Can we talk about why Presence by Led Zeppelin is the best album ever made when you're actually listening to it, but it's easy to forget about when you aren't listening to it?

Anyone heard the new presence out takes "10 ribs and all?"

lol @ some corny Pitchfuxor giving Presence a 7.6 (and ranking ITTOD higher?!) -- it's better than 90% of the records on Best New Music

I guess 10 ribs will be available on Friday. Intrigued by the description of it as yacht rock and happy that's it's about 5 minutes long.

this album + headphones + weed could prevent (or at least postpone) a suicide

yes and the new pod song is great even if it's a pastiche

The opening chords sound like a sequence in the first track on the new Jim O'Rourke (who was just quoted praising Presence).

Anyone heard these remasters? Worth replacing my old LP copies (and 90s era CDs) for?

I have this semi-regular argument with my wife about how the 90s were the worst decade for mainstream rock, but listening to Presence again, so much of it sounds like a blueprint, it almost makes me want to reevaluate a lotta that bullshit: the obvious Stone Temple Pilots theft of the "For Your Life" riff, the double bass intensity on "Achilles Last Stand" that people think Metallica invented on "One," the "la la la" parts of "Hots On For No One" that invents Jane's Addiction, etc. I reckon any decade that could draw so much influence from this fucked up and amazing album can't be so bad.

I've mentioned before that "Achilles Last Stand" pretty much renders the Mars Volta's entire discography redundant.

the double bass intensity on "Achilles Last Stand"

That's a single bass drum. Bonham only played a double-bass setup once, on a demo of "Communication Breakdown" that was never released. Accounts vary, but supposedly either JPJ or Page felt that Bonham on a double-bass kit overwhelmed the rest of the band.

That's insane.

I guess, then, you could say "double bass-like intensity!"

My favorite moment on this record has always been the breakdown in "For Your Life" – the spectacularly overdubbed descending Page riff, Bonham's empty but relentlessly steady beat, Plant singing, "Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it when you wanna..." It's such a brilliant reminder of everything that made Zeppelin great.

That's insane.

I guess, then, you could say "double bass-like intensity!"

― Wimmels, Wednesday, 5 August 2015 15:26 (4 days ago) Permalink

Bonham had a notoriously fast right foot, however the kick hits on Achilles aren't really that rapid most of the time, it's sort of an aural illusion created by the interplay between the drums and JPJ's percussive bass part.

However "One" is an interesting touchstone to bring up, because the "DARKNESS/IMPRISONING ME" section definitely echoes the breakdown in Achilles.

Yeah, that's the part I was thinking of. It really didn't even strike me until recently.

Most insane drumming Bonham ever did: "Good Times Bad Times," especially during the "I sure do wish I was at home" part. Those bass drums you here are all his right foot!! I tried to play it myself, oh Lord how I tried.

Praising Bonham's drumming on tunes like "Good Times Bad Times" is kind of like that old SNL skit about Larry King's USA Today column where he spouts controversial observations like, "John McEnroe was a very good tennis player."

This is probably kind of a weedy thing to say, but it just occurred to me that Achilles Last Stand really is, like, their last stand. They just never go that hard again either for the rest of the record or on ITTOD.

Most insane drumming Bonham ever did: "Good Times Bad Times," especially during the "I sure do wish I was at home" part. Those bass drums you here are all his right foot!! I tried to play it myself, oh Lord how I tried.

― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, August 9, 2015 11:24 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It is great, but I think there is plenty of competition for that. The one that always gets me is the breakdown in In My Time of Dying.

Yeah, that's the part I was thinking of. It really didn't even strike me until recently.

― Wimmels, Sunday, August 9, 2015 9:34 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

On that part it's actually just heavy snare hits combined with bass, the kick is only hitting a few times.

The triplet lick on For Your Life reminds me of Woody Woodpecker

ok this is the day I finally come to see Presence as a masterpiece. by all measures Page was smacked out during the making of it, but it concentrated the little attention he could manage, and so the result is intricate & alien. it's like the album art, with the odd black totem in otherwise normal settings. you could call Presence meat & potatoes rock, but you'd be ignoring its inhuman focus. in that way it's well paired with another masterpiece of 1976, Station To Station. you could call those albums anti-psychedelic, in that cocaine and heroin promote no journeys to the center of the mind, but in products of an artificial self-mastery they are psychedelic in their own way.

I like that take.

this is the realest math rock, both in that the rhythms are algebraic, and in that everything must be decoded.

Also, black magic.

a second name for the album could be, After Evil.

Euler did you read M4rc3ll0's excellent piece on Presence, linked up-thread? He too makes the connection with Station to Station.

I just did! I hadn't seen it before I thought of the Station to Station connection, but I'm gratified to read his nicely-worked out version as well.

Station to Station is a good comparison, there's also something about this record that is very spare and harsh, being the only Zep record that is all electric rock band;there's acoustic songs (or at least elements) on all the other records.

Also, black magic.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, May 10, 2019 8:33 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read this initially as bleak magic, which I think you could also use to describe this record.

I have such a skewed view of this album cuz the first LZ I heard (aside from songs on classic radio) was a tape with IV and Presence on the flip side, so to me this just always been one of LZ's best records

There's acoustic guitar (albeit of the Rockabilly style) on "Candy Store Rock".

Oh yeah, duh...well aside from that

I guess I was thinking more that there was no English pastoral folk or blues moments...wait, there aren't any keyboards on this record are there? I can't think of any

'Achilles Last Stand' and 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' are stone cold classics, and I listen to both plenty out of the context of the album, but at the same time I don't see why I would need to listen to this album front-to-back when Rainbow's Rising not only exists, but takes a great big yellow piss over everything else on this album that isn't those two songs.

that comparison makes no sense but ok

Booming revive by Euler

I love "Rising" by Rainbow. I also love "Presence" by Led Zep. I've never really considered these two records all that similar. Other than Page & Dio both had penchant for wizard-y appliques on their jeans

They're both hard rock records that were released in 1976.

Single word titles

Not to mention that the Rising era line-up of Rainbow were as musically potent as the members of Zeppelin, both individually and collectively.

Great headphone album. Insane.

I love "Tea for One" and "Hots On for Nowhere," especially the drums on the latter.

Booming revive by Euler

― flappy bird, Friday, May 10, 2019 12:48 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

listening to "presence" this morning i decided to listen differently than i normally do, which is to say i listened closely and carefully. like so many records that are important to me, this was a car record all the way, i.e. it was a cassette. and every few years, for weeks at a time, the album would begin when the car turned on and end when the trip was over. on longer drives it would repeat itself multiple times, but even then i never got a strong feeling that the record had a firm beginning or end. i stepped into the river, bathed in the river, knew the river by heart, but didn't have much of an idea where it came from or where it went. i definitely couldn't talk about the song titles, i could barely understand what robert plant was saying (still can't), and i knew that the cover art was white with some people on it but that's about it. so in that sense the thread title definitely made sense to me.

anyway, i put on my headphones this morning and was struck by a number of things that i'd like to share here.

achilles last stand is a song that for some reason i want to speak about in spatial terms: it is, among other things, immense. furthermore, it has a coldness, an austere quality, and a kind of classicist symmetry; despite its many flourishes the song doesn't meander, really. in fact, its focus over such a great length is part of its intensity, its power. in a sense the song, like the record, is a bit like, say, the parthenon: something to marvel at but not a place i want to live inside. lz ii is a record i can live inside, a world i can wonder around in. presence is a marble temple that inspires awe but does not exude warmth. intricate, alien, and inhuman indeed, Euler otm.

And there is no need for "Nobody's Fault But Mine" to have TWO guitar solos.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Saturday, February 4, 2006 3:01 PM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry person from thirteen years ago, but it's actually a harmonica solo and then later a guitar solo, and they both fucking rule. the harmonica is played with a kind of mannered primitivity, and yet the way in which it incessantly churns the same simple blues figures again and again, barely more than a few notes, but so incessant and propulsive, it becomes almost manic: circular breathing turned hyperventilation. the guitar solo serves as exposition and recapitulation, through stilted, jittery echoes of a blues that has been deconstructed, flipped upside down, and reverse engineered through a thousand coke come-downs, resulting in what sounds like sputtering, buffering: a robot's failed attempt at b.b. king, and yet still so crisp.

the only thing i can understand robert plant say are "nobody's fault but mine" and "ding dong ding dong" so i dunno what's going on thematically here, but did read the thread and the blog link and found the stories interesting.

the congas that suddenly start in royal orleans in the verse begninning "down on bourbon street" are just so sick; the fact that they come in for barely 15 seconds and then disappear makes me crave them even more every time the song comes on.

candy store rock is a genre exercise, sure, but it's much more than that. here robert plant must be admired for his remarkable sense of harmony: listen to the chord implied by his melismatic "oo" on the word "before" (and i think "jaw" ? and "head") !! just this small moment that implies a completely different harmonic direction for the piece, or that's how i hear it anyway. and then that creepy coda really seals the deal.

hots on for nowhere: what the fuck is going on here ? is this the best song ever or is it just filler bullshit ? so it's enigmatic at the very least, a bit like a face that can alternately appear, according to lighting or circumstance, ugly or beautiful, although in the end my revulsion is sublimated into a kind of polyrhythmic desire; it's the focus and intensity of the drums, fills especially, that ultimately make me want to stick with this track.

speaking of desire: there is music that, in my experience, will and will not love you back. i don't know if i love presence (although i admire and, sometimes, desire it) but i do know that presence does not love me. presence is too involved in its own hang ups, its own brilliant and intricate inner-workings, it is too desperately focused on holding its fragile and deeply beautiful appendages together, to really allow space for the listener to be present in any way except as spectator.

when it ends i feel stunned and a bit lonely tbh.

Hell yes to this post, agreed on many points

"Hots On For Nowhere" is a weird fucking song

This, Station to Station and Animals form some kind triptych of 70s anomie/awesomeness.

"Hots On For Nowhere" is a weird fucking song

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, May 10, 2019

Glorious.

I remember an interview w/Plat from around the time of the reunion where he brought up playing the album for his current girlfriend, after which she told him "[she] didn't want to be left alone with...this music."

Plat=Plant, obvs.

I love "Tea for One" and "Hots On for Nowhere," especially the drums on the latter.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 10, 2019 12:18 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

“tea for one” sometimes my favorite zep song

thank you budo jeru for your post, rich with insight.

when I called the album inhuman & alien & algebraic earlier, I meant that the music is rushing with expression, saying many things, and yet it’s inscrutable until “Tea For One”, whose perfect polycarbonate blues reveals profound human longing. Is that what the rest is expressing? Longing has plasticity, filtered through the drugs, the exhaustion, eight years gone. Or instead simply reaching through that, to try to express something new.

budo jeru and euler can see into the center of this record, great posts