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

yeah i mean "the dirt" was official and "hammer" was unofficial. which doesn't mean the crue weren't aggrandizing their own stories any more than it means "hammer" was inventing stories for zep.

i figure they're both probably half-fictionalized. or maybe "lovingly mythologized."

If I could've voted for this version of D&C, I would've. My all-time favorite Zeppelin performance. This is the very first thing I would play for someone who asked, "What makes Led Zeppelin great?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFbVGMAxO4A

awesome, I love "gross tales of hard rock excess" (soft rock too; reading a bio of the Beach Boys right now that's cleared out my nostrils a few times)

Man, listening to "Celebration Day" right now and realize I love this song too. My list just keeps growing.

Also, does anyone else love "The Wanton Song" as much as I do? It's essentially the blueprint for half of the Jesus Lizard catalogue (which I love wholeheartedly).

xpost Yeah, everybody knows about the mudshark episode but that's not even the nastiest thing in the book iirc.

The Wanton Song and Sick Again basically save PG from sputtering out to nothing.

Also, for some reason I have always really dug "I'm Gonna Crawl", in regards to the slow-burning blues-as-blues numbers. Mainly for the solo, but also the ratcheted up drama of the vocals and the synths/keyboards. Might be my only version of this kinda thing on my ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64rhCDy1a7M

Hah! Used to put this on the jukebox at this pizza joint my friends and I went to all the time (along with "Xanadu" by Rush).

Mark, do you have a formal no-voting-in-ilm-polls policy?

Not at all, I ran the Beatles one, voted in the Prince one, the others I don't have enough of a breadth of experience to be able to suggest that my votes matter. (Beach Boys knowledge consists of about 3 albums, LedZep I do not care enough about, etc)

I'm Gonna Crawl might make it on my ballot. Love Plant's scream towards the end.

Not at all, I ran the Beatles one,

guh! I totally forgot that, sorry

INNNNNNNNN DE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVENIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

Aww fuck, "Tea For One" pretty great as well. Wish the intro had been made into it's own song, so good.

I'm totally voting for In the Evening, which may be my fave Zep opener outside of the first or third records.

Mine too.

I am starting to load up and dig into the discography... This rhythm section continues to blow me away. We are pretty lucky we got 8 (?) albums out of these guys.

I looooooove the combination of aggro guitar and squawling synth.

Yeah, tempted to vote for "No Quarter" just to give JPJ his organ solo. That dude was/is amazing.

My JPJ-centric vote will almost certainly be "The Lemon Song."

Even revisiting songs like "Tangerine" which I wouldn't consider putting on my ballot, until I hear them... the pedal steel + the rhythm guitar + JPJ + Bonham so locked in.

Page's engineering of Bonham's drumming is some sort of genius. Always such clarity and space.

"In the Evening" still sounds like a genre that no one has discovered.

I'm holding back from cutting and pasting from other threads until the results have been tabulated.

My JPJ-centric vote will almost certainly be "The Lemon Song."

― Dave Zuul (Phil D.), Wednesday, August 17, 2011 9:14 AM (43 seconds ago)

Absolutley, his walking lines on the breakdown (I think the 3rd minute?) I'd put up there with Carol Kaye, Duck Dunn, Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham... Bonham's call and response fills too.

Recall reading that "Black Dog" was JPJ fucking around with a rhythm no one could dance to. Mission accomplished!

Love how Page insisted on producing each album himself, each with a different engineer, so that looky-loos would know it was him that made the records sound so good. He also related an epiphany in the "Loud" doc (I think?) that either the guitar can be loud or the drums can be loud, but not both, and that he intentionally meixed himself under Bonham because he knew Bonham would lift everything around him.

I'd like to learn more about how Page became sole producer; it was such a rare thing in the seventies.

just sent my ballot off. Whew! That was kind of tough!

Got it. No albums/dislikes?

naw; only super familiar with the first five albums, and most of my dislikes are songs I can't remember tucked away in Presence or the second disc of PG

Four Sticks almost made my list, top 25 for sure

xp actually I have a dislikes list coming your way, sorry for the inconvenience wmc...

No problem! We strive for 100% customer satisfaction.

all 8 orig albums are represented on my list (and even Coda if you count Hey Hey What Can I do which showed up as an extra track on one of the reissues)

I'd like to learn more about how Page became sole producer; it was such a rare thing in the seventies.

Sold his soul to the devil for riches and fame innit.

Emily XYZ released a single on Kill Rock Stars a bunch of years ago called "Jimmy Pages Loves Lori Maddox." David Wisdom used to play it on CBC Stereo's "Nightline's." I remember finding it amusing.

Also, "Four Sticks" roxxors.

I voted for Wearing and Tearing on Coda; it was in my top 10

talk about ferocious!

"Wearing and Tearing" will probably be top-5 for me, and "Four Sticks" top-10.

The Ordinaires' cover of Kashmir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXcx26OI7Es

As I was loading all the Led Zep onto my iPod I remembered that I created a Coda II EP when I ripped the box sets way back when that consists of:

1. Baby Come On Home
2. Travelling Riverside Blues
3. Hey Hey What Can I Do
4. White Summer/Black Mountain Side
5. Moby Dick/Bonzo's Montreux

Oh man, I nip out for a couple of hours and this thread blows up :( Anyway...

That version of Dazed & Confused (a hundred xposts) is why I felt so guilty at leaving it off my ballot. It's from 'Supershow' - what's that? I love the filmic look of it anyway, that slow track into the full band early on - so evil! They're not a band well-served by visuals, really - there's only a couple of dvds' worth. That's partly why they've always felt like a cult to me (that and being British, cos *nobody* was into them when I were young).

It's not my favourite Zep footage though. That's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVc-RaBEaBw

I have a "Black Dog" dance. It's like Elaine's Foghat dance, but in a more complicated time signature.

Man even the songs I'd written off before listening are sounding good, this band is so unfairly maligned. "Rock & Roll" is a pretty damn great 1971 update of a 50s rock song.

I mean its pretty lol to think a band with Jimmy fuckin' Page needed another guitarist, but I can't think of how sweet it would have been for a Richard Thompson solo to have shown up in "Evermore" to complete the Fairport Convention thing.

Hammer Of The Gods - great read, gets kind of heavy & depressing at parts though. Plant & Jones come out well, the rest not so much iirc.

I'd heard about it for years before I ever found a copy. When I did find one it had a mangled back cover, so I asked for a few quid off. It was a very nervous wait while she consulted the manager, cos I'd have to back down if they refused. Couldn't believe it when they agreed, I wanted to shake them and shout 'DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?! THIS IS PURE GOLD' (but I didn't).

"Night Flight" sounds like it could be an outtake off of Every Picture Tells A Story. I haven't heard this in 20 years I bet.

wow, Coda (original issue) is pretty bad. In Through The Out Door pretty bleak as well.

Man at times "No Quarter" almost sounds like it could fit in on an Amon Duul II record or some shit.

Lots of Zep fans love "All My Love," but Plant mastered the synthy ballad once he went solo.

In Through The Out Door's actually pretty great imo, you just have to get past the dated sound of it (also it sounds a lot less dated than it used to iykwim). I'd rep for maybe six out the seven tracks on a good day.

there's something about the shift in sound from Presence on that kinda bugs me, like Percy got REALLY into tight plate reverb.... everything seems to take on a much more metallic sheen.

In Through The Out Door's actually pretty great imo, you just have to get past the dated sound of it (also it sounds a lot less dated than it used to iykwim).

This was similar to my preconception going into it, but the bleak content was more of my concern than the sound/production/engineering. It is not a surprise to learn that 2/3rds of the musicians had checked out by this point, and JPJ alone could not salvage a full quality album out of the studio material, mismatched with limp genre exercises.

If that album is the sound of 3/4 of a band checked out, I'm all for checking out. "Fool in the Rain" may even make it to my list.