Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

I listen to outtakes, both as an exercise (hmm, where did this song come from?) and for pleasure, since there are often new things to hear/learn/enjoy. Prince, Springsteen ... so much cool stuff.

I get as much enjoyment out of Who, Miles, Coltrane, Hendrix, and some Beatles alternates/outtakes as I do from the master takes.

And speaking of the Who, few artists had an Odds & Sods in them, an outtakes compilation that stands up to (and in some cases betters) the regular output.

Honestly it depends upon the band and how they worked. For the Beach Boys, for instance, there's three CDs worth of the band recording backing tracks for "Good Vibrations". I can't listen to that and get aesthetic enjoyment out of it, though it's a fascinating document for understanding Brian's process in the studio. On the other side of things is stuff like "The Complete Funhouse Sessions", where the Stooges went in and laid down the songs live in the studio, complete with vocals, multiple times, and then just picked the ones they like best. Any one of those is really about as good as any other.

Those are both pretty extreme examples. But what it boils down to is that, at least in the primary era for bootlegging, studio outtakes would often wind up being unreleased for reasons other than artistic merit. The Beach Boys are, again, a prime example. They have a ton of completed songs that didn't make it out officially either because they were a thoroughly dysfunctional band (see: Dennis' songs for "Surf's Up"), or because the songs were profoundly out of touch with the commercial realities of the day (see: "My Solution").

Another example of the way process changes can affect the listenability of outtakes, even within the same band, is Talking Heads. I really enjoy listening to the outtakes from "Fear of Music", because Eno and Byrne tried a lot of different things with the songs. Fripp was originally brought in to play on three or four different songs on the record, but only wound up on the finished record on one song. There's a version of "Cities" that incorporates a loud "WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP" noise during parts of the song (referenced by Byrne on the live version from "The Name of This Band Is..."). They did a version of "Mind" with extreme treatments on the vocals. I wouldn't argue that any of these versions are, in artistic terms, _better_ than the finished product, but they're enjoyable to listen to on their own terms.

"Remain in Light", in contrast, I don't enjoy listening to the outtakes for at all. It seems to me that the recording process for that was less open-ended. After making "Fear of Music", Byrne and Eno were more sure of themselves and what they wanted to do. So while "Remain in Light" is a more experimental album, the recording process was, at least based on existing documentation, less experimental.

The tipping point for me is possibly Nebraska. Springsteen, a major artist, recorded acoustic demos of his songs for the band to play, and afterwards decided he liked the acoustic demos better and released them as the album. The success of the Basement Tapes probably made that possible, and honestly the Basement Tapes are, I think, still the best go-to argument for listening to outtakes (or songwriting demos) as songs, because the way they were recorded was completely out of touch with the way the market worked back then.

Well, maybe the Basement Tapes are even more anomalous. Because with scattered exceptions like "I Go to Sleep", rock musicians didn't do songwriting demos. The sixties were the apex of the songwriter-performer cult.

Anyway, I think having enjoyable, listenable unreleased outtakes is mostly an artifact of the way the industry worked, technologically and sociologically, during the rock era. Today the process of construction is less likely to produce aesthetically enjoyable rejects, and the standard for what is considered "releasable" is more inclusive.

Yeah, there are some "Nebraska"-era demos that are incredible, like the menacing "Pink Cadillac," a stark contrast to the radio version. Re: Talking Heads, "Remain in the Light" was constructed largely out of jams, even more so than the previous records, so I'm not sure there are real outtakes, per se. Just bits and pieces and fragments. Ever heard a band try to play "Once in a Lifetime" like the record? It's pretty much impossible, since it was constructed in the studio and the one keeps moving around.

This Remain In Light outtake is pretty great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DLhrB2U_co

I can hear bits and pieces of that creeping into "The Great Curve."

tbh I just put outtakes on my ipod with the rest of the artists' catalog, they just become part of the body of work. so what if the Bee Gees never released/finished "Completely Unoriginal", it's still one of my favorite songs of theirs and it's really funny

Serious question: does anyone ever listen to outtakes for enjoyment in the same way as they would the main feature? Or is listening to that stuff just an intellectual exercise or to satisfy curiosity as to how certain bands worked together, the way they interacted with one another, the way they developed up the tracks that would eventually become the main feature, or a window into what the band considered to be "not good enough" to be properly released?

I only ask because I've got copies of The Beatles' Anthology discs, and I've heard the Get Back bootlegs and all of that kind of stuff, and while it's all very interesting for maybe one or two spins, you can see why a lot of it ended it up on the cutting room floor and wasn't deemed worthy for release. Some might say they're "historical documents", but don't the proper releases count as that and do it far more successfully? I must have felt the urge to listen to Abbey Road hundreds upon hundreds of times, but hardly ever have I thought "yeah, Anthology 3, that's my listening for the night sorted!"

I get the feeling that when it comes to certain "classic" artists, people won't be satisfied until every single last note of the archives is released in some way, which they'll probably listen to once or twice at the very most.

― You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart (Turrican), Wednesday, June 3, 2015 7:43 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Honestly if I had to choose between only listening to the Dylan bootleg series or the proper Dylan studio albums from now til the end of my life I would choose the Bootleg Series

and don't get me started on what's supposed to be on Neil Young Archives Vol II

but Dylan's weird contrariness is legendary, why he left "Blind Willie McTell" off of Infidels and kept "Union Sundown" or "Neighborhood Bully" god only knows

Yeah, I guess I would make a distinction between outtakes and alternate takes. Because if I'm being honest, the latter not so much. But demos and unreleased stuff from acts, sure.

“Two Ones Are Won”
“10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod)”

curious about these 2 presence outtakes and also i've been waiting for presence in general, i wonder how the remaster will affect its sort of compelling murkiness

“10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod)”

Is this a Pavement cover?

features Robert Plant doing a Mark E. Smith impression

Pretty sure that song was on the Pacific trim 7"

http://www.theonion.com/article/teen-who-just-discovered-led-zeppelin-starting-to--199

Honda of the Holy

John Paul Jones played "When The Levee Breaks" with Mike Mills and a bunch of other musos at a festival in Norway last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bKcFqwmSw8

That was pretty good! jpj always seems like such a great dude.

I've always seen a lot of Zeppelin-REM parallels

also, Mccaughey's Maiden strap

My friend Josh (who is also the Fenway Park organist) is the keyboardist in that lineup; he's pretty over the moon about this.

oh—I know of Josh through The Best Show!

Yes! And he's played the Best Show theme a bunch of times at baseball games.

Is that Steve Wynn out front? Must have been a Baseball Project gig.

I also have a friend in this line-up! - Tim, second guitarist and backing vocalist.

Man, I love how Buck and Mills have pretty much worked non-stop on side-projects, super-groups and solo albums since REM broke up. They're having so much fun.

JPJ did the string arrangements on Automatic For The People, good to see they kept in touch!

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/12/stairway-to-heavens-opening-chords-may-have-been-stolen-judge-says

http://today.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sherlock-holmes-basil-rathbone.jpg

Bit late now that randy c is dead tbh. What was his attitude on the issue anyway?

It's Zep-revisiting season. Man, this shit is so juvenile. But that rhythm section.

Sometimes I think it's juvenile, then other times I think, you know, Lord of the Rings was less than 20 years old, the Beatles hadn't broken up yet, it was the summer of love ... they could do worse than vikings and hobbits and blues double entendres.

Separately, got an advance of the Peter Grant bio so we'll see what that's like.

Horrific no doubt re: Grant bio!

Does it go into the ‘73 theft in NYC?

Guess I'll find out! And yeah if it's some puff piece I'll be all "Uh."

silmarillion forever

https://www.nme.com/news/film/louis-theroux-the-beatles-lord-of-the-rings-film-twitter-2361615

I think I was probably the last male American rock fan, born during the era in which the band was active, to "get into" Led Zep. I got the box set as a gift in high school, when it was released, but didn't dig it too much (in retrospect, it wasn't a great introduction... a lot to wade through). Over the years, I came to dislike the band pretty actively, based on the tracks from the first two albums and IV that are played on the radio all the time.

Then, a few years ago, I picked up a used copy of Physical Graffiti (I don't even remember why); and was like, whoa... I knew the big hits, but wasn't familiar w/cuts like "In the Light" and "Ten Years Gone." This was a terrific album... and I moved forward & backward from there, getting really into the albums with titles (instead of numbers) in particular. Basically, it's the second half of their career that I had received little exposure to, and which turned out to be very much my thing (I also dig III, and side two of IV is good).

I haven't revisited them so much lately, after that heavy six or eight months... but I definitely "get it" now!

always rep hard for III, which is one of the greatest records ever

There was a recentish LZ thread where people (incl. myself?) dissected some youtube drummers' playalongs of some of Bonzo's more uh... athletic/difficult? performances... but that is currently beyond my ILX search ability.

whoops wrong thread but kinda works too I guess?

Even listening to an audio stream via tinny computer speakers, at mid-low volume, Bonzo's drums bust out so powerfully

saw a youtube the other day where guy was disproving the legend that Bonham's Levee part was recorded in a stairwell w/no added artificial echo

Hard funk is my favourite Zeppelin mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqs3hw0rgpc

saw a youtube the other day where guy was disproving the legend that Bonham's Levee part was recorded in a stairwell w/no added artificial echo

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:29 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think the artificial echo was ever a secret. The stairwell provided most of the color, but it was supplemented with outboard gear:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/drums/andy-johns-on-the-secrets-behind-the-led-zeppelin-iv-sessions-586533

"I used two Beyerdynamic M160 microphones and I put a couple of limiters over the two mics and used a Binson Echorec echo device that Jimmy Page had bought. They were Italian-made and instead of tape they used a very thin steel drum.

"Tape would wear out and you'd have to keep replacing it. But this wafer-thin drum worked on the same principle as a wire recorder. It was magnetised and had various heads on it and there were different settings. They were very cool things!

"And so playing at that particular tempo on 'Levee the limiters had time to breathe and that's how Bonzo got that 'Ga Gack' sound because of the Binson. He wasn't playing that. It was the Binson that made him sound like that. I remember playing it back in the Stones' mobile truck and thinking, 'Bonzo's gotta f**king like this!' I had never heard anything like it and the drum sound was quite spectacular."

Right not a secret, but to non-engineers/casual fans (hi) that part of it was left out & story was condensed to "it sounds like that cause it was recorded in a stairwell". Which it wasn't! The room was akin to a lobby of a small hotel.

I always though the tape speed was altered too, everything except the vocals microtoned down a quarter or maybe even a half step

A little more on the box set: I definitely gave it some listens... I remember the four CDs with their "atmospheric" cover images, and thinking the "No Quarter" riff was really cool. I must have just set it aside after freshman year, as I moved more towards other stuff. Also, the friends I fell in with shared my love of R.E.M., VU, etc. -- I didn't know anyone who listened to Led Zep (except for a cool girl in middle school who was obsessed w/classic rock, Keith Moon in particular).

xpost There is a ton of stuff going on in "When the Levee Breaks."

this sounds interesting

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1909526509?ie=UTF8&tag=washpost-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1909526509

lol, did I ever tell you guys about my seventh grade history fair project?