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

Hot Dog, that is.

So I have my "short" list narrowed down to 30 songs and the breakdown per album looks like this:

I - 4 songs
II - 2 songs
III - 3 songs
IV - 3 songs
Houses - 4 songs
Graffiti - 6 songs
Presence - 2 songs
In Through the Out Door - 3 songs
Coda/B-sides - 3 songs

admirably spread out -- mine definitely won't be that even

I think Page was going for intentionally loose/sloppy on "Hot Dog," and that that was kind of a misunderstanding of rockabilly/early rock and roll.

Yeah, the "Hot Dog" solo is kind of ass, the best parts are when he comes close to the main riff.

expected some more "achilles" talk. fave deep cut, fave of the epics, and a strong contender for overall fave. also covered it in my high school band. ;-)

Love it. Made my top 5. Speaking of the brilliance that is Presence, I wish I'd included "Hots On For Nowhere" on my ballot. Probably my all-time favorite Page solo.

Led Zeppelin recorded its version of the song in December 1970 at Headley Grange, where the band used the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. The song had earlier been tried unsuccessfully by the band at Island Studios at the beginning of the recording sessions for their fourth album.[4]

man, this is the shit that breaks my heart. because in the second sentence lies part of the answer about why music's pretty different now. LZ scrapped probably several days' worth of studio time on this jam because they didn't think it was working. those several days = $$$. bands really don't have that luxury any more. they can do it in pre-production in a cheap studio or at their homes or whatever, but the idea of actually spending the good studio dollar to explore whether one approach is working (or whether one [on the clock, paid] producer is working, or whether one physical space is working, etc): that's a dream from the past. unless you're utterly massive, your single venture into the studio to make the album is going to produce the definitive & for-the-record version of the song for better or worse; nobody has the scratch to do multiple tries in multiple studios, but there are plenty of stories from the legendary acts of trying a song over & over to try to get to the heart of it.

yeah "Achilles" is amazing

Ballot sent (to myself). That was really hard!

- One song which I really hated 30 years ago made my top 5.
- Several favorites from back then were easy cuts.
- Swear to god, "The Crunge" barely missed my ballot.

can't wait to work on my ballot over the weekend...II love The Crunge too btw)

i said recently that if you don't like "the crunge" or "d'yer mak'er" then you're an asshole

not true at all, definitely, but still

tbh, sunny had a point taken away from her when we first met in New Orleans for not getting the "joke" as I was driving around lost on the wrong side of the river going, "Where's that confounded bridge?"

(Then again, she may have been fearing for her life, so we're even.)

I've begun my relistening campaign

I is kind of a massive album, huh

They're all pretty massive, really.

a few years ago I did what you're doing with the remasters DJP (i.e., got 'em all at once & embarked on a listening campaign) and the sheer pleasure that the music brought me was totally exhilarating

I is kind of a massive album, huh

Yes you is

Aero, will you be voting?

PG is the one in which I've immersed myself the last few days.

WmC I am kind of a weird music freak in that I kinda don't do ranked lists. I dutifully keep a year-end list & I welcome a thread about awesome Led Zeppelin tracks but ranking my top 20 is just sorta not my scene, all love to everybody whose scene it is tho!

that's cool, no pressure intended

i said recently that if you don't like "the crunge" or "d'yer mak'er" then you're an asshole

"D'yer Mak'er" and "Hey Hey What Can I Do" are two songs that were completely and forever destroyed for me a former college roommate and that Encomium tribute album. This guy constantly played the Sheryl Crow cover of the former and the fucking Hootie cover of the latter to the point that I still can't heard the original without shuddering.

although I am going to temp-ban anyone who says "oh I meant to vote in this and forgot!"
xpost

Goddamn I hate this keyboard, "by a former college roommate" and "hear the originals".

That Hootie cover is remarkably terrible, memorably so.
(I like 4 Non Blondes version of Misty Mountain Hop, tho)

I don't mind "The Crunge." Or at least, I don't on the record. I can't think of a time I've ever thought, hey, I want to hear :"The Crunge!" So when it comes to a band with very little I don't like a lot, if not outright love, something's got to get in the back of the line.

thanking this thread for getting me back into LZ after Q104.3's "get the led out" programming blocks (which seem to play the same five songs every hour or two) tested me mightily.

I wonder which is more prevalent nowadays, a "GET THE LED OUT" block or the "MANDATORY METALLICA" block.

Ack. All these horrible covers mentioned makes me wanna cleanse my palate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54uG7VoLvWQ

Just sent my ballot off. Had to make some very difficult cuts!

these guys were truly an astonishing band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeW2dEm6dos

haha, ty for the Ween, PP

okay once again I am just now discovering the name of a song I've loved for years ("What Is and What Should Never Be")

The songlist is also missing my number 2: The Girl I Love (She Got Long Black Wavy Hair), from the BBC Sessions.

I dunno if "swing" is exactly the right term for what "Custard Pie" does, but I love that rhythm. & it does lewd way better than "The Lemon Song" because it's unabashedly aggressive.

I'm sending response emails to everybody as ballots come in, so if you vote and don't get a response, mention it on this thread so I make sure your vote gets counted.

Exceptions -- a couple of ballots that came via ILXmail and I mentioned in this thread that they arrived.

SongOfSam -- sorry about the omission. Dang...

I'd vote in this, but it would just be "Since I've Been Loving You" 20 times.

thanking this thread for getting me back into LZ after Q104.3's "get the led out" programming blocks (which seem to play the same five songs every hour or two) tested me mightily

In Toronto, after years and years of Led Zeppelin being the most overplayed band on Q-107, they got replaced by Pink Floyd somewhere along the way. For me, that's trading way, way down--but a good thing, ultimately, if you love LZ.

okay once again I am just now discovering the name of a song I've loved for years ("What Is and What Should Never Be")

This placed VERY high on my ballot. Between the amazing JPJ bass playing and Page's stereo-panned guitars at the end, it's always been one of my favorite tracks.

lol add to my evergrowing "oh THAT'S the name of that song": "Heartbreaker"

my classic rock station growing up really had a thing for II apparently

There's just no hating on these guys, is there? The worst you can really say is that they're overplayed, which isn't their fault. Hell, they barely even released any singles! And Page/Plant/Jones have aged into elder statesmen of rock better than many of their peers, and proven themselves to be team players again and again. I mean, are there any stories of these guys (post-LZ, at least) being jerks? (Jerks to one another doesn't count, though even then the surviving three have been more or less cordial, Page/Plant album/tour aside).

My breakdown:

I - 3 songs
II - 5 songs
III - 2 songs
IV - 4 songs
Houses - 1 song
Graffiti - 2 songs
Presence - 0 songs
In Through the Out Door - 0 songs
Coda/B-sides - 3 songs

I guess I prefer the early stuff to the later albums.

x-post I've noticed lately the classic rock station(s) have stopped playing "Heartbreaker"/"Living Loving Maid" as a pair.

lol I was just about to bring that up

I think there was a window after punk and their break-up, but before the Beastie Boys sampled them on Licensed to Ill, when they were much less revered than they are now. They weren't hated, but they hadn't yet been gone long enough for them not to be lumped in with other oversized bands from the '70s. Pretty sure, from memory, this is true. It was like the Beastie Boys (and Rick Rubin, and Schooly-D, Stairway to Hell, and, um, the Cult) helped to remind people how awesome they were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu3FuEiopJ0

All their albums got to number one apart from the first and their last: "Coda"...

the idea of actually spending the good studio dollar to explore whether one approach is working (or whether one [on the clock, paid] producer is working, or whether one physical space is working, etc): that's a dream from the past. unless you're utterly massive, your single venture into the studio to make the album is going to produce the definitive & for-the-record version of the song for better or worse; nobody has the scratch to do multiple tries in multiple studios, but there are plenty of stories from the legendary acts of trying a song over & over to try to get to the heart of it.

^^^this is so OTM and it bums me out. the idea now is that you can do everything on your own! with proTools! I guess, because analog/studio spaces don't matter anymore right lol

I think there was a window after punk and their break-up, but before the Beastie Boys sampled them on Licensed to Ill, when they were much less revered than they are now.

uh, this was a really formative/crucial time for metal, involving many bands that (properly) revered Zepellin as gods

NWOBHM, Halen/hair metal, etc