ILM GONNA CRAWL — Led Zeppelin poll RESULTS THREAD

those first 2 albums are pretty diverse records that resist pigeonholing, if not as much as some of the later ones

I hate II - it's just so full-on, you know? It's like hearing a modern record that's been too heavily compressed.

yeah an album with "Thank You", "Ramble On", & "What Is & What Should Never Be" isn't a "heavy blooz" album. If anything, the band got less "poppy" after the first two albums. The "blooz" were always there.

Thank You apart, I feel bludgeoned by it

Let the meta begin!!

have been thinking about the job i worked in college where at least a couple nights a week i'd be in there w/ the classic rock station on late enough to here the Get The Led Out block, and that was when i really got into the LZ deep cuts and decided to get the box set and have all the albums (although i listened to the Zep set on another station in high school pretty consistently too). that was where i fell in love with "The Rain Song" and "Achilles," although i remember the beginning of "Ten Years Gone" always getting me hyped and thinking it was going somewhere and then the rest of the song never really felt like much of anything.

how can you hate led zep ii. mentalists!

First two are more clearly blues-rock, I guess, and then Zep goes art-rock and gets more interesting? Or I should say "interesting," because the first two are still good, and the things that make the later albums good - playing, production - are totally in place from note one.

My ballot was largely tossed off, and the order was atrocious. But pretty early on I decided that despite my love of synths, Mellotrons, hobbits and lollipops, I was going to vote for every HEAVY Zep song first -- and then the ballads acoustic things I liked. In high school I loved III and spent a lot of time with the second disc of Graffiti. But at the end of the day, those songs didn't feel like the reason Led Zeppelin became Led Zeppelin.

Zep I is awesome, but Zep II always feels like a sort of exhaustion of that initial burst of creativity. "Moby Dick" is the dead giveaway here, a horrible idea that suddenly made every big British rock band decide they needed their own 'drum solo' track (see: Rat Salad, The Mule)...my two favorite songs are the two that placed highest: What Is & Ramble On, and both have that sort of light-hearted, carefree, almost jazzy feel (maybe not so much on Ramble On) which became one of many facets of the band that set them apart from their heavy metal heirs...

Didn't Cream beat Zeppelin to the punch with a drum solo track, "Toad?" The fact that I can't hum the riff to "Toad," but can hum "Moby Dick," says it all.

Did "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" predate "Moby Dick"?

Yes, it was released in 1968. II was released in Oct 1969.

Would add that I spent the hurricane dancing to the second disc of Physical Graffiti with my daughters -- and if there's one song I should've voted for and that absolutely should've placed it's "Night Flight." Great "meet me in the mornin'" chorus -- and damn if the "WHOAH MAMA WELL I THINK IT'S TIME I'M LEAVIN'" break isn't some kind of epic motherfucking throwdown.

touche xxp

Would add that I spent the hurricane dancing to the second disc of Physical Graffiti with my daughters -- and if there's one song I should've voted for and that absolutely should've placed it's "Night Flight." Great "meet me in the mornin'" chorus -- and damn if the "WHOAH MAMA WELL I THINK IT'S TIME I'M LEAVIN'" break isn't some kind of epic motherfucking throwdown.

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, August 28, 2011 7:45 AM (43 minutes ago)

I mentioned on the other thread that "Night Flight" would not have sounded out of place on Every Picture Tells A Story.

Otm

everyone feeling bad for "Night Flight" is proof that LZ is so great that we can't countdown like well over half their catalog without their being one big glaring omission people all regret

I've also mentioned the Cleveland '77 show upthread -- tho I hadn't heard it in probably 20 years (same for Physical Graffiti prob.), for my money it is the best thing I've heard by them: loud, dirty, phased-out and strung out, with an almost desert island tracklisting. Why they haven't released it (assuming they haven't) I do not understand.

But oh my god that performance of "Nobody's Fault But Mine." I just completely forgot how fucking ENORMOUS his voice sounds on that song -- the "Got s monkey on my back/Got a MUH-MUH-MUH-MUH-MONKEY ON MUH BACK! BACK! BACK! BACK!" couplet is just so huge and intense. It gives me chills.

That song always sounded especially proto-GnR to me for some reason.

(And, yeah, I always thought "Rod Stewart" when I heard "Night Flight" too.)

I was on vacation while the results rolled out, but I just read through all 1771 posts and I want to say THANK YOU to WmC.
These polls are just a lot of fun.

I should add one other story about the Agora Ballroom show...

I went to college out in the Cleveland area, so I actually knew a woman who went to that show. By the time I got to know her, it was in the late 90s -- she had been a teenager when that show happened and was still smokin'. So, I asked her what the show was like.

Me: What was it like?
Her: The minute after I got there, somebody said, "Here, take this" and gave me some pill. I don't remember anything after that.

Didn't Cream beat Zeppelin to the punch with a drum solo track, "Toad?" The fact that I can't hum the riff to "Toad," but can hum "Moby Dick," says it all.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, August 28, 2011 9:05 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I dunno, I don't see "Moby Dick" working in Scorsese's Casino nearly as well.

(also, I can hum both. I prefer "Toad" for it's garageyness, but don't like either of the solos much)

Thanks for the tip re: Cleveland 77 show. Is the sound quality generally sort of fair to poor for that one. The only boots online I could find sound like audience recordings, pretty poor...any recs for particular titles featuring that show would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

The one I have isn't amazing quality, but it's def. from a soundboard. I'm sure it's the same one you've heard -- it's just been copied a million times. Def. worth digging into.

OK, NTI. Thanks

I was on vacation while the results rolled out, but I just read through all 1771 posts and I want to say THANK YOU to WmC.
These polls are just a lot of fun.

― ArchCarrier, Monday, August 29, 2011 2:16 PM (1 hour ago)

Thank you! They are a huge amt of fun, and all credit goes to the enthusiasm and participation of the voters.

I just read through all 1771 posts

I'm guessing you're okay with all those long "Moby Dick" drum solos?

Look for a boot called The Supreme Destroyers. Best version of that Cleveland show I've found.

Thanks, EZ!

I just read through all 1771 posts

Quite an effort there indeed.

>> Didn't Cream beat Zeppelin to the punch with a drum solo track, "Toad?" The fact that I can't hum the riff
>> to "Toad," but can hum "Moby Dick," says it all.
>>
>> ― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, August 28, 2011 9:05 AM (2 days ago)

> Did "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" predate "Moby Dick"?
>
> ― L.P. Hovercraft (WmC), Sunday, August 28, 2011 9:24 AM (2 days ago)

Irrelevent which of those came first, because the Beach Boys beat them all to the punch years before with "Denny's Drums" from 1964!

didn't get the chance to see the final results until today. good work everyone! glad to see "ten years gone" and "the rain song" so unexpectedly high (i think)

my ballot:

1. Achilles Last Stand
2. In My Time of Dying
3. I'm Gonna Crawl
4. Tea for One
5. In the Light
6. Trampled Under Foot
7. No Quarter
8. Ten Years Gone
9. In the Evening
10. The Rain Song
11. Nobody's Fault But Mine
12. Kashmir
13. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
14. When the Levee Breaks
15. Fool in the Rain
16. Dazed and Confused
17. Friends
18.The Ocean
19. Misty Mountain Hop
20. Carouselambra

i know "i'm gonna crawl" is majorly hated by some but that shit gets me emotional. sad it didn't make it. "tea for one" too.

Naive Teen Idol, where did you go to school, if you don't mind me asking? I went to Baldwin-Wallace from 1987-89 and again from 1992-95.

Oberlin from 93-96.

huh

did you happen to know a woman named Lun4 W0lf3 who transferred to Harvard circa 1994?

Don't think so...

just curious, we always wondered why a music major would leave Oberlin for Harvard

If I had to listen to Dyer Maker and Over The Hills back to back all day long, I would definitely get tired of Over The Hills first

that's cute but it's wrong

i was digging through a box of cassettes i acquired at some point but have mostly never listened to, and in there is a The Very Best of Led Zeppelin C-90, released by Commodore Record* in a pink case. this tracklist would make a decent 'get the led out' ballot:

Side A

Black Dog
Immigrant Song
Stairway To Heaven
Whole Lotta Love
Heartbreaker
Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)
All My Love
Down By The Seaside
Communication Breakdown
How Many More Times

Side B

D'yer Mak'er
Dancing Day**
Boggie With Stu***
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Since I've Been Loving You
Good Times Bad Times
Misty Mountain Hop
Thank You
Hot Dog
Rock And Roll

* note no plural
** again, note no plural
*** yes, "boggie"

Pretty interesting piece that's obviously very relevant to Led Zeppelin:

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/jay-z-and-alan-lomax/

Which doesn't excuse lifting songs almost whole without attribution, like the Jake Holmes example cited above, but Led Zeppelin's appropriations tended to be so brilliant, I'm usually "That's it?" when somebody cites a song's source.

yeah that's a cool link

Belated thanks to the person who pointed out the "Night Flight" Rod Stewart vibe. Changed my life forever.

Kinda glad I came to this poll late. I don't know if I could've whittled my choices down properly. Seeing Zep's best laid out like this, though, made me realize that they really are prolly one of my top ten favorites of all time.

everyone feeling bad for "Night Flight" is proof that LZ is so great that we can't countdown like well over half their catalog without their being one big glaring omission people all regret

For real. Reading through the results, I kept wondering, "Is 'Night Flight' popular enough to actually land this high up?". It is with me, for sure. What a fun, awesome song.

Yeaaaaaah! Night Flight=Giddily Swingin' RockAwsomeness

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/video/kashmir-live-l-6-26-77

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kcHA5veg0&feature=share

On this day: January 12, 1969 British rock band Led Zeppelin released their eponymous first album.