Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

He's a smart guy but Page is the sophisticate. Of the three, Page's musical output post-Zeppelin is by far the worst, but the guy's a genuine polymath — he spends more time doing favela rehabilitation in Brazil (he's spent millions on it), collecting rare manuscripts, and researching/preserving Victorian architecture (he's among a handful of William Burges experts)

xpost During Letterman when Dave brings up theat Stairway performance, Plant looks over at Paul Schaffer and rolls his eyes like "who farted?"

i kind of wonder if Page being the main architect of LZ made the mediocrity of his later work inevitable -- it's like everything he ever wanted to do was wrapped up in that band and executed beautifully, how can he ever top it? at least Plant seemed to have some musical interests/ambitions that weren't totally satisfied by Zep that left him some room to have an interesting solo career.

This is so OTM. I think for Page Zeppelin was the culmination of all the ideas he'd been piling up working for years as a session man and studio whiz.

If you think about it Plant never really had a chance to evolve on his own...he was like 18 or whatever when this big-shot from London swooped in and said "this is what we're doing"

OTM seconded. Everything Page did after Zep was an attempt to get another Zep happening: the Firm, Coverdale/Page, the Black Crowes dealie...

Page/Plant was the best of these, obviously, but man, if there was ever an ideal Bonham replacement, it was Michael Lee.

xpost During Letterman when Dave brings up theat Stairway performance, Plant looks over at Paul Schaffer and rolls his eyes like "who farted?"
― Hadrian VIII, Friday, December 28, 2012 9:46 AM (1 hour ago)

What were you saying again, underrated, you jerk!

yeah Page had had a full musicial career with varying degrees of satisfaction by the time he'd formed Led Zep -- Zep was like, i dunno, Page the former apprentice going into business for himself.
Creatively he let it all hang out, building on a lot of things that had been stewing for a while elsewhere, whereas like Hadrian says, Zep was really Plant's first gig.

apropos of nothing, I saw this on wiki. nothing should surprise me about Page anymore but O_O

"Battle of Evermore" was made up on the spot by Robert [Plant] and myself. I just picked up John Paul Jones's mandolin, never having played a mandolin before , and just wrote up the chords and the whole thing in one sitting.[3]

Gah! That's nuts! Ironically, I think Jones played the mandolin part in concert (at least, there was footage of him doing so during the Kennedy Center thing).

p sure he's a sorcerer

I'm sure I've seen a picture of Jones in concert with an acoustic triple-neck thing: guitar, twelve-string and mandolin.

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000Gk307fmF.EQ/s/650/650/John-Paul-Jones-03.jpg

holy fuck

And he's STILL using a crazy-ass variation on it:
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg302/f5mando/Mandolins/john-paul-jones.jpg

except now he has to wear a back brace, lol

crikey

jpj came out and played mandolin on a cover of cortez the killer last time i saw gillian welch & dave rawlings and it was ooomg so good

holy shit that sounds incredible

Other bands that aren't Led Zeppelin are p lame tbh

except pink floyd who RULE

floyd are fine and good UNLESS you wanna compare them to zep

gasp! i would never

is it corny to really love When The Levee Breaks? Like REALLY love.

also I wannna yell BECAAAAAAUSE MUTINY ON THA BOUNTY'S WHAT WE'RE ALL ABOUT whenever the drum intro starts up

that song won the ilx tracks poll, so i don't think anyone has any problem with loving it

Why would it be corny? IT RULES

when was the tracks poll? I would like to read the results thread (or I could just look it up myself bcz I'm a lazy so and so)

xpost idk sometimes I question my choices lol

naw, it's pretty much the greatest thing ever xxxp

POLL LOTTA LOVE - ILM Artist Poll #6 - Led Zeppelin

ty :)

np

oops that was the voting thread, this is the results thread: ILM GONNA CRAWL — Led Zeppelin poll RESULTS THREAD

most amazing slide guitar sound in the Zep catalogue, short of In My Time Of Dying maybe.

IMTOD was the track that finally made me love LZ.

lol at the candles in the background.. never change jimmy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pqfzx

Interesting to me that "Levee" is in a way the most primal of Zep's awesome songs, and yet also one of its most artificial, and arty. It's long, and there's all sorts of unplayable stuff going on in it.

Well said. The combination of all those qualities is what makes it so great.

don't really understand the artificial/unplayable statement

While I respect 'When The Levee Breaks' for its musicianship and its fantastic drum sound, it actually does very little for me in comparison to other Zeppelin tracks. I don't think 'When The Levee Breaks' has EVER excited me in the way that 'Achilles Last Stand' has over the years, for example.

c'mon, the slide riff in Levee's chorus is what elevates it to next level

drumsdrumsdrumsdrums

(don't get me wrong,I do love Achille's tho, for its proto-metalness)

'Achilles' has that magnificent drum fill as well!

Presence underrated by many IMO

am still not quite over my horror that ppl voted for 'Friends' as most hated in the tracks poll
so mean

i love that song. Not a huge III stan but hat's one of my favs.

Presence overrated by many more like. Love Achilles, love Tea For One, but if ever an album could use a bit of relief - piano, comedy skit, anything.

iii is p great

that's...the complete opposite of what i would ever want on that album

xpost

i mean it's Zeppelin, not Queen 2

I absolutely LOVE 'Friends' - Page's acoustic guitar playing mixed with that great string arrangement. Superb. Love the way it segues into 'Celebration Day', too.

otm