Led Zeppelin Appreciation Thread

Hey, hey what can I do? BEST Zep song---ever.

Thank you for not mentioning Stairway to Heaven. Sick of it!

Good list. Not overdoing the overplayed 4th album and the ever-so-slightly-overrated Houses of the Holy, and not forgetting the lovelies off the last two albums.

My personal favorites?

We're Gonna Groove
In My Time of Dying
Since I've Been Loving You
Bring It On Home
Out on the Tiles

I mean how much soul has Bob got in that voice? Does any white man come close nowadays?

Funnily enough, I've been listening to 'How the west was won' alot recently. The band just absolutely kicked ass live, Page's dynamic guitar playing, Plant's soulful vocals, Bonham's thundering drumwork and Jone's fluid bass playing just added up to one of the most electrifying bands ever.

I love the live version of Dazed and Confused on HTWWW.

I love How The West Was Won. The DVD should be checked out as well. It's a great live performance worth seeing.

My personal fave Zep album would be Physical Graffiti. It's got a great mix of hard rockers, calm soothing songs and big epics. Just a superb album all around.

I have to give Led Zep props for not succumbing to the lure of cash and reforming after Bonham's death. I know Page and Plant have worked together and they did do that 'No Quarter' collaboration but they've always managed to stave off a full Led Zep reunion no matter how much cash must've been thrown at them or maybe it was just up to Page and Plant.

Good picks all, but, in terms of (relatively) underplayed goodness, I'd also throw in:

Ten Years Gone (one of my favorites, since it's a sort of scaled-down version of their longer epics, but with the same great dynamics)
Wearing and Tearing
The Rain Song
The Song Remains the Same
Celebration Day
I'm Gonna Crawl

But that's just me.

You could also try to track down a live version of "Battle of Evermore" with JPJ trying to cover Sandy Denny's vocal part (in a lower key, naturally) and with Bonham pounding on the toms. I have one on cassette, and it's pretty fucking atrocious, but sort of interesting.

There's a lot of justified Zep love (though I've a friend who dismisses them as 'Black Sabbath for girls') but what about Terry Reid, the man who might have been Zep? Seed of Memory is a fantastic album.

Great picks on all of em. Here's my playlist of Zep songs that I love:

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Dazed and Confused
How Many More Times
What Is and What Should Never Be
Thank You
Heartbreaker
Living Loving Maid
Since I've Been Loving You
Out on the Tiles
That's the Way
Rock and Roll
Four Sticks
When the Levee Breaks
The Song Remains the Same
The Ocean (my fav song)
Custard Pie
In My Time of Dying
In the Light
Ten Years Gone (my second fav song)
Black Country Woman
Achilles Last Stand
For Your Life
Nobody's Fault But Mine
In the Evening
Carouselambra
All My Love
I'm Gonna Crawl
Walter's Walk (what a monster song)
Wearing and Tearing
Hey Hey What Can I Do

It's amazing how much GREAT stuff there is in their entire catalog of music. 90% of it is never heard on the radio, either. That holds true of most bands, unfortunately...look at Queen, Rush, Rainbow, Deep Purple. It's frustrating when great bands are summed up by only 3-4 songs on the radio, and those songs, in turn, get WAAAAY overplayed.

Listing song titles isn't much help for me, since Zeppelin songs rarely feature them in an obvious way.

I will say I'm shocked no one's listed Good Times, Bad Times yet. Of course the official title of the song is probably Purple Tyrannosaurus or something.

I'm not huge fan of covers in general but I am curious if you any of you have heard any good Zeppelin covers that I don't mention below. The following are the only ones I've heard that I really like.

Tool - "No Quarter"
Big Head Todd and the Monsters - "Tangerine"
Tori Amos - "Thank You"
Frank Zappa - "Stairway to Heaven"

Robert Plant joined Pearl Jam onstage not long ago for "Fool In the Rain" and that was nice. And although I like The Black Crowes, I'm mixed on "Live At the Greek" which is mostly them covering Zeppelin tunes (with Page). Seems like they just tried to duplicate the original sounds from the vocals on down. It isn't bad, but I just don't find myself reaching for that set very often. Damn, did I mention too many here to allow others to fill-in the gaps?

Nothing like the LZ. Great music.

In case anyone missed it before, my thread on the very underappreciated PRESENCE:

http://chud.com/forums/showthread.ph...light=presence

I didn't see 'Your Time Is Gonna Come' or 'Moby Dick' listed, two of my personal faves. In my book, Zeppelin is the quintessential rock n' roll band. Their power and chemistry is unmatched by just about any rock band, past or present.

I remember about 5-6 years ago they released a pair of best of collections with the band's greatest hits. While those collections missed a few key songs (Misty Mountain Hop, Livin' Lovin Maid), they included a couple of great performances in an early version of Communication Breakdown and one of Kashmir.

I figured those were what you were considering "overplayed." "Fool in the Rain," at least.

I really like all the weird little genre experiments on In Through the Out Door, like "Fool...," "South Bound Saurez," and "Hot Dog." With those and "All My Love," it's sort of their second great pop album like Houses of the Holy, but, as Houses of the Holy has "No Quarter" to weird things up just a little, ITtOD throws "In the Evening" and, most of all, "Carouselambra" into the mix.

As for covers, Jeff Buckley does a great version of "Night Flight" on the expanded version of Live at Sin-E. It's pretty remarkably dead-on, considering he's just one guy and a guitar. The Rollins Band did a halfway decent version of "Four Sticks," too.

I've always wondered: is there a story behind the fact that the song 'Houses of the Holy' shows up on PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, but not, eh, HOUSES OF THE HOLY?

FYI, there's a nice cover story about Zeppelin's history and legacy in the latest Rolling Stone.

I still don't understand how people can be sick of Stairway to Heaven. I can understand songs being overplayed, but that track is so evocative, so beautiful. It just boggles my mind, as it's pretty much the one song I can listen to when I'm in any mood.

I'm not sick of 'Stairway to Heaven'. When I put in IV, I listen to that song with the same awe and devotion as the first time I heard it.

You gotta understand that for some people this song got way overplayed for a while, like, through the entire eighties. When you hear something so many times unintentionally, you can start to miss the beauty that was there in the first place.

That's true, and one of the many reasons I don't listen to the radio.

That article was unnecessary in the same way that listening to "Stairway," for me, is generally unnecessary - I've heard it a billion times before. It's just a lazy re-hash history.

Maybe it was published as a primer for those really young Zeppelin fans who are just getting into Zeppelin via classic rock radio, but those fans have the same resources (more, really, via the box sets and additional bios) that I did in 1987 or 88, when I got into them largely through classic rock radio. I can't imagine any budding fan not getting his/her hands on Hammer of the Gods (inaccurate as some of it may be).

It seems like maybe the author had something more interesting lined up, like an interview with Plant, Page, or Jones, and it fell through, and RS demanded a cover story, regardless.

It's too bad the author didn't take the opportunity to thoroughly analyze their musical legacy in any meaningful way. Mentioning riff-rock descendents like Wolfmother is obvious and easy; check out how Jeff Buckley merged their dynamics with singer-songwriter sensitivity and French cabaret or how Tori Amos channeled Plant's sexually charged moans and wails into their wholly feminine and feminist counterparts. Heck, I can even hear echoes of LZ III in the slide guitar work on Drive-By Truckers' Decoration Day, and every time I hear a mellotron part on a song these days, it brings to mind Jones' work on that instrument.

Yeah, I was thinking the article was geared toward the younger generation of readers whose rock n' roll background have only extended to the likes of Green Day and Audioslave. I did like how the article tackled Rolling Stone's history with the band. At least they didn't pretend to have been one of the band's biggest supporters during the '70s. They should've printed all of their original Zeppelin albums reviews in their original format. That would have been cool, even though you can read most of them online right now.

I guess seeing Zeppelin on any magazine cover nowadays makes me giddy. There's something satisfying about the best rock band ever still getting some deserved attention by the saturated media outlets and not only relegated to classic rock radio status.

It's about time someone gave Led Zeppelin the respect they deserve.

it always amazes me who listens to Zeppelin. The most diverse group of fans...they know good shit is all I guess.

Back in the 80's, Creem put out a special issue that reprinted everything they'd ever published about Led Zep (plus an overview of The Yardbirds' recording career). That was pretty cool, because it had Cameron Crowe's piece about touring with Zep (cool now, had no real signifigance at the time, of course), and Lester Bangs' original reviews of IV and Houses.

Did any of you guys get the Led Zep DVD, some really great stuff on that, it's really cool to see how they evolved from their early days to the later stadium rock era where they were at their most extravagant. That one-two punch of In my time of dying and Trampled underfoot is awesome, Jimmy played the hell out of that slide solo in In My Time...

I loved the opening kickoff with 'We're Gonna Groove' for their performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

Just when I think I'm done with this band....

I've been listening to I & III & IV all day today in the car. I flip back and forth on which and what I love the best. The power of the heavy blues or the trippy eclectic acoustic numbers. Or the pure unadulterated rock 'n roll.

First 4 album run is perfect.

HOUSES OF THE HOLY is very cool ("Rain Song", man), but the stab at funk feels plastic.

PHYSICAL GRAFFITI never works for me the way the best rock double LPs do. The sleak 70's production keeps it from sounding as dirty and soullful as EXILE or THE WHITE ALBUM. Or QUADROPHENIA.

Man, is there a better example of rock drumming than Bonham on "When the Levee Breaks"?

And as mentioned in another Led Zep thread, can't understand tiring of "Stairway To Heaven". Like "Hey Jude" or "Layla", too beautiful; too perfect to ever turn away from.

(I think one of the reasons the band works for me still, is i resisted them forever. Maybe I held what came after against them. Maybe I used them as a whipping boy for blatantly stealing from black artists. Maybe it was just Robert Plant. Can't recall when I came around, but when the music plays, something like "Good Times, Bad Times" i give in to it)

Anyone else not bored of them yet? Or just discovering them for the first time?

Do any of their tracks show up on your mix tapes/ipod shuffle?

Went through my bored/burnout phase starting about the time of Presence, but by that time, I'd listened to them so much in high school/college that I just don't think I was still feeling the same spark; or maybe it just began to be obvious that they weren't, either.

In recent years, I've started listening again (I still think the band would have benefitted significantly from Bonham learning-- or at least employing-- a couple more time signatures), and actually ripped my wife's CD box set to the hard drive recently.

I will admit to being one of those that is tired of "Stairway", but that actually started early for me: by the time of the "Houses of the Holy" tour it already felt like such schtick that I went for a Coke when they started into it, and it was only the second time I'd heard them play it.

But most of that has to do with Plant, who in his day really was just about the most embarassing frontman this side of Ian Anderson. I've mellowed about him, too, though, and actually liked his collaboration with Krauss (at least the first hundred or so times-- come to think of it, I'm pretty burned out on that now, too).

I did pick up the live DVD's that came out a couple years ago, and it was fun to revisit them.

ETA: not really on-topic, but I picked up a really cool CD a couple years ago, collecting a dozen or so tracks from various artists that Page played on back in the pre-Zep days when he was London's go-to studio guitarist. Some of it's just cheesy and fun, and some of it's pretty darn fine.

Gotta love Zep. Ramble On.

Except for their licensing fees, amiright?

I'm not going to pretend that doesn't suck, but what can you do?

Anyone looking to keep respecting them on a super high level should avoid checking into all the people they ripped off. Of course, their lawyers finally convinced them to give credit and restitution where it's due a few years ago. That being said, even knowing some of the shitty things they did, I still adore the work they did. I have no choice but to crank the stereo when ever The Ocean comes on, and I still play the intro to Over the Hills and Far Away whenever I pick up an acoustic.

Despite being Robert Johnson's song originally, Traveling Riverside Blues is easily one of my favorite Zep songs. How can you not love the bad ass guitar in that song?

I've been playing the crap out of this song lately. I love how it starts off as this pleasant little acoustic ditty then suddenly brings in the thunder.

I don't quite get this. Physical Graffiti is probably their roughest, most loose-sounding record, and I find much of Quadrophenia polished, middle of the road and sterile-sounding to a fault.

I like PG a lot, but if I have a criticism it's that the various epics on it, while usually made up of really good individual sections, tend to feel a bit more meandering and aimless then the slow-building classics of their prime. Like, I love the Ten Years Gone riff, but that song takes an awfully long time to not really go anywhere. Presence has the opposite problem, where the epics are fantastic but a lot of the other tracks sound like complete throwaways.

As is the unfortunate norm in music, the bass player never gets his due. People tend to forget that instrumentally, Led Zeppelin is a trio (Drums, Bass, and only 1 Guitar). While Page is a huge part of why the band still sounded sonically huge without a dedicated rhythm player, John Paul Jones had a lot to do with that. Unlike most bands today (and a lot back then) when Zep did a live show, they didn't bring another guitarist along, Jones just laid down a substantial enough groove that it didn't matter.

The groove on "When the Levee Breaks" is awesome; and it's a top ten favoritre track, for sure. But I'm not sure why i singled out the drumming to go hyberbolic over. Even on that abum, Bonham's more impressive on "Rock And Roll" and "4 Sticks".

On PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, the best tracks I really, really like--"Trampled under Foot", "In My Time of Dying", "Kasmir"--so, i'm gonna spin it again this weekend. I can't put my finger on what I don't like about the production, or if it's really that much slicker than say, LZII.

I'll do a Zeppelin binge and purge every few years or so. How the West Was Won is magnificent. I kind of like the half-baked quality of Physical Graffiti--feels like I'm discovering new Zeppelin songs every time I give it a listen.

Youtube, as usual, is a great resource for finding those old bootlegs and outtakes that you haven't heard since you sold the tape deck at a yard sale.

I'm fond of these two alternate versions of "In the Light". The first one, in particular, features some evil-sounding scarlatti-esque counterpoint between the keyboard and guitar during the verse.

I was thinking about it today, and the reason i prefer early Zep, is that it feels contemporary of and a logical extension of (if not quite topping) the Stones, Cream, and Hendrix. There's a level of sonic experimentation, and a somewhat smoky/swampy sound that feels bluesy and authentic.

By, PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, the rhythm, fueled by coke and pills, is sped up slightly, the beats and hooks are bigger and more repetitive, giving the feel of an arena show. At this point, they were, if not full on cock rock, closer than ever in spirit to heavy metal, only a one letter grade above Aerosmith, Deep Purple. ("Custard Pie"?-fuck off!)

It's no wonder that by this point, disgusted and disaffected the punk movement was born and quickly gained traction.

Interesting perspective.

I have to admit I love reading the thoughts of listeners who come to these bands' catalogs as an organic whole, because it's such a different experience from those of us who grew up just waiting for the next one to come out.

I'll take that one step further: I am not really familiar with proper Zeppelin albums due to the fact I was weaned on the 2 box sets. I was born in 1974, and received the 4 disc box set for Christmas my junior year (I think) of high school. I was only then starting to listen to The Stones and The Who and the like, as I was more into The Smiths and REM and such. I wore those discs out listening to them, and eventually picked up the 2 disc companion set a few years later, but it wasn't until I shacked up with my wife-to-be that I acquired the studio albums. So my brain is wired to expect to hear, say, OTHAFA follow Black Dog, or Rock and Roll flow into The Rain Song. It was (and still is) a little weird to listen to III in it's entirety because I'm just not used to it.

And here's another perspective: songs like "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll" were hit singles. They got played on the radio. And not in some "classic rock" ghetto with Pink Floyd and ZZ Top; they were on Top 40 radio, mixed right in there with Al Green and Carly Simon and cash prize call-in contests.

Been on a Physical Graffiti kick the last day.

'Down by the Seaside' has got to be one of the most beautifully overlooked songs by a major rock n' roll heavyweight.

Forgot to mention the instrumental 'Bron-Yr-Aur', too. I'm immediately thinking of a dozen sentimental films it could've accompanied effectively.

Gorgeous.