#75: Led Zeppelin II- Led Zeppelin

Listened to: MP3

There are albums to put on while your driving. There are albums to put on when you’re trying to get to sleep. There are albums to put on while your writing. And then there are albums to put on when you’re getting it on. Led Zeppelin II is the last of these. Robert Plant’s voice always possessed an erotic nature, and it’s no better showcased than on the first half of this album.
“Whole Lotta Love” sounds like he was fucking in the studio, for god’s sake. “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love” along with that sliding guitar right after is all you need to know what the boys in the band want you doing. Fresh off their debut groundbreaker, Zep gets even more sophisticated on this one, Bonham’s drumming begins to move into that masterful symphonic style he displayed fuller on albums like Presence and Coda, and Page’s guitar playing is truly in a league of it’s own on this album. Even that accapela “Way down inside” seems to drip with sex. And Whole Lotta Love” ain’t the only track. “What Is And What Should Never Be” (a very special song in my life for reasons I’ll not discuss) alternates between ballad (or the closest Zeppelin comes to a ballad) and heavy rock jam. It basically sets the rhythm for the bedroom (or basement, or car, or office). “The Lemon Song” has a guitar sound that I absolutely love, and really reminds us all of Zep’s roots, the blues. Listen to that guitar solo, or that galloping drum beat, and you can’t deny Zeppelin is one of the greatest bands of all time (though I still think The Rolling Stones are the greatest, and my favorite will always be The Who). “I wanna squeeze you, baby, until the juice runs down my leg”? Come on. Pure sex right there.

But after thee tracks of hardcore fucking, isn’t it time for some sentimentality? The boys of Zeppelin thought so, which brings us to the beautiful “Thank You”. It takes the traditional 60’s love song, and brings it to a place where Zeppelin can still remain the badass mystical guys they are. “Thank You” is up there on my list of Best Love Songs (a list you’ll see on Sunday.

I remember I had an audition for a band (I got the gig and was fired shortly after) in 10th grade, and I had to sing “Heartbreaker”. I stood outside a Waldbaums for 3 hours at a Boy Scout fund raiser listening to it on repeat. Truly a powerhouse track, and a great way to open side B (I’d imagine. I don’t actually have this record). The only thing I dislike is that he ruins the rhyme scheme towards the end and just yells “Go away heartbreaker”. That just never sat right with me.

“Living, Loving Maid” to me sounds more like a post-Bon Scott AC/DC track than Zeppelin, and I’ll be damned if I could tell you why. “Ramble On” might be one of the best, and geekiest, tracks on the album. It’s about Lord Of The Rings. If I tried to write about Lord Of The Rings, I’d get my ass kicked, but Zep pulled it off. This track is heavy, intense, and true, bloody rock and roll.
“Moby Dick” doesn’t even need vocals. That riff is heavy and powerful enough to sustain the whole song, and Jimmy Page gives another Jimi (Hendrix) a run for his money with the solos on this track. Also, if anyone was wondering why Zeppelin couldn’t go on without John Bonham, look no further than this track.

The album ends on “Bring It On Home”, a terrifyingly reverb-ed track with a haunting harmonica, the bluesiest track on the album, though not one of the strongest in my opinion. I would have rather they ended on “Moby Dick”, but who am I to question masters, right? The song does pick up into classic heavy Zeppelin, after all. Still, it’s standard Zep fare.

All in all, Led Zeppelin II proves Zeppelin is one of the few bands to avoid the sophomore slump. If anything, II might actually surpass I musically. I won’t go so far as to determine that, but I will say that both these albums are essential listening for anyone who wants to truly live. Yeah, that’s not too bold a statement.

-Mike

Tomorrow, swing by for # 45: The Band by…The…The Band.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, a man whom I forgot to ask to do a bio, so he’ll remain an enigma (until next time he guests, when I’ll correct my error), Tom Lorenzo.

I’m not gonna come off as some big music auteur and I’m not gonna try to tell
you if you don’t agree with me you’re a raging dickhead. I’m not as musically inclined as my man Mickey. So, with that out of the way, lets get this shit started.

Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite bands of all time. I was a late bloomer when it
came to music. I used to just listen to songs I liked from movies and tv shows and whatnot. But senior year I started to expand. But freshman year of college is when I discovered Zeppelin on an all Zeppelin channel on XM Radio. Ever since then, I’ve been a different man musically. Now, on to the album at hand, “Led Zeppelin II”.

I just wanna say I love the album and the album cover. Basically superimposing
their faces on to the photos of the red baron and company from WWI is awesome. This entire album is basically Zeppelin throwing down the gauntlet. This was around the time The Beatles were in disarray. So Zeppelin came out and said fuck all that music about peace and shit. If “Led Zeppelin” was them making an album fusing blues and hard rock, “Led Zeppelin II” is them going even further outside the norms of rock and roll.

These guys mixed blues with rock and created something new. At the time, critics hated them. But now, we can let classics like “Whole Lotta Love” wash over us. Jimmy Page owns this song and “Heartbreaker” with his guitar solos from hell. Often the unsung hero in bands, John Paul Jones lets the bass loose, particularly on “Ramble On”, which is a song about “Lord of The Rings”. John Bonham, one of the best drummers of all time, just absolutely makes other drummers look like lily licking cocksuckers with “Moby Dick”. Then we got Robert Plant, further cementing himself as one of the best vocalists of all time. He also brings his writing talents to the table. “What Is and What Should Never Be”, about fucking his wifes younger sister. He also heavily contributed to “Ramble On” with his love of Tolkien. He also wrote possibly my favorite song on the album, “Thank You”. Seriously, I have two ideal picks for a wedding song. “Thank You” and “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica.

Now, not everything is a classic. I think the weakest song on here is “The Lemon
Song”. It’s still good, all the guys on their game but it just doesn’t do it for me. While “Living Loving Maid” is an underrated song in my opinion, it still is one of the weaker tracks on here. And “Bring It On Home” is one of the weaker tracks on here, because I feel like it was a track left off of the last album. Also because naysayers of Zeppelin say that they ripped this song off from Sonny Boy Williamson and it’s just annoying to hear.

This album is a classic. It’s Led Zeppelin doing what they do best and absolutely
tear it apart. This came out the same year as “Led Zeppelin” and they showed a
tremendous growth between the two. There are some absolute classics here and even the weaker songs are better than most bands on their best day. I’ll also say the emergence of Zeppelin is a great moment in music history and gave people a different sound than The Beatles. Zeppelin is rock and roll. I mean, a little red snapper anyone?

#241: Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath

Nick Young:

Listened to: MP3

The Beatles were Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne’s first musical addiction- he said so himself in a NY Rock interview conducted in 2002. It’s difficult at first to trace their influence at first on the Sabbath’s 1970 debut, but if you’re not hearing it by the album’s second track, the monstrous, Zeppelin-in-Hell Tolkien rocker, “The Wizard,” then clearly you’re not paying attention. These guys took the blues and explored them in the darkest way possible, but nowhere during the span of the album’s forty minute runtime did I believe that they weren’t having fun doing so. Just as Led Zeppelin did, Black Sabbath conveyed the idea that they were giants living amongst us. As the massive footsteps of The Beatles could no longer be heard circling the world, the torch was passed to a new breed of larger-than-life musical juggernauts. Call them Satanists, call them masters of reality, what they will truly be remembered for is being the band that essentially created heavy metal music and brought it to the masses.

The first instrument to be heard on Black Sabbath’s debut LP is a funeral bell toll. How incredibly badass is that? “Black Sabbath” divulges the ghoulish story of a frightened man being swallowed whole by Beelzebub. The last lyrics before the unholy annihilation are “No, no, please, No!” In this case, no means yes. We want to be overtaken; otherwise we’ll never be able to embrace the satanic swagger of “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “N.I.B”.

My personal favorite is the über-heavy witch repellent anthem “Evil Woman.” Having just dealt with a particularly evil woman myself, one who probably wishes I was dead, I can see where Ozzy was coming from. This really is a wicked world that we live in, but albums like "Black Sabbath" help make it all the more enjoyable.

-Nick
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Mike Natale:

Listened to: MP3

Go into your room, turn off the lights, and put on Black Sabbath’s debut album. 6 minutes in, and 50% of you will have already crapped yourselves. I’m serious. Iron Man and Paranoid may be the more popular Sabbath tracks, but when Ozzy yells “Oh no!” 2 minutes and 16 seconds into Black Sabbath, that is still the most terrifying thing in the fucking world.

I remember buying this on CD in a Waldbaums (which for our non-LI readers is like Stop & Shop but for some reason less uncomfortable) for $6.99. I remember having my mind blown. I remember this CD get stuck in the CD player in my high school’s weight room. I remember trying to use a 10lb weight to smash the CD player, which doubled as a radio which was playing the hippity-hop all the other lifters were enjoying, to get back Sabbath’s debut album. I remember learning that if you dare to tamper with the music while certain people are in the middle of deep squats on a smith-machine (which, big fucking deal, it’s a smith-machine. If I throw off your concentration, you just hang the fucking bar up. Oooooh, how dangerous) you will get your ass kicked. I remember being more upset that I had lost my CD copy of Sabbath’s debut than I was that my lip was so swollen I sounded like Jabba The Hutt. But enough of the personal anecdote (as Nick clicks the link to figure out what-in-the-fuck a smith-machine is), let’s get to the review.

In 1960, Kennedy said we stood on the edge of a new Frontier. Ten years and one half-hour long “horror rock” album later, and we were once again on that edge, this time musically. 40 years after its release, and this is still one of the heaviest, coolest, and most badass albums ever. All those yelping, howling tools in bands with names like “I Bleed Black” or “Darkness On The Edge Of The City” or “If We Pick A Really Dark Name And Growl, Girls With Low Self-Esteem Will Show Us Their Pierced Nipples ain’t got shit on Sabbath. First off, let’s set aside the ultimately terrifying opening track, simply because if I listen to it one more time I won’t get to sleep tonight.

“The Wizard”, not only one of the heaviest, most kickass metal songs ever, as well as being one of the first, but I’d go so far as to say (and I’d have to check with James to verify) the only heavy metal track to use a harmonica. Listen to that heavy-ass bass, that growling guitar (which, fun fact, has that heavy sound because Tony Iommi lost his finger tips and had to tune down his guitar as to not hurt his fingers.

Then we move on to “Wasp/ Behind the Wall of Sleep/ Bassically/ N.I.B.”, a mini-opera of sorts, where the true musicality of Sabbath comes across. Some times in all the darkness and theatricality, you forget how truly talented these men were. Every riff is catchy (Even though it does leave me wanting to listen to Iron Man) and every yelp of Ozzy’s has the conviction most singers can only hope to bring to their music.

So then we get to the 14 minute long “Wicked World”. The first minute is like a creepier Doors track, before it bursts into something so Zeppelin-esque you lean in to see if you hear Robert Plant’s voice in the background. Just when you think that, of course, we cut back in to vintage Sabbath, which, I guess, wasn’t vintage at the time, so…fuck, I had a late night last night. Remember, if you want cohesive, objective analysis, that’s why Nick’s here. All I can say is listen through to when the music dies down, and suddenly goes into a solo and bass riff that belongs on a darker Dark Side Of The Moon. (Hmmm, a heavy metal take on Dark Side Of The Moon called “A Darker Side Of The Moon”…see you guys later, A Call For Conquest and I are off to go make some money).

By time we get to the last track, with the cymbal beat like “Last Nite” by the Strokes (Not so fucking original now, are you, you snide little bastards) the average listener will already be enthralled. If your not, well, what does bring you joy, huh? Why do you have to be so difficult to please? Seriously, if you’re not enjoying Sabbath, we’re gonna have a tough time when we get to Joy Division.

All in all, this might be one of the more solid debut albums I’ve heard, and I regret not grouping it in with The Doors, Grace, and Appetite For Destruction when I did my Zeppelin review. Anyone who likes anything remotely considered heavy metal, which is anyone but die-hard Jimmy Buffet/James Taylor fans, I guess, ought to listen to this album. Even if Sabbath had hit their peak here and never produced the masterful Paranoid, they’d still be one of the greatest bands of all time. And think, it all happened because their guitarist lost his fingertips…hm…if I can get my guitarist close enough to a wood chipper…
-Mike
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Tomorrow is Tommy. Yeah, The Who’s Tommy. Speaks for itself, but let’s add some more speaking for shits and giggles.

#29: Led Zeppelin- Led Zeppelin

Nick Young:

Listened to: CD

It’s hard to do a better job summing up the appeal of Led Zeppelin’s torpedo of a debut album than visionary rock journalist Greg Kot did in a 2001 recap for Rolling Stone. “The cover of “Led Zeppelin,” the British quartet’s seismic 1969 debut,” the author of “Ripped” wrote with the kind of shameless adolescent enthusiasm that used to make Rolling Stone great, “…shows the Hindenburg airship, in all its phallic glory, going down in flames. The image did a pretty good job of encapsulating the music inside: sex, catastrophe and things blowing up.” Basically, what Kot was trying to say was that the best way to explain the appeal of “Led Zeppelin’s” libidinous fury was to accept that their music was formed around the image of a massive exploding dick. If you’re willing to embrace them in all of their unapologetically sensual glory, then you’re going to have the time of your life listening to this album.

I’ll admit it.. I still love Led Zeppelin. That’s not going to change until the day I die. I still enjoy feeling the pulse-quickening opening note rush of time bomb one-two punch album lead-off “Good Times Bad Times.” The lyric, “In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man,” accompanied by a pulverizing guitar riff from Jimmy Page, sounds like the secret of manhood (if that makes any sense). During the chorus Robert Plant openly discloses, “Good times, bad times you know I’ve had my share / well my woman left home for a brown eyed man and I still don’t seem to care,” with a heart as cold as an assassin’s ( and this was way before Big Pimpin’)..

When Plant screeches that he knows what it means to be alone, I believe him. I believe him the way I believe Otis Redding when he howls “That’s how strong my love is,” on his rendition of a song that goes by that very name. Here Plant is more detached than Redding , but then again he has to be. Redding in his song is trying to sell his lover the idea that he really will be the moon when the sun goes down, but Plant is just a guy with a hard-on and no where to put it. Jump ahead a couple decades to listen to the Moldy Peaches’ “Steak for Chicken” and you get an idea of his pain. “Who am I going to stick my dick in,” indeed..

It’s the impassioned longings that truly make this album feel grandiose. On every track of their debut album Led Zeppelin seems to possess supernatural secrets we can only hope to understand. Immediately following “Good Times Bad Times” is the Ennio Morricone-esque epic ballad “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You.” I think the only reason Quentin Tarantino hasn’t used this in a movie yet is because it’s too obvious (and maybe a little too perfect). It’s that untouchable lengthy masterwork that you can’t stick in a movie because it’s already cinematic enough by itself. With the exception of “Communications Breakdown,” which unfortunately is used quite a lot in today’s movies, most Led Zeppelin songs provide you with such vivid visuals already that they can stand alone as great individual works of art (case and point: stairway to heaven; purple rain before there was purple rain). In addition to being one of the most licentious rock bands of all time this side of Montreal, they were also the most mythically obsessed (each member adopted their own symbols for Christ sakes).

On “Dazed and Confused,” Plant oozed woeful sexuality with impassioned lyrics when he moaned, “Wanted a woman never bargained for you,” essentially mapping his own wet nightmare for us to get lost in. It’s the most sludge-soaked, LCD-laced song on the album, which is why it’s a relief when we’re pulled from the darkness by the uplifting finger-picked gospel anthem “Your Time Is Gonna Come”. The dichotomy between light and darkness on “Led Zeppelin” is absolutely perfect. For every steamy, smutty orgy like “You Shook Me” there is an enlightening, mystical counterpoint like “Black Mountainside.” Sometimes they even happen at once, bringing a sense of lucid confusion that recalls the ecstatic ramblings of Timothy “Speed” Levitch.When I’m listening to “Led Zeppelin,” I’m in constant Heaven. If that doesn't guarantee a sure entry into the 500 greatest albums of all time list then I don’t know what will.

-Nick
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Mike Natale:

Listened to: CD

Like a brilliant phoenix rising from the ashes of the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin’s debut album rips through every track like a malevolent hell beast. Next to, in my opinion, The Doors, Grace, and Appetite For Destruction, Led Zeppelin is the greatest debut album of all time. Every song on this album is an absolute classic, and like all great geniuses, it was panned by critics. Who can forget that great line in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous when Jason Lee describes Rolling Stone as the magazine that hated every Led Zeppelin album?

But Rolling Stone slightly made-up for being anti-Zeppelin by ranking the debut album at #29 on their list, and it’s obvious why it ranks so highly. Opening on Good Times, Bad Times, an instant classic, Page seemed to admit the band didn’t fit with any music out there today, by playing the solo through a Leslie Speaker, which is meant for an organ. Normally, any other band would go from a hard-rocking track like Good Times, Bad Times to even heavier fair, but Robert Plant drops us into a mystic vibe on Anne Bredon’s Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You, which by the end packs as much force as Good Times. This is the first time anyone got to hear those real, true Robert Plant vocal wails on record, wailings who have influenced everyone from Freddie Mercury to Axl Rose to Jeff Buckley. Fun little anecdote, towards the end of my relationship with one of my exes, she made me a mix CD, and this was one of the tracks. And yet I still didn’t know she was cheating on me. But moving on.

Track three brings us to the apparently inescapable Muddy Waters/Willie Dixon duo, with the powerful You Shook Me. I have to admit, the first version I ever heard of this song was by Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes off of Live At The Greek, which was almost like hearing it performed by Jimmy and a love child of Mick Jagger and Robert Plant. I’d hate to infer that this is a weak track, because it isn’t at all, but it is one of the weaker tracks on the album, which oughta say something about the sheer greatness of this album as a whole. But You Shook Me does slide seamlessly into one of the album’s finest tracks, Dazed And Confused. Originally by Jake Holmes, there is not a person alive who doesn’t think of the Led Zeppelin version, without it’s psychedelic beginning. Mystical vibe, mind-blowing bass line, and tear-yer-ass-up breakdown and solo. Dazed And Confused must have been one of those tracks that first time listeners heard and thought “What the fuck just happened?”. I often wish I was luck enough to have that same experience.

Flip over to side two of the album, and you get one of my favorite tracks, the often underrated Your Time Is Gonna Come. With the organ, the uplifting, heaven-ward, optimistic, almost hippie sound, side two begins with an almost throwback track, or it would be a throwback if that style of music weren’t what was going on right then. With the beginning of side two, Led Zeppelin fulfills my criteria for a classic album. It must show where we were/are, and where we’re going to be. Tracks like Your Time Is Gonna Come and the follow-up Black Mountain Side could have been heavier Beatles tracks, and is Plant and Page saying “Ok, so this is how it was. Now get ready for how it’s gonna be.” and with that they burst into Communications Breakdown, a track unlike anything before, and still a little bit unlike anything since. The powerhouse, punk-rock, wail, whine, and wild-riffing track is like a breath of fresh air, the kind that knocks you on your ass and leaves you with the most satisfying headache ever. To imagine somebody going from Black Mountain Side to Communications Breakdown reminds me of that scene in Back To The Future, you know the one, where Marty goes into Johnny B. Goode at the dance, and looks out and says “Well, your kids will love it”. And I’d imagine Plant thought the same thing after playing that track the first few times live. And he was right.

I Can’t Quit You Baby is one of those Zeppelin tracks that really shows how Page/Plant dynamic is very much like the Richards/Jagger one, in that the guitarist is the real gifted musician in the band, but the singer makes it unique. This track would’ve just been a blues throw-away with some bithcing solos, but Plant’s vocal yawps make it an absolute classic in it’s own right.

Notice how I’ve declared every track a classic thus far? Well, the final track, How Mnay More Times is no different. If you think that this makes Zeppelin overrated, then what the fuck do you listen to? Take your obscure indie rock and shove it up your ass, because this, man, is the music the forces of nature intended us to make. Listen to the drums, the guitar solo, every inch of How Many More Times is oozing with sex, brutality, and brilliance.

So, in conclusion, I’m sure anyone reading this has listened to this album, but if you haven’t, stop reading, right now, James won’t mind, and go buy, listen to, and love Led Zeppelin. Seriously, fucking do it now.
　
　
　
What the hell are you still reading for? Go get Zeppelin!
　
　
Fine, be that dick. Your loss.
　

-Mike
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Every once and a while on this blog, Nick and I will invite guests to post some pieces where we feel there is a need for further insight. While Nick and I know a fair amount about most genres, I at least speak for myself when I say I know shit about shit whe it comes to the “metal” scene today, nor am I a fan, as if you couldn’t tell from my intro to Marquee Moon on Sunday. So, I called in my resident metal expert, James Kleisler, who is also the bassist in my band (which mystifies me, since the only thing metal about our band are the material the instruments are made of). I enlisted him to come and give an idea of how Led Zeppelin (the album) had an impact on what has become metal today. Take it away, James:

James Kleisler:

Led Zeppelin has to be one of the most influential bands out there, aiding in the birth of metal. From their blues riffs to their kick ass 8 minute drum solos ,there is not one metal band out there today that you cannot find any characteristics of Zeppelin in there, whether it’s from the guitar solos or even just the drumming patterns or their style of playing. At the time they were considered heavy metal for their powerful vocals, heavy blues riffs , crushing guitar, bass, and drum solos. They were honestly ahead of their time. I feel that metal would not be what it is today if we didn’t have Led Zeppelin pave the route for us.

Guest Info:　

James Kleisler is attending R.E.I. for music producing and sound engineering , and is the bass play for the rock band WOTEF and also for the death core band A CALL FOR CONQUEST (who have just released their long awaited EP named DESOLATE). Both bands can be viewed on Myspace and Facebook. Also, Wotef will be broadcasted over the radio this Sunday on 94.3 and will be playing there CD release show on Saturday at Massapequa lanes at 10:30pm so be sure to come out and see them.

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Well, everybody, thanks for reading. See you tomorrow for #339: The Heart Of Saturday Night by Tom Waits.