It’s become fashionable to like Led Zeppelin again, after the release of their 2007 partial reunion concert. Luckily, Celebration Day, which debuted in the Billboard Top 10 last fall, doesn’t include any of these duds.
Looking back, it seems for every “Black Dog,” Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham (replaced by son Jason in the newly issued project) would unleash a “Hot Dog.” For every “Ramble On,” there was, alas, a “Bring It On Home.” For every “Whole Lotta Love,” you had an “All My Love.”
For the newly initiated, figuring how what to avoid may be the hardest part of all. That’s where Something Else! Reviews comes in handy. We’ve sorted through each of the nine Led Zeppelin albums, looking for the times when we simply weren’t feeling the love, when it was nobody’s fault but theirs …
“BOOGIE WITH STU,” PHYSICAL GRAFFITI (1975): Originally, and perhaps more precisely titled, “Sloppy Drunk,” this was included — at the height of Led Zeppelin’s initial do-anything-and-they’ll-buy-it fame — as part of a double album stuffed with throwaways. There is perhaps none more worthy of tossing in the trash than “Boogie with Stu.” While using the Rolling Stones’ fabled mobile studio, Zeppelin was joined by Stones pianist Ian Stewart — who ended up banging away on an untuned piano. The story was that Plant is actually on guitar. Somehow, and this could only happen at this particular outsized moment in time, the resulting “jam” was included on Physical Graffiti. In the end, it borrowed so heavily (more on that in a moment) from Ritchie Valens’ “Ooh, My Head” that Led Zeppelin was forced to give him co-writing credit.
[SOMETHING ELSE! REVIEW: They may take it a little slower on ‘Celebration Day,’ but there remains this palpable sense of joyful camaraderie amongst the reunited surviving members of Led Zeppelin.]
“ALL MY LOVE,” IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR (1979): Everything had changed since Zeppelin’s most recent studio album, the more blues-focused Presence, and this is the sound of a group playing catch up. That means smoothing out the edges, and adding synthesizers. And so you have moments like “Fool in the Rain,” with its teeth-splintering samba segment. But at least that tune boasted a twinge of Zeppelin-esque brawn in its basic rhythm, not to mention in its ever-so-brief guitar solo. “All My Love,” on the other hand, sounds like another band entirely, and a not-very-good one at that. From its carmelized, panderingly pop-styled chorus to Jones’ crude, half-drawn scrawl of a keyboard solo — his newfound interest in the instrument would be taken to its zenith on “Carouselambra,” a weirdly transfixing detour — “All My Love” is the sound of a band with no sense of cohesion anymore. It’s clear that Page and Bonzo (who simply could not sound more low key, disinterested, even groggy) simply mailed in their parts between benders.
[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: Jason Bonham reveals what he says is the real reason that Robert Plant doesn’t want to tour as Led Zeppelin without his dad on drums.]
“BRING IT ON HOME,” LED ZEPPELIN II (1969): It’s not just that they blatantly cribbed the gritty blues sound of the American Deep South, they robbed those old guys blind. Led Zeppelin actually got popped in a 1972 court case for nicking the intro section here from an old Willie Dixon tune (as performed by Sonny Boy Williamson II), though they said at the time that it should have been considered as an homage. The problem was, Led Zeppelin just kept committing homage after homage. They were the original music pirates, decades before the advent of the Internet. “The Lemon Song” was based on a Howlin’ Wolf song, as was a section of “How Many More Times.” The lyrics to “Whole Lotta Love” largely mirrored Dixon’s “You Need Love.” “Moby Dick” grew out of an earlier recording by Sleepy John Estes called “The Girl I Love.” Hell, even the chord progression from “Stairway to Heaven” bears a striking resemblance to a song by the Chocolate Watch Band, who just happened to have toured with Page’s pre-Zeppelin band the Yardbirds. There’s something about Plant’s mumbling, black-face presentation early on during “Bring It On Home,” however, that makes it feel the worst of all — like insult to injury.
[SOMETHING ELSE! INTERVIEW: Yardbirds co-founder Jim McCarty joined us for a talk about the band’s legendary guitarists, from Eric Clapton to Jimmy Page to Jeff Beck.]
“BLACK COUNTRY WOMAN,” PHYSICAL GRAFFITI (1975): This bloated monstrosity of an album is the gift that keeps on giving, with another piffle that’s somehow — and this is saying something — more annoying than the last. It’s said that “Black Country Woman” was recorded in Mick Jagger’s garden, around the time of “D’yer Mak’er,” and it has the feel of a very early demo — right down to a recording engineer intoning, as the tune begins: “Shall we roll it, Jimmy?” A plane flies overhead, the kind of thing that might have, you know, halted a take — or moved someone to leave this particular one on the cutting room floor. Instead, in a galling example of the contempt Led Zeppelin seemed to have had for the poor saps shelling out the cash for this two-disc set, Plant says: “Nah, leave it.” Our sentiments, exactly.
[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: Return with us now to ‘Houses of the Holy,’ the often-overlooked successor to ‘Led Zeppelin IV.’ Even all these years later, though, we still can’t decide where it ranks.]
“HOT DOG,” IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR (1979): That this tossed-off rockabilly number is the only tune co-written by Page and Plant on what would become Led Zeppelin’s final proper studio effort says a lot about how low the band had been brought — as Page transformed into a shadowy junkie, and Bonham continued his race toward an early death at the bottom of a brown bottle. It’s funny, we tended to love it when Zeppelin stretched out on Houses of the Holy. (Yes, even the James Brown thing. Yes, even the doo-wop thing.) There was something charming, and in the moment about those experiments. Fast forward a few years, however, and it turns out that a heavy metal square dance is something best left to the imagination. In particular, when the participants couldn’t sound less interested. Meant, obviously, to be tongue-in-cheek, instead “Hot Dog” — a shambolic goofball pastiche — just sounds sad.
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Rock + Pop): Death Cab for Cutie, Joe Jackson, Toto + Others - January 18, 2016
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Blues, Jazz + R&B): Boz Scaggs, Gavin Harrison, Alabama Shakes - January 10, 2016
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Reissues + Live): John Oates, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Faces + others - January 7, 2016
How come “The Crunge” isn’t on the list? It’s totally unlistenable. I don’t know who is worse on it, Plant or Page.
IMHO, while “Bring it on Home” is not a highlight of LZ2 it shouldn’t be here. Zep may have been thieves but they were great thieves.
Realizing I am in the minority here, but I still find “The Crunge” to be fun as hell.
Every 60’s Brit act ripped off old blues players.
Stupid, pointless article. What a waste of time.
Lighten up dude. These series of articles are all in fun. I can be ticked off (but it’s a fun kind of ticked off) that “The Crunge” isn’t on the list but I’m already over it. I enjoy these posts. It’s just music lovers’ opinions.
Were you bitten by your “Black Dog” today?
Wow, what a pile of garbage this article is. I can agree that not every Zeppelin song shook the foundations of rock but this article is filled with misinformation and somewhat ridiculous criticisms.
That songs like “Boogie with Stu” and “Black Country Woman” were rough is a given but to mistakenly assume that they were left rough as a symbol of disdain for record buyers is a stupid mistake by someone not really familiar with the band. The music that Zeppelin were largely inspired by – blues and early rock ‘n’ roll – was often rough, and they didn’t always feel the need to polish all the character out of their recordings (like almost all music recorded today).
And what about Jones’s “newfound interest” in keyboards on “In Through the Out Door”? Let’s see, he played keys on “You Shook Me” all the way back on the first album, and figured prominently on keys on pretty much every subsequent album (“No Quarter”, anyone?). Inane and uninformed.
As for the “homages”, there were certainly plenty of instances where Zep borrowed heavily from previous work and took credit where it was due elsewhere. Then again, that is a long-standing tradition in music (particularly the blues) and if the author had more than a passing acquaintance with popular music history, he would probably know this.
Finally, I looked up and listened to Sleepy John Estes’ “The Girl I Love”. I knew that Zeppelin had used the “Moby Dick” guitar riff in an earlier, live version of a song called “The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair”. But wonder of wonders, as it turns out “Moby Dick” actually has nothing at all in common with the Estes’ version, being that “Moby” is an instrumental and Estes apparently decided against a drum solo in his version.
Criticize if you must but if you’re doing it in a public forum, get your facts straight and make sure your criticisms have merit.
Since you’ve already got your Internet browser open, Quixote, you might want to double check the session details on In Through the Out Door — which is, in fact, the first Zeppelin album to feature John Paul Jones’ newly acquired Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer. Next, download Disc 1 of the BBC Sessions, which includes a Zeppelin cover of Estes’ “The Girl I Love.” It makes clear the song’s direct influence on “Moby Dick.”
You’re wrong on the history, too: At the turn of the 1970s, the unscrupulous practice of stealing other people’s music, rerecording it as your own and then publishing albums without crediting the original source in order to swipe the ill-gotten gains was no longer standard operating procedure. Thus, the multiple settlements that went against the band.
Now, I remain of the opinion that Zeppelin exhibited a disdain for the buying public when it took what might have been (with a few judicious edits) a well-received single-album edition of Graffiti and stretched it into two discs by adding in a bunch of half-finished demos. But it’s nothing personal. I’ve said the same thing before about, say, the Beatles’ White Album. Double albums, in general, seem to be pointless ego exercises.
As for Led Zeppelin’s love of rough-hewn roots music, by the time Graffiti arrived, Plant, Page and Co. were long past the period in which they were simply imitating — or, as the courts ruled, downright stealing — from old blues guys. In fact, the multi-faceted and meticulously produced IV and Houses of the Holy, their two most recent releases to that point, couldn’t have been further away from it.
I don’t doubt In Through the Out Door was the first use of that synthesizer. But you might want to check what you originally wrote: “… Jones’ crude, half-drawn scrawl of a keyboard solo — his newfound interest in the instrument…” – that implies keyboards as the instrument in question (and which, most musicians would agree, includes synthesizers).
I’m not wrong on the history at all. Re-read: I conceded that Zeppelin often took credit where it was not due, but it absolutely was traditional in previous decades, particularly in blues music. Borrowing a line or three, or slightly rewording lyrics, is as old as music. You mention poor Willie Dixon – did you happen to check for the sources of his lyrics? For someone with more than a cursory knowledge of blues, it is well-known that he did just the same thing: took lyrics from others and put his name on them.
Surely you must have guessed that I already own a copy of the BBC disc. Did you not go to the trouble of listening to Estes’ version yourself? Wikipedia has this to say about it:
“The lyrics in the first verse are a variation on the 1929 blues recording “The Girl I Love She Got Long Curley Hair” by Sleepy John Estes. The lyrics in the rest of the song are paraphrases of various blues songs or themes.”
Simply put, some of the lyrics were similar, most were not, in a song that was documented to have been played live one time. Musically, Estes’ song sounds nothing like the BBC song of similar title, which is to say nothing about “Moby Dick” is like (or stolen from) a song recorded by Sleepy John Estes.
Yep, I did say “keyboard,” after I specifically identified that keyboard earlier in the same paragraph as a synthesizer.
Yep, plenty of people stole lyrics, licks and songs in an uncredited manner, but by the time that Zeppelin did it, the practice was frowned upon. The proof of that is that they lost multiple court cases when others — like say, Willie Dixon — had not in earlier times.
Yep, Wikipedia confirms that “Moby Dick” was directly linked to the Sleepy John Estes tune, just as I said in a one-liner about another song.
Glad we got that cleared up.
Actually Stairway to Heaven was lifted from Spirit’s (not Chocolate Watchband) “Taurus.” I believe Zeppelin used it with Randy California’s blessing however.
In an impressive dual-threat moment of thievery, Led Zeppelin actually managed to pull off two heists in one track. “Stairway’s” chord progression mimicks the Chocolate Watch Band’s “And She’s Lonely” — while, yes, its opening sequence is taken from “Taurus” by Spirit.
Well, everyone has their own opinions. I like Black Country Woman and the ‘things that should have been edited’ it made me somehow feel I was there in a way. In Through the Outdoor certainly was a change of pace and even admittedly by Page a time that he wasnt totally engaged. But it gave time of Jones to shine a little more. You can rail on All of My Love but that was a song to Plants son who died. So give the guy a break. Regardless of what anyone thinks as we all have our own thoughts, at least you can say that every Zeppelin album has multiple cuts that were totally different from anything they had done previously. You cant say that about alot of other bands. They took risks….
Zoso,
I absolutely agree on the issue of Led Zeppelin’s willingness to experiment. It’s what I always loved, despite arguments to the contrary from some of my esteemed colleagues at this site, about the criminally underrated Houses of the Holy: http://somethingelsereviews.com/2012/11/08/on-second-thought-led-zeppelin-houses-of-the-holy-1973/.
And P.S.: Though it’s a throwaway song, Bonzo’s performance on “Black Country” is pretty cool.
I always experienced, and mostly enjoyed, these cuts in the context of the full album.. where they served their ‘gear changing” purposes.. they were just brush strokes in the painting..
As for the loose ‘garage’ approach to some of these tunes.. as a fan, it never bothered me one bit. In fact, it’s the endearing thing about “Black Country”.. hearing the band’s inspiration without the glaring eye of perfection being imposed.. just a peek over their shoulder as they took a stab at something they were inspired by..
And.. for every artist’s style, riffs or lyrics they ever ‘nicked’.. most, I believe, were ultimately better off because of it.. as Zep fans discovered them as well..
I’ve always loved this band because they never allowed perfection to get in the way of ‘feel’.. and never followed or worried about trends..
Bottom line.. I’d MUCH rather listen to their mistakes than most other’s perfection..
Ain’t nodody got time fo dat!
Nice to see there’s at least one other Zep fan here who likes these songs, but isn’t consumed with the minutia of what they stole from Sleepy John Estes and when. Who cares? Just like an internet troll to get lost in some side argument. Can we stay on topic? Geez.
Anyway, I agree with Sinpusher. Songs like ‘Black Country’ may not be their best songs, but they sure are a blast!
This was a fun article to read. I can’t handle “All Of My Love” either, same with “Thank You”. Tender love ballads weren’t their forte. I would disagree with “Black Country Woman” though, I think leaving the airplane in was a nice touch, one of those kinda cool accidents of recording.
My two cents on “The Crunge”, it’s a great rhythm track, not sure Plant’s lyrics and vocals improve it any. Think I’d enjoy it even more with the vocals mixed out. Is that sacrilege to say?
For people who found the article negative, how about some thoughts on underrated Zeppelin tracks? I’ve always really liked “Down By the Seaside” and “Out On the Tiles” for instance. Anyone else have faves that never get mentioned?
I’m a much bigger fan of the early stuff but I always liked that muscular riff to “In the Evening”, and the guitar solo is one of the most inventive in the catalog. Rare (maybe singular) instance of Pagey playing a Stratocaster on record.
Some great suggestions here for a future Led Zeppelin entry in our Deep Cuts series, sort of the love-letter yin to this series’ kick-in-the-teeth yang: http://somethingelsereviews.com/tag/deep-cuts/. Love “Hots On For Nowhere,” “No Quarter,” and “In the Evening,” too.
Hats Off To (Roy) Harper?
It’s mentioned here, but I can’t stand ‘Carouselambra.’ Shoulda ranked that one higher.
I agree that ‘Carouselambra’ wasn’t one of my personal faves.. although, it has one of the best bridges (the slow, breakdown part ) of ANY of their songs..
I think ‘I’m Gonna Crawl’ is one of the most underrated blues vocal performances ever..
More underrated songs: Hots on for Nowhere. Battle of Evermore. South Bound Saurez. Achilles Last Stand. No Quarter.
My wife used to get naked and down on the beat to Boogie with Stu. Still not bad .Always have that song on the back burner.
Nick — There’s another way to look at (and listen to) “All My Love” and “In Through the Out Door.” It’s fascinating how controversial those works are to Zeppelin aficianados.
Fans like me see the song and album as evidence of a band that was going through a dignified phase of maturation, as it continued its tradition of experimenting without giving a damn what anyone else thought they should do.
But other fans seem to view the song and album with some anxiety, as if they were warnings that the band would descend into the easy-listening mode of Clapton or Rod Stewart. (For what it’s worth, their tight sound during the ’80 European tour blew that worry away, even while incorporating All My Love as a very well-received track.)
All My Love is a reminder that the band was in the company of the Beatles rather than AC/DC. Jones showed some real musical genius throughout that album, and I think fans are richer for it, if they don’t feel this peculiar insecurity about the song being too mellow.
I’m not sure where anyone would get the idea that Page and Bonham “mailed in” their parts. Both show a lot of energy and grace that, again, separated them from other hard rock acts. The middle breaks, before and after Jones’ solo, are a testament to a band of incredible ability.
Page and Bonham admittedly shared some of the same anxieties about In Through the Out Door that many fans do, and they seemed bent on going in a more guitar-driven direction on the next effort that never came about.
Still, Bonham took pride in the song, noting that Plant never sounded better. And after having a dozen years or so to think about it, Page chose to end the 4-disc remastered box set with it; that’s significant, in that that box set was his first attempt to frame the Zeppelin legacy for posterity.
In short, it’s a classic song that was far beyond the ability of other bands. It’s something for Zeppelin fans to be proud of. And it’s no accident that, a third of a century later, it still gets more airplay than almost any Zeppelin song.
http://huff.to/WrZTu1
Thanks, Mr. Asghar, for your thoughtful remarks. Here, and in the attached piece you wrote on Led Zeppelin, you make a series of well reasoned, perceptively constructed, generally persuasive arguments for the band and for this album.
Unfortunately, the very reservations you reference from Page and Bonham — not to mention their well-documented descent into alcohol and substance abuse — only serve to bolster the idea that they couldn’t have cared less about In Through The Out Door in general and “All My Love” in particular — a song which the guitarist, nearly two decades later in Guitar World magazine, was still unhappy with: “That’s not us,” he said. “That’s not us. In its place it was fine, but I wouldn’t have wanted to pursue that direction in the future.”
What we have here is an atmosphere in which Plant and Jones were writing the songs during the day (the bassist memorably described Led Zeppelin as having split into two camps by then, with he and Plant representing “the relatively clean one”), while the others would wander in later to add their parts. The album contains no songwriting credits for Bonham, as well as two tracks, including “All My Love,” on which Page had no authorship of at all — the first original songs on any Zeppelin album that lacked his contributions. That, for me, really says it all about their commitment to the project.
Of course, instrumentally, even leftovers from two players as prodigiously talented as Page and Bonham are still worth examining, lo these many years later, but in my opinion that doesn’t necessarily make them their best work.
Interesting points, Nick, thank you.
As obsessed as I am with Zeppelin, I tend not to spend too much time discussing them on the Internet with other Zep fans. We’ll come together with a shared love of something, then we’ll quickly get in a barroom brawl over the particulars, just like the Catholics & Protestants and the Democrats and Republicans!
Unlike some Zep fans, I do really embrace both the early phase and the late phase, and the hard side and the gentle side. I do get a little embarrassed by some of their songs that I think are bloated and ponderous, or where Robert Plant shrieks too much. But again, that’s where everyone comes to punches!
Well I unlike others in this post am “NOT” and expert on anything Zeppelin. I also have not spent hours picking apart,analyzing,or criticizing each album or song. I have yet to find “ANY” band ,artist ,etc. that I can say “every” song they have produced I like. I unlike many here happen like “Thank You” and ” All My Love”.I grew up listening to Zeppelin and almost every song(not all)has some sort of memory attached to it. I guess Im odd but I instead of analyzing just listen to the music.Im sure if I was to probe into your daily lives as it pertains to your work Im sure I could point out areas where your performance is far from stellar. I view the art of music much in the same way I view an artists painting, I dont care how many Scholars tell me how great Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting is I still think its ugly .Just like I Dont enjoy listening to Van Morrison but that doesnt mean it sucks I just Dont like it.I just find it amusing how so many people can criticize Zeppelin when Absolutely nothing they have done in their lives will be remembered or mentioned once they are gone.
Throw “The Crunge” under the bus – “Down by the Seaside” as well. Then group the remaining tracks from Led Zep IV, Houses and Physical Graffiti according to session and you get three great studio albums to go with How the West was Won live document. You also see how 1972 – 1973 was Zeppelin at its finest – pretty much everything they touched turned to gold. Or platinum, as it were.
not every song can be a “Kashmir” C’mon! Personally I think so called critics and even many fans just want too much form their heros, whether they are rocks stars, painters, writers, or actors. We could parallel Brando. I mean he had a handful of brilliant performances and many, many duds, but in the end who cares? Those handfuls make up for it 100 times over, and with Zeppelin I feel the same way, but deciding that those songs you chose prove that they suck is your opinion.
Jason, good comparison to Brando. The craziness of it is that some Zeppelin fans have actually ripped Kashmir as a boring song. It just goes to show you that no one can agree on anything!
My first thought after seeing the title was “Hot Dog” better be on this list. I once read a critic who said Page’s guitar playing on it was an “indifferent note splatter” which I felt was the perfect description of the one track to mar the otherwise excellent In Through the Out Door, yes even All of My Love, which is a great JP Jones song. ITtOD may not be a Zep album in the way that IV or Houses of the Holy are but to me, is a great transitional album and given that Page couldn’t be bothered at the time, Jones really stepped up and knocked it outta the park. That Page doesn’t like it now just comes across as sour grapes – he saw that Zep could make a great album without him.
As for Carouselambra – I always prefered the instrumental version floating around on various session bootlegs. You really get a feel for the groove of the piece then.
I agree with Desiree. JPJ deserved a chance to shine, and he got that chance when Page “couldn’t be bothered” because of the chemicals. Jimmy’s up-and-down ambivalence about All My Love has very much to do with it not having his songwriting imprint. If he’d been more able to stand upright at the time, he might have left that imprint, in which case I’m sure he’d proudly be championing it as a Zep classic.
For me Zeppelin was always an album band never a singles band. I’d pick “Coda” as a least fave album. I can do without any song from it. Even though I did like a few cuts from “In Through The Out Door” I could never get into that album no matter how many times I listened to it. I never cared whether Zep stole songs or not because they made every stolen song way cooler than the so called original version. I always found “Moby Dick” a weak album track. Kind of a lame drum solo really. Much better done live. That Jimmy Page solo in “Heartbreaker” has got to be his weakest performance of any recorded track he played on. I’ve heard this from other sources too. As far as faves my personal Zeppelin fave would be Physical Graffiti and that is because it rocked the hardest. Most rockers pick P.G. for the very fact it rocks hardest. Not just that it just comes together as one continuous classic piece for me. I’ll take Zep IV, P.G and House of the Holy as my top three.
Well Coda was an album of outtakes that they were contractually required to release so I wouldn’t count these as typical Led Zeppelin. Although Wearing and Tearing was supposed to be released as a single around Knebworth.
Not crazy about All of my Love myself but like anything subjective, some love it and some hate it. I actually enjoy Boogie With Stu and Black Country Woman but don’t care for The Crunge or White Summer but hey, that’s just me.
Top five least desirable Zeppelin songs:
anything from Coda
Moby Dick
Heartbreaker solo
most songs from In Through The Out Door
some duds from Zeppelin III
I checked the writing credits on In Through The Outdoor and JP has five co writes and JPJ had six co writes. Maybe JP was out of song ideas or didn’t have any songs left to steal from. JP had stated that JPJ didn’t have contribute anything for the Presence album and had only one writing credit so it time for JPJ to step up on this one.
The Crunge? That’s just them having a go at a little funk number. Does any song on that album really have anything to do with the other songs on that album? Not really but I still put in my top three behind Physical Graffiti and ZEP IV. I like that Houses Of The Holy wasn’t just refabricated old blues and was more of an experimental works.
We didn’t have Zeppelin albums in the house in the 70s so I didn’t discover all these tunes till the 80s and didn’t have negative reviews to dim my take on what I thought. I had never heard the so called lifted parts taken from other sources. You can take just about any song out there and create several songs from the same one song.
Yeah only the first four Zeppelin albums are any good at all because the material they were stealing was great. A few tunes on “Houses of the Holy” are cool (“No Quarter” and “The Rain Song” oddly enough) and I like “Achilles Last Stand” but the rest of “Presence” has none, “In Through the Out Door” has a title and sounds that reminds one of anal sex while “Physical Graffiti” is a laughable, ridiculous and nearly unlistenable attempt at a double album.
all of Zepplins sucked apart from Kashmir my opinion saw them live what a prancing pouting posers who struggled to play in tune Plants Vocals were below average you would have thought you were watching a 5 th rate club band instead of so called superstars playing Knebworth crass and crap
All time worst Led Zep songs:
1. Kashmir (Jesus this song is so bad it makes my anus pucker)
2. Fool in the Rain
3. All of my Love
4. Dazed and Confused
5. Rock and Roll
6. And everything else made after Physical Graffiti
I mean rock music in general is the work of hacks who had less talent than today’s pop stars, but if you’re just playing pentatonic scales and a I-V-C-V-C-B-V-C-O arrangement, at least keep it under four minutes to keep me from wanting to swallow cyanide.
Could someone please get a guitar teacher to show Jimmy Page how to properly pick? He’s like 70 and he still plays like a 13 year-old white kid with a bad sense of time.
Well, you sure showed us, User….
I’ve never been able to listen to LZ. Robert plant’s voice reminds me of a little kid with helium in his lungs, “singing”.
How about “Hats off To Harper”? Zep 3 is my favorite album but this song stinks.
At last “All My Love’ gets its comeuppance. A 15 year old shelling out his hard earned $7.99 could not have expected a band so crippled by drug and alcohol abuse that it would be forced to put out such dreck. The chorus is so toothless, ineffectual and boring that looking back it has to qualify as the worst bit of MOR crap I ever sat through.
All Of My Love was Plant’s paean to his recently deceased son Karak. Page reportedly didn’t much like it, but it had meaning for Robert.
” Hell, even the chord progression from “Stairway to Heaven” bears a striking resemblance to a song by the Chocolate Watch Band, who just happened to have toured with Page’s pre-Zeppelin band the Yardbirds.” No, it was Taurus by Spirit, who Led Zep toured with in 1969. Randy California, who wrote it, was always puzzled that Jimmy didn’t acknowledge him, but never felt the need to sue. Recently however, Mark Andes, the bassist in Spirit and other bands, did file a plagiarism suit that has yet to be adjudicated.
“heavy metal square dance” <– I LOL'd. That precisely describes the song. I hate it, too.
‘Boogie With Stu’ – An upbeat acoustic blues/rock song with Stu Cook on piano and Plant’s singing voice in its prime. What’s not to like? And for the record, they listed “Mrs. Valens” in the song credits as an acknowledgement of the original source.
‘All My Love’ – I hated this song when it first came out (I was 15 and disliked any new song that didn’t sound like ‘Whole Lotta Love’ or ‘Black Dog’) but have grown to like it over the years. The keyboard solo serves as a nice counterbalance to the melancholy feeling throughout the rest of the song.
‘Bring It On Home’ – What about the rest of the song? After the blues intro this song launches into one of the best, hardest rocking songs they’ve ever produced. And Plant’s “mumbling, black-face presentation” is actually a spot-on imitation of Sonny Boy Williamson’s version of this song.
‘Black Country Woman’ – So you’re blacklisting this song based on the pre-song patter!?! I agree that this song has the feel of an early demo, but that’s one of the things that makes this such a great song! This is a bluesy, hard rocking, acoustic song with Plant soloing on harmonica. If you don’t like this you better check to see if you have a pulse.
‘Hot Dog’ – The tongue-in-cheek lyrics combined with the up tempo, shit-kicking, high energy feel of this song makes this one of the best songs on the album and it was one of the highlights of their live shows in ’79 and ’80. This is one of the songs that exemplifies the versatility of the band and their unique ability to play and create original songs in any style of music.
All my love is a tribute to Plant’s son who died at 5 years old. You should look into a track before you insult it. As well, Hot Dog has great piano and guitar instrumentation and is a lot of fun, especially is you listen to the lyrics. There are a million descending guitar lines before Stairway and before Spirit that are similar.
Only 5?!
Stuff it.
Just another pathetic bitter little music critic. You know nothing