, no wonder you write sucky reviews.

led zeppelin are great and all, except they stole like 10 of their hits from previous artists giving no credit. then when they were being sued, there was an oh-so-convenient cash settlement.

all jokes aside, the reviews weren't THAT bad. i don't have that kind of time though.

Led Zeppelin (1969)

Rating: 8

Best Song: “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”

Let me tell you something. If you like the blues, you will REALLY like this album. Of the nine tracks on this baby, there are FOUR that I could characterize as “meandering blues jams,” something Led Zeppelin, from this point on, would usually put one of on a record, but for literally HALF of a record to consist of this stuff…well, at this point, when they were just getting started, they sure did like the BLOOOOOOOOOOZE, didn’t they? Another thing about this record is that it’s so HEAVY. I mean, this was released in 1969! In January! A full year before Black Sabbath’s debut! I’m sure back then this just sounded like the heaviest thing EVER to people. The drum sound, compared to everything else going on in 1969, is just so HUGE. John Bonham was really a madman, and the production gives him such a big, full sound that pretty much kicked the shit out of anything else going on at that time. Go John Bonham. Play those blues!

For me, personally, though, I’m not really a huge fan of “meandering blues jams,” (though two of the four rule mercilessly). And so that’s why this is one of only TWO of the Zeppelin’s eight non-Coda studio records to get below a 9. I just can’t get excited about a good, meandering blues jam unless it’s an awesome, mind-blowingly superb meandering blues jam, like “Dazed And Confused,” for instance, which kicks ASS. I’m sure you’ve heard it. Those ominous bass notes at the beginning are fucking superb. “How Many More Times” is the other one of the four that rules. It’s also eight and a half minutes long and ends the album. When they put this out, the Zeppsters falsely labeled the copies they sent to radio stations, saying that the length of this song was TWO and a half minutes or so, instead of eight and a half. So the deejays would play the song, and then sit completely mortified as it just KEPT GOING for six extra minutes! That’s cool. It also, like “Dazed and Confused,” has just an awesome bass riff that opens the song. Now, the other two blues jams (the ones I don’t enjoy) don’t start with bass riffs. Maybe they should. Another thing “You Shook Me” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby” have in common is that they’re credited to Willie Dixon instead of Page or Page/Plant or whomever. Now, Led Zeppelin probably only wrote about one or two songs on this record themselves, but what made the band so great was that they twisted and morphed the blues until it was something completely unrecognizable. They apparently changed these two tunes little enough they still had to give writing credit to Willie Dixon, and maybe that’s why they bore the crap out of me. “You Shook Me” has a neat part in the middle where Bonham’s drums are going completely APESHIT and shooting back and forth between the two speakers, but that’s about it.

Besides the bloooooooooooooze, there are also five more tracks here. “Good Times Bad Times” and “Communication Breakdown” are both short, sub-three minute rockers, and they’re also the only two songs based on what I would call a “guitar riff.” I prefer “Good Times Bad Times” myself of the two. Bonham does TRIPLETS with the bass drum. That’s insane. I can’t do doublets. He’s the man. “Communication Breakdown” is REALLY fast and sounds like a punk song, but ofcourse there was no punk rock in 1969, so therefore it’s just really fast. “Your Time Is Gonna Come” starts out really neat, with awesome organ work by the unsung John Paul Jones, then sort of becomes just a random 4/4 rocker about how Plant’s girl done him wrong. She seems to do him wrong a lot on this record. When it’s finished, it segues in a REALLY COOL way into “Black Mountain Side,” which is a preview of both the acoustic Zeppelin we’d see on Led Zeppelin III and the asian and middle-eastern influences that would come up later in various foreign policy debates. It’s just Jimmy’s acoustic and some tabla drums. Cool. The fact that it jumps immediately into “Communication Breakdown” when it’s done is SUPERB sequencing.

And then there’s the best track on here, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” an acoustic ballad about how, um, Plant’s girl done him wrong, I guess. Robert, you were TWENTY-ONE when Zeppelin made this album. You hadn’t had THAT many girls do you wrong yet! Blargh. Anyway, it rules. Quiet, beautiful acoustic verses and loud, powerful, but STILL acoustic choruses. Oh, and there’s a trumpet (?) at the end. Well, there’s something at the end and it sounds like a trumpet. Plant also says “baby” about 6,708 times during the song, which might be a record for him, but it’s tough, since half of Zeppelin’s songs are about “baby.” I’ve heard of a drinking game where you take a shot every time Robby sings “babe” or “baby” or some variation thereof. I’d love to play that with this song. I’d get SO FUCKING WASTED. Oh, but I’m NOT an alcoholic. Really.

So, like every single record they ever made (except Coda), I’d highly recommend this one, just not quite as highly as most of what came later. If you love long, meandering BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOZE jams, though, you should probably go and pick this one up before, say, In Through The Out Door, because that’s just glorified piano pop.

Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Rating: 9

Best Song: “Ramble On”

You know, this was released only TEN months after their debut in October of 1969. I point this out because that’s quite different from today, where bands like Creed and Hoobastank and whoever take like three years between albums. Does it really take THAT long to write forty minutes of crap? If the band’s good, fine. But, seriously, what’s Fred Durst doing that prevents him from laying down ten tracks (or “piles of shit,” as I would call them) and throwing out a follow-up to The Chocolate Starfish and the Hot-Dog Up Linkin Park’s Ass? So their guitar player left. So what? He dressed like an alien. Big deal.

Now, in defense of those bands I list above, Zeppelin was able to release this in such a short time because, most likely, they didn’t actually write any of it. Well, I bet they wrote “Ramble On,” since it’s got lyrics that explicitly mention Gollum from The Lord Of The Rings (which Robert Plant was OBSESSED with, by the way), but the fact that all of the songs are credited to the four band members doesn’t mean a damn thing. They were actually successfully sued over “The Lemon Song,” which they stole from a Howlin’ Wolf song called “Killin’ Floor.” Maybe Plant shouldn’t have sung “killin’ floor” like ten times in it. That would have been helpful. Oh well. “The Lemon Song” is also, I guess, the closest thing to a “meandering blues jam” we have here, but it’s really just a bluesy riff-rocker, which is pretty much the term to define this album. Page ditched the long blues jams and wrote (or stole) some absolutely KILLER riffs for this puppy. It’s just chocked full of ‘em. Perhaps you’ve heard “Whole Lotta Love?” What an AWESOME riff that has. The middle part is perhaps the best part of this album, especially on headphones. Plant has an orgasm (literally) in your head that is mixed completely and utterly psychotically, swerving from one speaker to the other until you feel extremely disoriented. It’s awesome.

But that’s not the ONLY great riff on this baby. “Heartbreaker” starts off what was the second side back then (haha! The morons had to FLIP THEIR RECORDS OVER!) with the best riff this side of, um…”Whole Lotta Love.” There’s also a great break in it where Jimmy just plays a completely rhythm-less guitar solo that makes no sense, and serves only to show how many notes he can play in a short period of time, but it rocks. And then the song just returns to butt-kicking like it never stopped. There’s also “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman),” which you probably know as the long ending to “Heartbreaker,” since they’re played together on classic rock stations (at least they are on mine). I like this little song a lot. It reminds me of “Good Times Bad Times” from the last album. And it ALSO has a great riff! Then, ofcourse, there’s “Moby Dick,” which was probably conceived with Jimmy’s saying “we have this great riff but no song, so let’s play it twice, let John solo for a few minutes, then play it again, and that’s the song.” Actually, the drum solo is a little boring at times, but it’s still neat. You know John plays most of it with his HANDS? What a crazy sumbitch!

This record does not consist ENTIRELY of riff-rockers though. It’s got two ballads as well, one of which is great and one of which isn’t so much, but still passable. “What Is And What Should Never Be” is the good one. It has an interesting soft/loud structure where half the time it sounds like a ballad, and half the time it sounds like most of the rest of this album. But half a ballad = ballad in my book, so it’s a ballad. “Thank You” makes that equation useless, since it’s 100% ballad, with some nice keyboard work by John Paul Jones and some sappy love lyrics by Plant. Also, there is ONE acoustic-y song here, and, like the last record, it’s the best thing on it! “Ramble On” absolutely dominates the proverbial dojo. I love the buildup to it, as the “drums” in the beginning sound like Bonham is just hitting his hands on his hips or something. Then there’s some brilliant guitar overdubs, and then the chorus kicks your ass. Trust me, it does. A song that confuses me a bit is the last tune, “Bring It On Home.” The opening part of it is so muddled. It’s got a neat harmonica, but then when Plant starts singing it sounds like he’s still got the harmonica in his mouth. They were going for “1920’s production” here or some shit, but the thing is, then it turns into a rippin’ riff rocker after a minute or two, like “Heartbreaker” or the non-drum solo part of “Moby Dick.” And then at the end it goes BACK to the muddled-ness. Why? Why not just make it a riff-rocker and leave it be? Why fuck it up? Whatever. It’s a minor complaint, and the middle part absolutely COOKS, so I can live with some awful 1920’s muddled-ness.

So, to sum up, while Zeppelin’s first album was very, very blues based, this one veers away from that and goes in a more rock-based direction. Blues jams have been replaced by kick-ass riffs. Led Zeppelin I: blues. Led Zeppelin II: rock. Led Zeppelin III: ……..

Led Zeppelin III (1970)

Rating: 9

Best Song: “Tangerine”

…Acoustic! Now, that little transition probably would have been more effective if I hadn’t already mentioned that Led Zeppelin III is a largely acoustic affair, but maybe you weren’t reading very closely, so I felt I’d hammer it home once more before I actually start reviewing the album. Now, given the fact that acoustic tunes were my favorites on Zeppelin’s first two records, it should come as no surprise that I think this is the best record they had made up to this point. They’d get even better though, which just goes to show how much they RULE.

Oh, and the first side is actually largely un-acoustic. That’s mainly left to the fantastiwabulous second side, but we’ll get to that. “Immigrant Song” (which you might know as “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!! “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!”) opens it up with a loud, ballsy rocker, just like the first two albums did with “Good Times Bad Times” and “Whole Lotta Love.” Methinks me detects a pattern. There’s also two more RAWKIN’ songs on this side, “Celebration Day,” which is good, and “Out On The Tiles,” which is better. The riffs for these babies aren’t as ass-kicking as the last album, but they’re more complex, as Jimmy is starting to expand his boundaries a little bit. He’s also expanding his smack habit, no doubt, the druggie. “Since I’ve Been Loving You” is the obligatory long “meandering blooooooooze jam,” and clocks in at seven and a half minutes. I like it a LOT, though. It’s of “Dazed And Confused” quality. Robby’s been working from “SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN TO ELEEEEEEEVEN!” every night, and, apparently it’s making his life a drag. Poor Robby. And this side isn’t completely devoid of acoustic stuff, either, as “Friends” has an odd, ascending middle-eastern sounding chord sequence and some neat strings. It’s good. Not as good as the stuff on side 2, but good. It also segues into “Celebration Day” with no break, which is one of only two times Zeppelin ever do that on record. Brownie points for anyone who can tell me the other time (I mentioned it above!).

And then comes side 2! It’s all acoustic, and with one GLARING exception, it’s all brilliant. In “Gallows Pole,” Plant narrates to us the charming conversation of a hangman and the guy he’s about to hang (from the gallows pole, no less) pleading for his life. He offers the guy his SISTER! And the hangman takes her, “boils his blood to hot,” and then he kills the guy anyway! So CHARMING! You wouldn’t know it without listening closely to the lyrics, since it’s very upbeat. I’d characterize it as a “jig” or possibly a “hop,” which is also how I’d characterize “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.” Actually, maybe I’ll characterize that one as a “stomp.” They’re both a damn acoustic-pickin’ good time! “That’s The Way” is neither a jig, bop, or stomp, and is actually a beautiful ballad where Plant sings some lyrics about two kids who can’t play together anymore. How sad! He actually sounds sincere here, which is an accomplishment for him. That leaves “Tangerine,” which is my pick for, um, pick of the litter (though the album is so even it’s practically impossible to pick one). Anyway, Jimmy uses an electric guitar (shocking!) in his solo, but that’s the only non-acoustic one on the side, I swear! It’s a gorgeous song. If you’ve seen Almost Famous (which is a GREAT movie which you should go see RIGHT NOW if you haven’t), it’s the song playing during the final scene of the movie, when the band’s tour bus is driving away. Crap, what was the name of the band in that movie? Oh, um...Stillwater! Yeah, I think that’s it. I only saw the movie once. Give me a break!

By the way, I’ve left one track unmentioned so far because I’d like to give it its own paragraph, because it’s AWFUL. It’s one of only TWO Zeppelin songs (even counting all of Coda) that I just despise for its awfulness. It’s called “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper,” it single-handedly demotes the album from a 10 to a 9, and, in a fit of genius, Jimmy decided to let it END the album. Goddammit. Remember that muddled 1920’s-sounding production I mentioned concerning “Bring It On Home?” Picture an entire song mixed like that, but worse. Plant’s voice is vibrating the whole time in a really stupid way. God I hate this song. At least it wasn’t written by anyone in the band, and they admit it this time, too. It’s credited as “traditional” in the liner notes, which is also how “Gallows Pole” is credited. Whatever. It sucks. What REALLY bothers me is that Jimmy could have made ONE change, replaced it with a SPECIFIC different song, and made the album a certified, no-debate 10. I’ll get to how later. Trust me, it was there for him to do. Jackass. So this record is nine tracks of genius and one of utter shit. But just stop it after track nine, and it’s really really good! I promise!

Mike Noto (thepublicimage79@hotmail.com) writes:

this gets a good rating from me. A 9, because A) I haven't gotten sick of it
yet and B) I even like "Hats Off To Roy Harper," which everyone jizzes on. I
really like screwy vocal effects. Plant put his microphone through a Leslie
cabinet, aka the Hammond organ's speaker - the Beatles would do this all the
time with many of their instruments. The processed vocal on "Tomorrow Never
Knows" is courtesy to a Leslie. anyhoo, I like it. And I love this album,
where Zep showed their acoustic influences and mostly did right by them.
"Immigrant Song" is a classic opener, "Friends" is interestingly weird, the
warped slide guitar on "Celebration Day" truly blasts off, and "Out On The
Tiles" is THE SHIT. "Gallows Pole" rules merciless quantities of ass,
"That's The Way" may be the best acoustic ballad they ever did ("Going To
California" can suck Tom Green), and "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" is hilarious and so
much fun! Awesome song! and "Hats off to Roger Waters Who Should've Sung
'Have A Cigar' Instead" is cool too. The two I don't particularly dig are
"Since I've Been Loving You" and "Tangerine." "Tangerine" is too close to
'70's soft-rock for me to fully enjoy, and I've never liked the studio
version of "Since I've Been Loving You" - Plant is really annoying, Page's
solo isn't that great, and the version on "BBC Sessions" made it look like
chopped liver anyway.

So yeah, this is one Zeppelin album I really like. which says absolutely
nothing, since I like most Led Zeppelin albums very much. but my favorite
Led Zeppelin album of all time is, still, the one I started out with, which
is BBC Sessions. And yes, I know that's pathetic, but that's the way it is.
almost every one of those versions maul the studio counterparts.

And "Hey Hey What Can I Do" should have been on the album. What could they
have been thinking by leaving it off? It's one of their best-ever acoustic
songs.

Led Zeppelin IV/Zoso/Untitled/Whatever (1971)

Rating: 10

Best Song: “Stairway To Heaven”

Boo-yeah!

No, seriously…BOO-YEAH!!!

Although I haven’t heard much of Black Sabbath’s catalog and thus this declaration is rendered (somewhat) meaningless (Note: This has now been rectified. Black Sabbath rules! But not as much as Led Zeppelin), this is my pick for best hard rock album of all time, bar none. Case closed. Jesus Christ, what an incredible album. Eight songs, and SEVEN of them are utterly, 100% fantastically brilliant! And the other one’s pretty good too! As I’ve told you, the band concentrated on blues for one album, rock for another, and then acoustic folk for their third. For this one, they throw all that stuff into a great big uber-blender, mix, and come out with a delicious shake. The flavor? ASS-KICKING-OSITY!

“Black Dog” (which you’ve heard) follows the pattern of balls-out opening rocker. “Hey hey mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you GROOOOOOOOOOOVE!” You go, Rob! “Rock And Roll” (which you’ve also heard. I think it’s on Chrysler commercials now. Or some kind of car) kicks my ass all the way to MIT. On a good day it kicks my ass AND yours all the way to fucking CAPE COD COMMUNITY COLLEGE! “It’s been a long time, been a long time, been a long LONELY LONELY LONELY LONELY LONELY time!” No shit it’s been a long time! You’ve been too busy singing fucking FOLK SONGS! “The Battle Of Evermore” (which you might not have heard, but you probably have) marks the height of Plant’s Tolkien-obsessed imagery. “The drums will shake the castle wall, the ringwraiths ride in black.” Gee, Rob, could you make it any MORE obvious you have a shrine to J.R.R. in your house? No! Because what other books have RINGWRAITHS in them! “Stairway To Heaven” (which you, um, MIGHT have heard, at one time or another)…well, I can’t rationally discuss this song. How can I speak coherently about the BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN BY MORTAL MAN?

Phew, side 2. OK. Oh, “Misty Mountain Hop! (which you’ve heard)” YEAH! Rob’s been hanging out with hippies! They’ve got flowers in their hair! I LOVE this song! “Four Sticks” (the ONLY one you might not have heard) is the only song that’s not mindblowingly, nut-spankingly awesome. But it’s notable. You know why? Because Bonham plays the drums with FOUR DRUMSTICKS! That’s where the song got its title. How COOL IS THAT? “Going To California” (which you’ve probably heard) is GORGEOUS. Plant’s chasing after his girl again. She’s gone off to California. Hey, maybe that’s where he met those hippies with the flowers in their hair! OK, now I’m all relaxed after “Going To California,” but, ofcourse, now that I’m relaxed, I must be HIT OVER THE HEAD REPEATEDLY by the drum intro to “When The Levee Breaks” (which you’ve heard). You know I can play that drum intro? When I first figured it out I just went “I AM JOHN BONHAM!!!” Oh, and I have to ask Jimmy (or, more accurately, Robby, since he played it) how he made a fucking HARMONICA sound so evil. This song is the soundtrack to the apocalypse. And the apocalypse ROCKS!

OK, between my incoherent slobbering fan-boy ramblings, you’ve probably noticed one connecting theme. And that is, if you listen at all to classic rock radio, you’ve heard pretty much this entire album (except for “Four Sticks,” maybe). If you don’t, you’ve still heard half of it somewhere or other. On my local classic rock station (go WZLX!), this is probably the second-most-played album in their playlist. The first is Boston’s debut, of which I’ve heard EVERY song at least five times. If Boston had more than one album anyone gave a shit about, maybe there’d be more Boston variety and this one would claim the top spot, but since they don’t, we’ll never know. Anyway, don’t let the fact that you’ve heard all the songs prevent you from obtaining this record. As a whole, it’s even better! The classic of classics for hard rock.

Oh, and who’s Memphis Minnie?

threegtrz@hotmail.com writes:

No fuckin WAY you can play Bonham's part in "Levee Breaks"! I've been in bands since '76 and have been searching for a drummer that can do that, but they all fuck it up. They don't get the bass-drum rhythm right or they double-time the high hat part. Or they just make up they're own shit and scoff at me for being a purist.

You RAWK!

I just quit a band that played "American Band" by GFR. You know the drummer couldn't do the intro to that? Shit, that's like "Smoke on the Water" is to a guitarist! .....sigh.....so hard to get good help these days!

Mark

Houses Of The Holy (1973)

Rating: 10

Best Song: “The Rain Song”

Now that Zeppelin had done a blues record, a rock record, an acoustic record, and a record that mixes those three styles up, what else could they do? Apparently, Jimmy Page thought long and hard about this question, because he comes up with a WHOLE lot of other stuff to do on this album. Reggae? Sure! Hilarious James Brown soul ripoffs? Why not! PROGRESSIVE rock? Ofcourse! You see, Led Zeppelin WERE a diverse band. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. And the proof is in the pudding (mmmm...pudding) right here on this puppy.

Before I get to the crazy new stuff, let’s concentrate a bit on the stuff that actually sounds like pre-Houses Led Zeppelin, shall we? The first track, “The Song Remains The Same,” actually somewhat breaks their pattern for ballsy rockers at the beginning. It might be the closest they actually come to one on here, but it does break the pattern. At first, it doesn’t seem like much, but on repeated listens you realize just how much is going on, and ALL with Jimmy’s guitar! There’s like a whole bunch of crazy, fast riffs all going on at the same time, and it’s REALLY impressive. I think this song is the highest I’ve ever heard Plant’s voice go, too, and it’s actually a bit annoying. He sounds like a girl! But it’s OK, since he doesn’t sound like a little girl ALL the time (like Geddy Lee, for instance), just on this track. They’ve also got “Dancing Days,” which the Stone Temple Pilots covered once for some reason. Now, this falls in the grand Zeppelin tradition of riff-rockers, and it reminds me a bit of “Misty Mountain Hop,” but the riff is so…odd. It doesn’t sound quite right, like it’s off key or something. That Jimmy, always experimenting! “Over The Hills And Far Away” is FUCKING AWESOME. It’s got verses that sound like Led Zeppelin III, and a butt-kicking chorus that sounds like Led Zeppelin II, only, like, BETTER. “The Ocean” is the album closer, and sounds like traditional Zep until the end, when a whole chorus of “Shoo-wop! Sha-dooby-dooby-doo-wop!” comes in for a minute. What the fuck? It’s pretty cool, though.

Oh, and there’s the crazy new stuff! “D’yer Mak’er” is the “reggae” tune, but I’ll be the first to admit they slaughter the genre. Bonham can’t play reggae. He’s TOO DAMN POWERFUL! I like the song a lot though, even if it is stupid. “Oh oh oh oh oh oh, you don’t have to goooooo.” You’ve heard it. It’s easily the most-played song on the radio from this album. “The Crunge” is the worst song here, but that’s a relative term (it’s not bad at all), and it works because it’s hilarious. It’s a soul or funk song or something, I guess, but who the hell knows really. All I know is when Plant goes “where’s that confounded bridge?” at the end, it fucking kills me. Almost as funny as it is when he mentions ringwraiths and keeps a straight face doing it, but not quite.

And then there’s the two sort of “progressive” tracks on here. Now, don’t be scared! Prog is not evil! Don’t let every single rock critic from the last twenty-five years tell you it is. Because they will EVERY CHANCE THEY GET. Yes is a GREAT band. Anyway, “The Rain Song,” which is my favorite song on the record, is the “happy” one of the two. It starts with just an acoustic guitar, then Rob starts singing about spring or something (progressive rock lyrics are gibberish, as are a lot of Zeppelin lyrics, now that I think about it), and then another guitar is overdubbed. Heck, there are probably like five overdubbed at some point in this song. Then the mellotron! Ooooo, I love those mellotron strings! And there’s a piano! And it’s so beautiful! Oh man, I could go on forever. Later on Bonham does come in, and the song really gets loud, but still in a slow, pretty way. Zooma, I love this song. “No Quarter” is the other progressive song, and it sounds EVIL. John Paul plays some eerie electric piano stuff at the beginning. And Jimmy’s distorted riff is brilliant. Bonham plays some great drums here too, actually in a pretty subdued way (at least at the start). Maybe D’yer Mak’er would have sounded more authentic if he played that way for it. Ofcourse, it wouldn’t have kicked ass, so I guess I have no point. Plant starts his evil Viking-inspired lyrics with “Close the door, put out the light. You know they won’t be home tonight.” SCARY! The song is super-duper, though. It’s pretty much as good as “The Rain Song,” but I’ll give the happier one the nod for best track because it’s happy.

So, like every other record before it, this album means a complete change in style for the boys. They’re not like Radiohead and become a completely different band from album to album, obviously (they’re still Led Zeppelin), but they’re trying to branch out here, which is commendable. And what’s even more commendable is that, except for “The Crunge,” this branching out really REALLY works, though I bet “The Crunge” was intended to be stupid. Diversity is a seriously underrated part of the Led Zeppelin package. Another underrated part of the package is that they’re probably perverts. The last line of “The Ocean” goes “she is only three years old and it’s a real fine way to start,” and there are NAKED LITTLE GIRLS ON THE ALBUM COVER. Hoo-boy…

The Soundtrack From The Film The Song Remains The Same (1976)

Rating: 8

Best Song: “No Quarter”

This was actually released after Physical Graffiti and quite possibly after Presence, which was released in March of 1976, but since I’ve got no idea what month this one was released in, I guess we’ll never know. I’m reviewing it now instead of later because, chronologically, it belongs here, as it’s a live recording of a concert from the Houses Of The Holy tour. It got released so late because, as you can tell (unless you’re stupid), it’s the soundtrack to Zeppelin’s movie, which was released in 1976 as well. I haven’t seen it, and I really should since Zeppelin’s my favorite band and all, but I’ve heard it’s not that good, so I’m not really in any rush to.

This is also the only officially released live concert recording of Led Zeppelin we have. There’s also the BBC sessions, but, since that’s a collection of performances for BBC radio released WELL after the fact, to me that doesn’t really count. The fact that this IS the only officially released concert album there is for Zeppelin is a bit of a shame, too, since it’s really not that great. Apparently there are tons of bootlegs of MUCH higher quality than this record out there, and I can believe it, but I don’t really care to go and find them, so this is what I’ve got. And even though it’s not that great (at least by Zeppelin’s standards), it is pretty much essential for a Zeppelin fanatic like myself, so, gosh darnit, if you’re like me, you have NO CHOICE but to get it. HA!

A problem with this album is that the performances seem so, I don’t know, uninspired. A lot of the songs are pretty inferior to their studio counterparts, and the LOOOOOOOOOONG on-stage wanking sessions (which they did in every concert of theirs) are just BOOOOORING. Now, for Zeppelin to have such a tremendous reputation as a live band, I have to believe that often these wanking sessions were VERY entertaining. Too bad they suck here. I mean, “Dazed And Confused” is fucking TWENTY-SIX MINUTES LONG. And most of the parts that have nothing to do with the studio version are just boring and make me want to go and take Jimmy’s guitar and smack him over the head with it, and then take his smack. “Dazed And Confused,” at its longest, was actually upwards of FORTY-FIVE minutes long, but I have to believe it was entertaining at times. I hope. Or I’ve picked the wrong favorite band, haven’t I? Anyway, there are two parts I remember in particular from this version of “Dazed,” one in which Plant sings about how he’s “going to San Francisco” which might have been rehearsed and is BORING, and the three goddamn minutes Jimmy spends hitting his guitar strings with a violin bow. I’m sure it LOOKED cool if you were there (dude! A violin bow!) but it comes off as excrutiatingly boring without the visual element. Ugh. Fucking wankers.

Only (roughly) half of this double album can be described as “wanking,” though, and in fact the first side is devoted to four songs that more-or-less accurately mirror their studio representations. “Rock and Roll,” “Celebration Day,” and “The Song Remains The Same” are fine, but, eh, I don’t like live albums PRECISELY because of what these songs do, and that is be nice renditions of studio material, but absolutely NOTHING more. Thus they are utterly pointless, though it is neat to hear Jimmy play all of those little overdubbed riffs from “The Song Remains The Same” live AT THE SAME TIME. He was a decent guitarist. “The Rain Song” is different from the other three in that it is awful. Well, it’s not awful per se, but it’s awful compared to the studio version. The rendition here is just a travesty, really. All of the subtle beauty of the original version is just completely lost. I guess, when you’re a POWERFUL RAWWWKIN’ band like Led Zeppelin, you can be as sensitive as you want in studio, but once you play live you go back to what you always do, and that is bash. Really, really hard. Oh well.

But wait, maybe I was wrong, because side 3 of this baby is AWESOME! First, there’s “No Quarter,” the version of which here is completely and utterly perfect. It’s extended to about five minutes longer than the studio version (clocking in at twelve or so), and most of that time is devoted to letting Jimmy and John Paul Jones co-wank on the guitar and electric piano. But they do it so tastefully! The middle solo section of the song on THIS recording always leaves me breathless. It’s just superb. The other song (yes, only 2) on this side is “Stairway To Heaven,” or, as Robert calls it here, “a song about hope.” It’s a perfectly fine rendition, and, since it’s freaking “Stairway To Heaven,” ofcourse it’s incredible.

Also, if I had this record in the original LP format I think I’d just listen to side 3 OVER and OVER again, because as good as it is, and as average as the whole first LP is, side 4 is that BAD. It’s also got two tracks, but unlike the two on the previous side, which clock in at a combined studio time of fifteen minutes, the two here (“Moby Dick” and “Whole Lotta Love”) combine for about nine minutes of studio time, half of which, even on record, is just open space for messing around. So what do they do here? WANK! WANK! WANK! And not even exciting wanking. “Moby Dick” has an eleven minute DRUM SOLO which is fun for about two minutes and then puts me to sleep, because it’s just the fucking drums. “Whole Lotta Love” has a nice first minute and last two minutes, which is where the actual riff from the song is. The other eleven minutes of this baby are taken up by all sorts of crap, a notable moment of which is Robert’s yelling “I’m just tryin’ to find the bridge! Has anybody seen the bridge?” from “The Crunge,” which makes me laugh, but sounds retarted.

But after trashing most of this record, I still give it an 8. Why? Well, first, it’s Led Zeppelin, and the songs they play are almost universally awesome tunes in studio, so average renditions of them will still be great. Second, side 3 really IS that good. And third, on the three long wank tracks, the parts of the songs that are NOT wanking are very, very good, however small they may be. The ominous base notes of “Dazed And Confused” and the KILLER riffs to “Moby Dick” and “Whole Lotta Love” are still there, intact. So Led Zeppelin’s live album isn’t so hot. But it’s STILL Led Zeppelin, and it still rocks, even if Jimmy doesn’t know when to stop with that goddamn violin bow.

Physical Graffiti (1975)

Rating: 10

Best Song: “Kashmir”

“OH MY GOD! Led Zeppelin released a DOUBLE ALBUM?!! No shit???!!! And they’re at the peak of their powers! Oh my god, oh my god…breathe, Brad, breathe, don’t hyperventilate. Oh wow. This is the best thing to ever happen to me. I can now die a happy man, because Led Zeppelin has released a double album.”

If I had been eighteen in 1975 when this record was put out, that’s probably what I would have said upon hearing of its release. The main difference is I would have known about it MONTHS in advance and camped out in front of the record store for a week, like my friend Al camped out in front of a movie theater before Star Wars: Episode II came out. This is Led Zeppelin at the HEIGHT of their Zeppelin-ness, before they went downhill (and they abruptly would in a year), doing basically whatever they want for however damn long they want. By that I mean there are some seriously loooong tracks on here. So you’ve been warned.

Now, the first disc is pretty much perfect. It’s as good as Led Zeppelin IV, and you all know how much I WORSHIP Led Zeppelin IV. There are six songs (told you they wrote some long ones for this record), five of them are ass-slappingly fantastic, and the sixth is better than “Four Sticks.” “Custard Pie” resumes the “ballsy opener” pattern and is quite dirty (“give me a piece of your custard pie” indeed!), but has a great riff which is supported by an equally great keyboard riff every other time it repeats. “The Rover” is my least favorite track from the first disc, but that is a VERY relative term. It’s EXTREMELY loud. And good. “In My Time Of Dying” is the longest song (in studio) they ever recorded, clocking in at 11:06. It’s sort of a blues jam, but not really, as it has too much damn ass-kicking power to be a blues jam. It’s a riff jam, I guess, and I know I just made up a term there, so LAY OFF. There’s a whole bunch of different riffs and sections throughout the tune, but it’s not a prog song. It sounds like a jam, but a carefully written jam, if that makes sense. Oh, and a guy coughs at the end. The second side is the “songs you’ve heard” side. “Houses Of The Holy” (the song, NOT the album!) is a damn catchy pop song, or at least seems like one to me. There’s another great riff here. “Trampled Under Foot” is another sort of funk song, but instead of being stupid like “The Crunge,” it manages to be absolutely awesome. Plant manages to keep the “hot chick = car” metaphor going for five minutes and have it remain interesting. “Dig that heavy metal underneath your HOOD!” “Kashmir” is eight minutes of THE BEST RIFF EVER WRITTEN BY MORTAL MAN, and you’ve heard it, so I’ll move on.

As good as the first disc is, two of my three favorite songs on the album (the third being “Kashmir”) reside on side 3, and the feeling of knowing that those songs are still to come even AFTER the first disc is finished is just about as good as the feeling I have when I see it’s nacho day for lunch in the Dunster dining hall. I LOVE nacho day. “In The Light” and “Ten Years Gone” are both long, and they’re both gorgeous. “In The Light,” which has the coolest keyboard intro I’ve ever heard, is one of my favorite Zep songs of all time, even though no one else seems to like it. Screw everyone else. “Down By The Seaside” is a nice ballad that doesn’t even sound like Zeppelin, and “Bron-Yr-Aur” (no “Stomp” this time) is two minutes of exquisitely beautiful unaccompanied acoustic guitar work by Jimmy. Sweet. Now, when “Ten Years Gone” ends and side 4 starts with the opening “I received a message…” line from “Night Flight,” well, that feeling’s not so hot. This is because, to me, side 4 doesn’t really measure up. It’s got five enjoyable yet forgettable boogie rockers (3 electric, 2 not), and it’s nothing compared to the rest of the record. No one buys this album to hear “The Wanton Song” or “Boogie With (Disco) Stu.” They buy it to hear “Kashmir!” But I give the record a 10 anyways. I’d give side 4 by itself an 8. (10 + 10 + 10 +8)/4 = 9.5, and I was told in school to round up when presented with a “.5,” so a 10 it is.

Now, one interesting thing to do (at least for me) is to look back at reviews for records written when they first came out. Rolling Stone has made this possible by posting all of their old archived reviews on their website, so you can see whether critics hated prog as much in 1973 as they do now (they didn’t). The old review of Physical Graffiti interested me, because I think the reviewer really missed the point. He claimed this record was Zeppelin’s bid for “artistic respectability” or some such thing, but I disagree with that. To me, Houses Of The Holy was that record. They experiment more on it than this one. This is just a band saying “We’re the absolute shit. We know we’re the shit. Everyone knows we’re the shit. So let’s put out a double album, just because WE ARE THE SHIT.” A lot of the songs here sound like they came up with a riff in the studio and built a five-minute song around it. The amazing thing is those songs (“Custard Pie,” etc.) are GREAT. This is an album from a band that wanted to splurge out as much as they could splurge while they were on top, and before they started to…um…

Presence (1976)

Rating: 7

Best Song: “Achilles Last Stand”

…decline. And boy is this a BIG step down from Physical Graffiti, even though it was released just one year later. There were some mitigating circumstances, ofcourse. Aren’t there always when a great band suddenly lays a (relative) egg? Between Physical Graffiti and this, Plant had been in a HORRENDOUS car accident. It was actually in doubt for eighteen months whether he’d be able to walk again. When he did his vocals for this record, he was sitting in a chair, or propped up, or something, since he couldn’t walk. That must have sucked monkey balls. Oh, and Jimmy’s smack habit and Bonzo’s booze habit were continuing to get out of hand. But that’s not really an excuse, since it was always the case. Anyway, according to the liner notes for the Complete Studio Recordings box set (which is what I have, as opposed to all of these albums individually), they recorded this thing in THREE WEEKS, and on a lot of it you can REALLY tell.

Somehow, though, they DID manage to crank out two really good songs, one of which, to me, belongs with “Stairway” and “Kashmir” in the “holy trinity” of Zep tunes. Ofcourse, that would be “Achilles Last Stand,” the ten minute epic that opens the album. A couple of guitars slowly fade in, one in each speaker, then BOOM, the main riff comes in. Ofcourse, there are a whole shitload of “main riffs” throughout this absolutely, incredibly ORGASMIC song, but there’s no time to go through everything. Two parts I’ll mention here: the sort of “chugga-chugga” part that reoccurs several times, and at the end, during the last “chugga chugga” part, how Jimmy has overdubbed about 500 individual guitar notes over each other, just like the end of “In The Light,” only BETTER! What a song. “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” is the other real winner. The “aaahh ahh aaahh ahhhhh!” guitar/Plant’s squawk box interplay is awesome. “Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh NOOOOOOOOOOOOO-body’s fault!” Plant, you fucking RAWK!

But the problem is there are FIVE more tracks here, and the optimum word for how they sound is “lazy.” It’s obvious to me Jimmy was just SPENT by this time, and whatever he had left in the tank, he emptied it all for “Achilles.” He really did splurge all he had to splurge when they made Physical Graffiti. A lot of this sounds like Jimmy was fucking around, found a riff, and then they made a song, but they didn’t add anything, like a different guitar tone, or a keyboard, or ANYTHING, and they had the song done and recorded in about an hour. Shockingly, one of these, “For Your Life,” is actually pretty good. There’s a neat stop/start riff. It’s about cocaine, I think. I’m sure Zeppelin wouldn’t know anything about that, now would they. Anyway, if I were to hear the other two songs like this, “Royal Orleans” and “Hots On For Nowhere,” on the radio, I seriously wouldn’t be able to tell which is which. They define the term “unmemorable random rocker.” One of them is about an “adventure” John Paul had with a transvestite in New Orleans, but I couldn’t tell you which one. Oh, wait, that’d be “Royal Orleans,” since it has “Orleans” in the title, DUH. I’m a dumbass. There’s also “Candy Store Rock,” which is Plant’s admitted attempt to imitate Elvis. He shouldn’t try that again. It pretty much shtinks. And they released it as a single! EGADS!

Even so, with just these six tracks, I’d give this record an 8 because of the genius of “Achilles Last Stand,” but the closer, the EXCRUTIATING nine-minute blues jam “Tea For One,” like “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper” from III, knocks the rating down a point all by itself. The thing is, it’s really not THAT bad. It’s no worse than “I Can’t Quit You Baby” from the debut, but it’s just SO GODDAMN LONG. And they TEASE you! The first twenty-one seconds (I’ve memorized this) are the best damn non-“Achilles” riff on the album. You think it’s gonna be a great song! What a riff! Then it just STOPS for NO REASON, and the next nine minutes and change are just boring, boring, BORING. Like Plant sings, a minute really does “seem like a lifetime” when I’m listening to this track. I usually don’t. Actually, I usually listen to the first two tracks, “Achilles” and “For Your Life,” then skip to track four (“Nobody’s Fault”), then stop and put on Fragile or Who’s Next. Those, unlike this one, are great records.

Now, besides the songs themselves, there’s another reason this record is a big disappointment, and that is the complete lack of instrumental diversity. It has the fewest keyboards of any Zeppelin album, and by “fewest,” I mean NONE. Not a one. What the fuck? They were ALL OVER the last two albums! Damn them. Besides guitar, bass, and regular drums, there’s some bongos in “Royal Orleans” and a harmonica in “Nobody’s Fault” and THAT’S IT. Come ON guys! Throw me a FRICKIN’ bone here! Besides “Achilles,” which is godlike, and “Nobody’s Fault,” which is very good, by this point the band had lost their collective mojo as a balls-out rock and roll ensemble. The good thing, though, is that they realized it.

In Through The Out Door (1979)

Rating: 9

Best Song: “Fool In The Rain”

And so, because they realized it, this doesn’t sound like a Led Zeppelin album AT ALL. It’s piano pop! Whaaaaaaat? Piano pop? Led Zeppelin? Yes, PIANO POP, and there’s a very good explanation for it. In the three years since they released Presence, Jimmy’s drug problems and Bonham’s alcohol problems had just gotten worse and worse. You can see for yourself in the picture at the top of the page, which was taken right around the release of this. Page is a skeleton, and Bonham is a fat tub of lard. Yikes. Anyway, because of this, Jones and Plant got to Sweden (yes, they recorded it in Sweden) well before Page and Bonzo and wrote much of the material themselves. And since John Paul Jones plays keyboards as well as bass, there are a LOT of them on this record. They’re in every song, and they’re the basis for most of them. Jimmy was so utterly spent he doesn’t even get writing credits on two of the songs, the only two (besides early tunes credited to blues-men, stuff credited as “traditional,” and drum solos) in Zep’s catalog where he doesn’t. “South Bound Saurez” and “All My Love” (two of the three best here) are credited only to Jones and Plant. Also, Bonham’s drums sound REALLY weak, especially compared to the volume he displayed on Physical Graffiti. But you know what? In spite of ALL that, I like this record a LOT, even if it is piano pop. There’s not a weak track on it.

“In The Evening” might be the ballsy opening rocker, but I can’t tell, and it sounds more to me like a moody, atmospheric thing. Either way, it’s not bad, though it’s actually my least favorite song here. “South Bound Saurez” is based on a little piano riff that’s catchier than CHEESE, and Jimmy puts down his needle long enough to contribute a nice little guitar solo. “Fool In The Rain” isn’t just regular piano pop, it’s LATIN piano pop! And it RULES! The guitar/piano riff that repeats roughly 1,000 times is super-duper, and the middle “freakout” (as I call it) is AWESOME. Everything stops, then there’s a WHISTLE (literally like the kind sports referees use), then some crazy piano stuff and all sorts of fun percussion go crazy for a minute or two, then the riff comes back for another few minutes. Jimmy puts down his needle AGAIN (what a trooper) to play a nice distorted solo. “Hot Dog” is a country song. It’s funny! And it’s HILARIOUS to hear Plant sing “Texas.” Hee-hee. It’s a joke, like “The Crunge.”

Side two is what turns off a lot of people, specifically the ten-and-a-half minute, keyboard-bloated prog epic “Carouselambra.” It’s basically three separate songs merged into one, with about five songs worth of synthesizers crammed into it. The first third has an admittedly cheesy sounding synth that repeats over and over and over. Part two is really slow and moody, and Jimmy plays some really distorted guitar fills. Part three sounds like a goddamn disco song, with funny bubbly-sounding synths. And you can’t hear a damn thing Plant sings. Sounds like crap, right? WRONG! It RULES MY SACK. HA! “All My Love” sounds like an 80’s pop band, but, since it’s about Plant’s son Karac (who died suddenly of a viral infection between Presence and this record…and what kind of a name is “Karac?”), it’s actually moving. “I’m Gonna Crawl” is EONS better than “Tea For One” as the album-closing bloooooze workout. It also starts off with about twenty seconds of synth chords before anything else comes in. Not organ, SYNTH. There’s a difference. And the difference is you’d never hear this kind of a synth on any other Zeppelin record EVER.

But I LIKE it, just like I really enjoy this record. It’s not on par with something like IV or Physical Graffiti, obviously, but I think it’s just about as good as II (yes, I mean that), and I’m usually not a fan of piano and/or synth-pop. This is a VERY underrated record, and really sounds not a bit like any other Zep album. Some songs (“In The Evening,” “I’m Gonna Crawl”) sound like old Zeppelin with 80’s synths added, but others are REAL departures for the band. They’d never done latin-tinged piano pop before, for one thing, and the synth solo in “All My Love” sounds like A-Ha (remember them? “TAAAKE OOOOOOON MEEEEEEEEE!”). Anyway, I can’t think of too many bands that can make a “slick 80’s-sounding AOR synth-pop ballad” absolutely RULE MERCILESSLY, but Zeppelin manage to do it. And, on top of all this, when it was originally released it was wrapped in a brown paper bag! It also had six different covers, each a different variation of that “man in the bar” thing. Pretty neat. I wish they did that with the CD too. Oh well.

Oh, John Bonham choked on his own vomit and died in his sleep in September of 1980, and Zeppelin immediately called it quits, since to them it would have been “impossible” to continue with a new drummer. So this is their last real studio album. You know, a band could learn from this, about calling it quits when your drummer dies. WHO could I be thinking of? Oh, WHO could it possibly be…

Coda (1982)

Rating: 6

Best Song: “Bonzo’s Montreaux”

Even though Led Zeppelin was finished as a band, that didn’t mean they couldn’t put records out, no sirree! So in 1982 Jimmy cobbled together eight outtakes that total about thirty-something minutes to make some more money. The fact that a lot of it blows should come as no surprise, since it’s a freaking outtakes collection, and on top of that, much of Physical Graffiti was actually composed of outtakes, too, so they didn’t have too many left. “Houses Of The Holy” (the song) was actually recorded for Houses Of The Holy (the album), but then not used! Yay! I love trivia!

Anyway, much of it is not very good, and two songs from from side one that fall into this pattern are “Walter’s Walk” (a Houses outtake that sounds like an ITTOD outtake) and “We’re Gonna Groove,” which was recorded live somewhere. There’s also a completely useless version of “I Can’t Quit You Baby” which was recorded during SOUND REHEARSAL wherever the hell they played “We’re Gonna Groove” at. What the hell? A crappy recording of a song that’s not even very good to begin with does NOT count as an “outtake!” Anyway, there is one good song on the first side, “Poor Tom” (a III outtake) which has a reallllllllly neat drum intro and some mad-PHAT acoustic pickin’. A worthy track on Coda! Imagine that!

And side 2 has THREE more worthy tracks! None are more than “good,” but I’ll settle for that here. “Ozone Baby” and “Darlene” are VERY poppy ITTOD outtakes, and they’re both pretty enjoyable. “Ozone Baby” wouldn’t have fit, since it’s got no keyboards, goddammit, but I think “Darlene,” which is easily the catchiest thing here and has a neat piano part, would have fit right alongside “South Bound Saurez,” since they’re very, VERY similar. “Wearing And Tearing” (also an ITTOD outtake) is Zeppelin’s stab at PUNK, but they sort of miss the point, since it’s FIVE AND A HALF minutes long, the length of two actual punk songs, and it sucks. HARD. The best (and only really interesting) track here is a drum instrumental (what does that say about this record?) called “Bonzo’s Montreaux” which, despite being ONLY PERCUSSION, manages to rule. It’s not a drum solo, it’s a drum composition, and it’s obvious Bonzo carefully overdubbed every instrument, including some of those cool Jamaican reggae drums!

Listening to this, you’d think Zeppelin HAD to have better outtakes lying around, and guess what? THEY DID! As I mentioned before, I have The Complete Studio Recordings box set, and the copy of Coda on it has four bonus tracks, three of which are awesome. However, I don’t count them in my record rating, since they weren’t on the original release. Anyway, “Baby Come On Home” sounds like a carbon copy of “Your Time Is Gonna Come” and is not good. “Travelling Riverside Blues,” however, is, and has some of the neatest slide guitar I’ve heard Jimmy play. “White Summer/Black Mountain Side” is an eight-minute instrumental that’s mostly just Jimmy playing some REALLY complicated stuff, and it’s a LIVE BBC recording (he rules! He played that shit live!), just like “Travelling Riverside Blues.” “Hey Hey What Can I Do” is the last bonus track, and is seriously one of the ten or fifteen best Zep songs I’ve heard. Remember ALLLLLLL the way back in my III review how I mentioned Jimmy could have made ONE change and changed the rating to a 10? Well, this is it. It’s a III outtake, which I can tell from where and when it was recorded. Oh, and it was the fucking B-SIDE to the “Immigrant Song” single, which is just more proof. Now, it’s all acoustic, it’s absolutely AWESOME, plus it serves as the closing track to the version of Coda I have, and does an excellent job of it. So WHAT THE FUCK prevented Jimmy from throwing “Hats Off To (Harpo) Marx” in the trash bin, inserting this awesome tune at the end, and releasing it like that? What? WHAT????!!!! This question haunts me every day. Damn him to the fiery pits of Hades.

In conclusion, Coda’s not very good. The CD release doesn’t have these bonus tracks on it (they’re only on box sets) so it’s pretty much useless to buy it for three good songs and a cool drum thingy. If you’re able to download, though, by all means go ahead. I never buy music anymore, and I certainly wouldn’t spend money on THIS.

BBC Sessions (1997)

Rating: 9

Best Song: “Thank You”

THANK YOU, BBC!

What the BBC did to deserve that rousing declaration of gratitude is release this compilation in 1997. At least early in their career, the Zeppelin went on BBC radio programs to play quite a bit, and here we have a two-disc compilation of a bunch of those performances. One great thing about this is the sheer VOLUME of material, as both of the discs are more than seventy minutes long, so you’re really getting your money’s worth. The BBC is one with their ruling-ness. They really are.

Actually, the first disc really isn’t all that special. The recordings on it are all taken from various points in 1969, between the release of their first and second album. It’s interesting that they play several tracks from II here even though it hadn’t been released yet. Try doing THAT today. According to the liner notes, these performances were taken from John Peel’s “Top Gear Sessions,” Radio One’s “In Concert Series,” and, ofcourse, “Tasty Pop Sundae.” I only bothered to mention those useless facts so I could type “Tasty Pop Sundae.” So sue me. Anyway, there’s some interesting stuff here. There are three unreleased tracks, “The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair,” which is an ACTUAL SONG (not a drum solo) based on the “Moby Dick” riff, so it rules, “Somethin’ Else,” which doesn’t really rule, and “Travelling Riverside Blues,” which isn’t really unreleased at all, since the EXACT SAME VERSION of it is on my copy of Coda, which I mentioned before. There are also two versions of both “I Can’t Quit You Baby” and “You Shook Me” (ugh) and THREE separate versions of “Communication Breakdown,” which just doesn’t make ANY sense.

But while the first disc is good but not great, the second disc is the SHIT! The absolute SHIT! Instead of being patched together, it’s one unified performance the band gave in 1971, and it’s flabbergastingly terrific. THIS is the kind of “superior bootleg” I mentioned before, since it was bootlegged to holy fucking hell before it finally got officially released here. It’s just superb, really. The band is so TIGHT. They’re just kicking ass all over the place. It blows the shit off their movie soundtrack/live album thingy. Completely. They start off with an absolutely butt-KICKING version of “Immigrant Song” and continue with said butt-kicking for SEVENTY-EIGHT MINUTES. “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and “Dazed And Confused” both rock, and (except for that stupid bow part), are VERY entertaining, which is more than I can say for The Song Remains Fucking Boring. The fourteen-minute “Whole Lotta Love Medley” is OK, too, I guess. Well, you can’t have eighty minutes of live Zep without a LITTLE wanking, can you? Oh, and they throw THREE tracks from the then-unreleased Led Zeppelin IV into the concert too. There’s a beautiful rendition of “Going To California,” a neat playing of “Black Dog” that Jimmy opens with the “Out On The Tiles” riff, and the first ever broadcast of “Stairway To Heaven.” That’s right, amigos, THE FIRST EVER BROADCAST OF “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN!” How goddamn freaking cool is that!!! The first time (of about 69 gazillion times), in any form, that the song to end all songs was EVER played on the radio. Crazily, though, the highlight of the performance is “Thank You” from II, which is about a billion times better here than on that record (and it’s a good song anyway). Jimmy’s guitar is more powerful, John Paul’s organ is clearer, and the middle guitar solo section is pure HEAVEN. Where the hell did it come from? Who knows, but I’m not complaining. And, also, I am VALIDATED! My favorite band DOES kick ass live, just like I hoped and suspected! Cool. Get this before the “official” live album. It’s much better.

Mmmmmm……that’s a TASTY POP SUNDAE!

Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin (1997)

Rating: 7

Best Song: “When The Levee Breaks”

1997 sure was a good year for random Zeppelin releases, now wasn’t it? Unlike the BBC Sessions, though, this one is pretty useless. And pointless. And needless. I only have it because several summers ago I participated in some sort of focus group for a company my friends worked at. As my “reward,” I got $25 of some sort of e-money that I had a year to use. About eleven months after this, I still hadn’t used my e-money. There wasn’t really anything I wanted to get outside of some music, but by this point I was at college and could download everything I wanted. So I used my e-money on this puppy to complete my Zep collection. Good story, huh. Um…I guess you had to be there.

It is pretty interesting though. Though these are symphonic arrangements of Led Zeppelin songs, they’re STILL Led Zeppelin songs, so they’re gonna be good. They’re just not gonna be very exciting (at least to me), since classical music puts me to sleep faster than a fucking tranquilizer dart. It’s BORING. I don’t “get” classical music, at all. I don’t think I ever will. So there’s one bias of mine you now know. Hate me all you want. Just be glad I didn’t mention all of my racial and/or ethnic biases, which are QUITE copious, believe me.

Now, besides an opening mood setting piece called “Dawn At The Great Pyramid” and the excrutiatingly terrible (and VERY out of place) seven minute techno thing the ends the record called “Kulu Valley (Ambient Remix),” there are orchestral versions of seven Led Zep tunes here, and they range from (surprisingly) very good to completely useless crap. By the way, as if you needed MORE proof IV was like the best album EVER, four of the seven are taken from it. One that was not taken from it is the “title track” “Kashmir,” which really doesn’t sound any different from the Zeppelin version, since it was pretty orchestral anyway. It’s only really different in that a weird middle-eastern string instrument plays the vocal melody instead of Robert Plant’s voice. I don’t think that’s in a normal orchestra. I also don’t think the BAGPIPE (I think) that plays the vocal melody to “The Battle Of Evermore” is in a normal orchestra. Oh well. This one isn’t radically changed in structure either, and neither is “Stairway To Heaven” (you can’t escape it!), which is pleasant enough. Now, the one track on here I can say I THOROUGHLY enjoy comes after “Stairway,” and that is “When The Levee Breaks.” You wouldn’t think a symphonic version of THAT would be any good, but it is. The “percussionists” that stand in the back behind like tympani drums and shit recreate Bonham’s drum beat surprisingly well, and the violins are really arranged superbly. It ROCKS! I NEVER thought an orchestra could rock, but here the London Symphony Orchestra pretty much kicks ass. Yeah, ROCK ON, FIRST VIOLIN!!!! BOW THOSE STRINGS!

Of the three tracks left, “Friends” stays very faithful to the original arrangement (since it had strings anyway), but “All My Love” and “Going To California” are completely and totally slaughtered. They both pass ten minutes here, which is funny, since “All My Love” is only six minutes on record and “Going To California” is only THREE. What they sound like is the violins playing (depending on the song) either the synth-string part or acoustic guitar part for a bit, and then several minutes of random shit that wasn’t even in the song, and then back to something recognizable. Lather, rinse, repeat. I will mention how that synth solo from “All My Love” is played here by a trumpet, and sounds really cool. I like a good trumpet-playing-a-synth-solo now and then, doesn’t everybody? Don’t deny it! You cannot resist the awesome power of the trumpet!

Oh, and I was just kidding. I’m not a racist. I think.

Pickin’ On Zeppelin: A Tribute (2000)

Rating: 7

Best Song: “D’yer Mak’er”

Now this is a goofy thing to review. I mean, who in their right mind would ever care to pick up a BLUEGRASS tribute to Led Zeppelin? I mean, besides me. And Al, who burned me a copy. No, he didn’t BUY the damn thing. He downloaded it. Took him FOUR MONTHS!! Then he burned me a copy. We both really like Led Zeppelin a lot. They’re cool and stuff.

OK, back to this thing. It’s kind of weird. I mean, have you ever wondered what Led Zeppelin songs would sound like played by banjos and fiddles and harmonicas? OFCOURSE you have! Who hasn’t? Thus, the faceless rednecks who pushed their used 1975 Chevy pickup to the reeeeeee-cordin’ stu-di-o (duh, what’s that, Billy-Jim-Bob-Joe-Bob-Joe-Nancy-Jim?) with their in-ster-ments and fucked their cousins after they were finished have offered up for us a veritable cornucopia of hick-inflected Zeppelin goodness! Man, this shit is neat! All bouncy and fun and a-pluckin’ and a-pickin’! And them-thar fiddles is playin’ the melody! And it’s all so coooooooool!!!!!!!!

Oh, wait, there’s forty-eight more minutes? Fuck. “D’yer Mak’er,” the first “tribute” on this baby, sure is cool, though, ain’t it, Hoss? The problem is that, while isolated tunes on this thing are neat and cool and fun and whatever, I don’t think it’s humanly possible to listen to this for fifty-two minutes without falling asleep. Every song is basically the same. An acoustic guitar substitutes an electric for the main riff (unless the song is acoustic to begin with, then it plays the original part almost note-for-note), the vocal melody is played by one from (pick ‘em) another acoustic, a fiddle, a harmonica, or a banjo. At some point in most of these songs (most hilariously the ending “Stairway To (Cousin-Fucking Hick) Heaven”), there will be some sort of hoe-down, in which the banjoes, fiddles, and other assorted bluegrass paraphernalia (such as horsehide condoms for the cousin-fucking) will generally freak out and do bluegrass hick musical things while you mentally picture a drunk man in overalls sitting on a bale of hay, stomping his foot, and blowing into the top of an empty bottle labeled “XXX.” Ofcourse, I’ll still be enjoying it, and you probably should be too, because they’re still fucking LED ZEPPELIN songs, dude! But bear in mind Jimmy has been replaced by a hick with an acoustic, Rob has been replaced by a hick with a fiddle, Bonzo has been replaced by a hick slapping his knees inaudibly, and John-Paul Jones has been replaced by nobody, because the guy who was supposed to be playing bass is off fucking his cousin.

Oh, but some of the renditions rule ass, ofcourse. “D’yer Mak’er” is my favorite, but it’s also the first one on the CD, so there might be a connection there. “No Quarter” is quite good, though not the orgasmic experience Al makes it out to be. “Stairway” could be played entirely on 1980’s synths and it’d still rule. “All My Love” is beautiful. “Black Dog” is pretty cool. “The Song Remains The Same” and “Rock And Roll” both blow. Everything else is pretty solid. Not earth-shattering, but fine. It’s all kinda boring, though. I mean, these are Led Zeppelin songs, but it’s still bluegrass music, and the fact that everyone’s trying to play their parts while fucking their cousin can’t help, either.

Basically, unless you’re a freak-o Led Zeppelin fanatic like me or Al, there’s no reason in the world to ever get this. And if you are, it’s just “neat,” like the Symphonic thing was “neat.” It could have been a lot worse, though. I was surfing around Amazon recently, and came across a reggae tribute to Pink Floyd. Being a curious cousin-fucker, I decided to click on a few of the sound samples, and HOOOOO-BOY! You have not LIVED until you’ve heard a reggae version of “Careful With That Axe, Eugene!” And the rendition of “Echoes?” YEAH! I SWEAR that’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard! Boo-yeah!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to fuck my cousin.

How The West Was Won (2003)

Rating: 10

Best Song: “Stairway To Heaven”

OK, FANTASTIC compilation. FANTASTIC FUCKING COMPILATION. Just awesome. Brilliant. Superb. Excellent. Top shelf. Buttsex.

Seriously, for a Led Zeppelin Freak-o psycho stalker fanatic like myself, this thing is a godsend. It’s three CD’s (purchased for a grand total of $16.99…thank you, Newbury Comics!!!!!), two and a half hours of live Zeppelin goodness culled from a pair of California concerts in 1972 (the two concerts are pretty much spliced together with no rhyme or reason…my guess is, Jimmy just picked the better version of each song, or he was on smack when he made the thing, either way) that, at the very least, makes the mediocre movie soundtrack live album COMPLETELY obsolete, with one exception, being that “No Quarter” is not on this puppy. So if you wanna get a mediocre double-live album for like $20 for ONE FUCKING SONG, then that record’s not obsolete. Otherwise, it is. And anyone who from this point on goes out and purchases that thing is a fucking moron. A big, fucking moron. Who enjoys spending $20 or some shit for ONE FUCKING SONG. Cocknuts.

OK, to the material. If you have the BBC sessions compilation, you’ll recognize a lot of the song choices from the complete concert on disc 2 of that thing, or at least you will on a good chunk of disc 1 of this one. Start off with “Immigrant Song” (Oh, no, I’m sorry…”L.A. Drone.” Best song EVER! Fourteen seconds of feedback! FUCK ME IN THE ASS WITH A GERBIL!!!!!!!!!!! MY NAME IS RICHARD GERE! AND I ENJOY BEING FUCKED IN THE ASS WITH GERBILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), follow that immediately with “Heartbreaker.” Play “Black Dog” with that “Out On The Tiles” intro (god I love that). Lather. Rinse. Jerk off. Repeat. Et cetera (which is Latin for MY NAME IS RICHARD GERE AND I ENJOY FUCKING MYSELF IN THE ASS WITH GERBILS!). The differences between the two are these: First, the sheer amount of live material, which is accomplished in a few ways; A bunch of Houses of the Holy songs (“Over The Hills And Far Away” rules ASS here…still no “No Quarter,” though, goddammit), an acoustic set (which might have been on the BBC sessions, too. I don’t feel like getting up right now), and a bunch of wankfests that break down the barriers of common decency and, when they’re done, continue on for about ten more minutes. “Dazed And Confused” is again about twenty-five minutes, and, though it’s more interesting than the Song Remains the Same version, it’s still too goddamn long. I guess breaking into “The Crunge” for no reason halfway through was standard for them, huh? And the violin bow part continues for like five minutes or some shit. ENTIRELY too long. Goddammit, if I’m not there, how can I find that part exciting? Isn’t the visual like the whole reason for it to exist? Ugh.

Oh, we’ve got more. “Moby Dick” is a completely ludricrous twenty minutes, and, again, it’s more interesting than the Song version, but it’s still a twenty minute drum solo. *Rrrrrrollll…FILL!…Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrollllll…FILL!* *YYYYYYAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWNNN* Like the bow thing, I think not being there makes it about 1/10 as cool as it should be. Shockingly, though, the twenty-three minute “Whole Lotta Love” medley is pretty goshdarn cool this time. Except for the ten minutes where they just start playing “Dazed And Confused” again, I guess…

But I digress! I gave it a 10, and a 10 it deserves. Led Zeppelin live has its all-too-obvious inherent flaws, but 10-minute bowed-guitar solos and twenty-minute drum fills are all part of the package. They’re UNAVOIDABLE! I get the feeling this is pretty much the best live Zeppelin can get without any visuals (CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE DVD! AL HAS IT! GO AL!!!!), and the sound quality on this thing is fucking SUPERB, especially considering these are 30-year-old tapes Jimmy just dug up by accident when he was gathering stuff together to make the DVD. Live albums are rarely essential, and live albums that don’t have any gimmicks (like an Unplugged performance or something) are pretty much NEVER essential, no matter how good they are, but, if you’re a Zep fan, THIS bitch is essential. Rock on, Jimmy. Shoot that smack.

And I just realized I said “the differences between the two are these” and then gave a grand total of one difference. See, it’s pretty simple. I’m an idiot.

Another ten minutes, no longer, and then I'm turning around.