Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

They always had sick riffs.

“No Quarter” is easily top ten LZ for me. The others I can take or leave.

"Thank You" is the best impersonation of the Small Faces I've ever heard.

“No Quarter”: soporific, or sopor-riffic?

Super-terrific, more like. That song is all about that heavy riff, the way it intrudes on the keyboard interludes like a rude guest at a psychedelic retreat. In a lot of ways it's the closest they ever came (in terms of style) to Black Sabbath.

"No Quarter" would also be in my top-ten (though I can live without ten minute live keyboard solos), and I love "Southbound Saurez" too, while "Hats Off" might be their all-time worst.
I'm surprised you didn't include any slow blues, and nothing from Coda (which would probably include three of their bottom ten for me).

Yeah, it's telling that you have to scrape the bottom of Zeppelin scraping the bottom to find the bottom.

Including a drum solo feels like a cheat. But if they'd used the riff from "Moby Dick" for an actual song, they'd probably have had something.

I listened to Presence two nights ago and it dropped significantly in my estimation. It sounds like demos half the time — I don't think there are more than two tracks of guitar on it! — and the whole thing is just completely uninspired and enervated, except for "Achilles Last Stand," which still rules. By the time I got to "Tea For One," which would absolutely make my list of worst LZ songs, I was halfway comatose (just like Jimmy Page, probably!).

are you guys forgetting 'Hot Dog'

"Hots Off" is easily top ten Zep: it took several albums to release a track with so many delightful hairpin turrns.

"Tea For One" >>> "Since I've Been Loving You."

*Hots On obv

Forget it ilx, it's Alfredtown.

Not hearing more than a track or two in the wild until my mid twenties helped.

Presence is like an epic battle between entropy and lead guitar, which finally succumbs in the last song.

Here's my list of really bad Zeppelin songs, studio versions from the original albums:

You Shook Me
Lemon Song
Living Loving Maid
Tea For One
Hot Dog
Walter's Walk
Wearing and Tearing
Bonzo's Montreux

I like "Wearing and Tearing." The rest of those are pretty generic or otherwise pro forma or annoying, relatively speaking.

yes on "The Lemon Song."

"Hats Off" might be their all-time worst.

One of my favourites!!

yay!

“tea for one”? are you shitting me

people who hate “tea for one” should have their opinions removed

Presence is such a weird one for me. Asides from Nobody's Fault and Achilles I honestly can't remember what any of these songs sound like, and I've listened to this album hundreds of times. I know one of them has the "co-ca-co-ca-cocaine" chorus, but with a gun to my head I couldn't tell you which one. I remember like Royal Orleans a lot as a kid, but again, I could not hum it to you now for the life of me. And the slow one is just interminable. DON'T DO DRUGS, KIDS. Out Door is a better album.

^ low grade challops

I often have trouble remembering the other tracks not "Hots On for Nowhere," "Tea For One," and "Achilles..." So I suppose ITTOD is the superior album. Which shows how meaningless memory is.

"Tea For One" has a great intro and then collapses into a low-grade revamp of "Since I've Been Loving You". As a song and a sentiment of despair it might be fine, as a performance it is a real let-down.

Needs more bass drum pedal squeak.

...plus they're ripping off Irving Berlin.

They improve on "Since..." imo.

Not hard to do imo

And I don't know if I agree - Since has peaks that are sort of worth the ascent, the misery of Tea For One just sort of pools in an ungainly fashion, meant only for wallowing

Our Marcello wrote one of the sharper reappraisals.

I like "Presence," but I feel like it should have been named "More!" Like, you spend all your time with Led Zeppelin, all those great songs that you've heard so many times in so many places, and then you hit a lull, take a breather, and bam - but wait, there's "More!" Like an entire album of deep cuts, for the real heads.

...plus they're ripping off Irving Berlin.

Correction, he didn't write "Tea For Two"! I meant Randy California.

Presence ...an entire album of deep cuts, for the real heads.

I met a woman who had all the Zeppelin CDs except for this. When I said, "Oh, you don't have Presence, she hadn't even heard of it.

Like an entire album of deep cuts, for the real heads.

This is such a '76 thing: you could say the same about The Royal Scam, Tejas, or Black and Blue.

xp

Why "Presence" figures so largely in my Zeppelin love is because I found out about it after I was sure that I had purchased their entire catalogue, including Coda. I was a kid who obsessed over Zeppelin, so when I stumbled across it in a music store, i thought it was some type of obscene joke.

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Marcello's piece is great, and makes me want to listen to all of Presence again, when usually I oly want to hear Achilles and Fault

yes on "The Lemon Song."

Crazy talk! Zep at its most fonky.

The first time I really heard LZ (other than classic rock radio in the car) was when my friend gave me a tape with "IV" on one side and "Presence" on the other, I had no real frame of reference for the band or even an idea of when the albums came out or what the album covers looked like, I probably owned like ten cassettes total at that point, so to me "Presence" was always just a LZ record and I loved it.

Obv as an adult I'm like "what a weird entry point" and I understand why it doesn't have the same standing in their catalog as other records, but deep down to me it is an unimpeachable classic.

The long-gone online reviewer Capn Marvel had one of my all-time favourite lines in his review of Presence:

these guys were trying to keep afloat amidst punk rock? They sound like they all weigh 400 pounds and eat gold dubloons for breakfast.

that's praise, right?

man, "walter's walk" is what you put on when you wanna hear how mean that band could be but not be reminded of shitty classic rock radio… and I think "Hot's on" and "royal Orleans" are where you hear how much they liked the Meters…

Jeez, CapnMarvel, that’s a name I haven’t heard in 20 years. He was great!

Could have put this on the obituary thread but fuck giving this repulsive creep any kind of respect.

https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1530552/Richard-Cole-dead-death-Led-Zeppelin-tour-manager-Robert-Plant-instagram-tribute-news

His own Zeppelin book is one of the most repulsive things I've ever read. I don't think I got more than a quarter of the way in.

Speaking of, new bio out.

Calling that an "obituary" is giving it a bit too much credit. It's roughly two sentences on the man's life followed by this:

_sha_nizzle typed: “Very sorry to read this..

“May he rest in peace.”

groupieplant added: “It can't be!

“I do not believe."

_bella_jenn_ said: “Condolences for your loss. R.I.P. Richard”

https://i.imgur.com/o2LxA5w.jpg

Always blastin’ HotH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVWmI69wu44

facial hair experiment phase