Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

Did I say Bob Langley? It was Bob Wellings - who is still alive! In fact he only 36 at the time of the interview! There's a little comment about Plant coming from Kidderminster, which might be entirely innocent but I can't help but think was a bit of regional jibe at these hairy West Midlands oiks. Plant's fairly well spoken anyway but I'm pretty sure Bonham was having to rein in his Midlands accent when faced with an interviewer who sounds like Prince Philip.

Ah

There was an article in The Guardian a week ago or so about a French bill aimed at combating accent-based discrimination and the tone was so baffled and amused that I couldn't help but wonder whether the author ever considered that it's no less pressing an issue in the UK (or so it seems to me, speaking as a foreign spy).

I would have thought more pressing but like several centuries too late.

But then that's the Guardian for you!

Ha, I only just got that "what's it like finally having money?" was a dig.

although tbf a lot of this was coming from the rock press; this clip almost makes me wonder if Zep got comparatively more respect from high-culture outlets.

why are these creeps not cancelled

The Power of Crowley

It was Ellen Sander from Life.

Wait, though, I thought cancelling wasn't a real thing.

well, you can't "callout" a credit card

If you’ve already seen a parrot singing Led Zeppelin today just keep on scrolling...pic.twitter.com/UjewCOflIx

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) January 18, 2021

sounds kind of like that David Lee Roth isolation tape

Percy the parrot cuts loose

"Free bird!"

ZOINKS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCJEhfVyCvw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDbRlHLpPw4

Bob Plant dusts off his Song Remains the Same dream sequence cosplay outfit

https://i.imgur.com/I98t3O2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rJ5sGTV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ZcAnKoC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XQrAian.jpg

Meeting with Lord Johnson, visiting dignitary from the land of the dwarves. There was much exposition and remembrance of past migrations among the shadows of yonder misty mountains

What the fuck? Why the fuck?

That might be the best thing in the world! There are clips of Johnson hanging out with Billy Joel, Dolly Parton, Sting, Mark Knopfler, Nick Mason ... I'm in!!!

Yes, he has a TV show on some channel over here where he just hangs out with famous people. For no apparent reason.

haha wow I need to see that

WE GONNA GO
WALKING THROUGH THE PARK EVERY DAY

Cool it Bob

so chilling. i always picture a foggy park.

🖼
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It's very paisley to me, a little A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Kashmired and Confused

I only recently listened to Anne Bredon's original 1959 recording of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" which she wrote, and was covered a year later by a folksinger named Janet Smith who altered the arrangement some. Then Joan Baez recorded it live in 1962 based on Smith's version, making it famous (and who erroneously thought it was a traditional folk song of unknown origin, which is how it was often miscredited for the next decade). Then the Association recorded it for their first single in 1965. Several other bands recorded it after that, including Quicksilver Messenger Service. You can definitely hear the evolution in each recording from the one before, but I'd barely recognize Bredon's take as even being the same song as Zep's if I only heard those two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9VpWAEk6aI

Is this the song In which little Robert Anthony desires to take the subject waking in the park everyday? I lose track

Yep.

That clip BTW is of the first two known versions of the song by Anne Bredon and Janet Smith. A band called The Plebs did a nice version of it too which perhaps sounds most like the Zeppelin version of the ones that predate it.

Quicksilver Messenger Service was also playing it live pretty early on, predating Led Zep.

This is the folk method, folks (which doesn't excuse not crediting authors).

I was framing of the chromatic drama last night and by chance today Dazed was played at the bar

“Oh yeah…oh god”

As it happens I spent quite a few foggy teenage mornings walking on Hampstead heath with the first two Zeps (on tape) but no babe ;-(

Coming here preemptively to say that while I respect that he struggled to come up with even 10 tracks he'd consider the worst of Led Zeppelin, Alfred including "No Quarter," "Your Time is Gonna Come," "Gallows Pole" and "Thank You" on his list is nuts.

haha

I love Zep III but a song about a hanging always struck me as eh.

"No Quarter"? More like "No Tempo."

J'Ran J'Ran ruined "Thank You" for me, or, rather, they deserved each other.

No Quarter riff is sick

They always had sick riffs.

“No Quarter” is easily top ten LZ for me. The others I can take or leave.

"Thank You" is the best impersonation of the Small Faces I've ever heard.

“No Quarter”: soporific, or sopor-riffic?

Super-terrific, more like. That song is all about that heavy riff, the way it intrudes on the keyboard interludes like a rude guest at a psychedelic retreat. In a lot of ways it's the closest they ever came (in terms of style) to Black Sabbath.

"No Quarter" would also be in my top-ten (though I can live without ten minute live keyboard solos), and I love "Southbound Saurez" too, while "Hats Off" might be their all-time worst.
I'm surprised you didn't include any slow blues, and nothing from Coda (which would probably include three of their bottom ten for me).

Yeah, it's telling that you have to scrape the bottom of Zeppelin scraping the bottom to find the bottom.

Including a drum solo feels like a cheat. But if they'd used the riff from "Moby Dick" for an actual song, they'd probably have had something.

I listened to Presence two nights ago and it dropped significantly in my estimation. It sounds like demos half the time — I don't think there are more than two tracks of guitar on it! — and the whole thing is just completely uninspired and enervated, except for "Achilles Last Stand," which still rules. By the time I got to "Tea For One," which would absolutely make my list of worst LZ songs, I was halfway comatose (just like Jimmy Page, probably!).

are you guys forgetting 'Hot Dog'

"Hots Off" is easily top ten Zep: it took several albums to release a track with so many delightful hairpin turrns.

"Tea For One" >>> "Since I've Been Loving You."