IT'S THE LED ZEPPELIN EPICS POLL

"kashmir" no contest. "how many more times" a distant second. page supposedly prefers "achilles last stand" but the riff action just isn't there

i'm interested to see if the Stairway/Kashmir/Levee-type canonical choices dominate or if something else becomes a frontrunner. i'm voting for The Rain Song, just narrowly over Achilles.

i like Kashmir but i think it does the least to justify its length of all of these songs.

rain song - the song that remains the same concert version (first zeppelin album I ever bought)

I never would've imagined myself not voting for No Quarter, but the more I listen to The Rain Song, the better it gets. Concert version's great too.

Also, Page OTM -- I'd take Achilles over Kashmir any day, myself.

1 Achilles Last Stand
2 Tea For One
3 When The Levee Breaks
4 Since I've Been Loving You
5 Kashmir
6 Carouselambra
7 In My Time Of DyingIn The Light
8 Stairway To Heaven
9 No Quarter
10 The Rain Song
11 White Summer/Black Mountain Side
12 How Many More Times

whoops, In the Light goes between 7 & 8

when listening to achilles last stand you can almost hear iron maiden being born.

Went with Achilles just over Rain Song and Carouselambra. I love me some latter-day Zep I think I just have ear fatigue with Stairway and Kashmir.

it's a shame that "Ten Years Gone" misses it by about 30 seconds because that is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs. I think I will vote for "Rain Song"

for me this is between "Achilles Last Stand" and "No Quarter"..."No Quarter" is just so incredible from start to finish, if the poll were "best Zep tune to smoke sticky buds to" it would deserve to win by a wide margin

Achilles Last Stand

Is 'Evermore' not 7 minutes long?

I'll vote for the underdog, Stairway To Heaven.

Evermore = 5:52

huh! seems epic, though, right? like literally, it's an epic tale ...

yeah...i feel like running time is the only really firm criteria you can use for these things, though, and i wanted there to be a relatively small number of options, not, like a third of their catalog. maybe after this poll is done we can do a poll of 6min and/or 5min songs, though.

maybe a poll that deals with Zep's fantastical/mythological/hobbit songs ...

i actually really like White Summer/Black Mountain Side ...

zep's best hobbit jam

aha!

i never got around to seeing the results for my own poll on that one...weird, would not have predicted that at all.

Tonight, I'mma gonna love them epically in this order:
1 In The Light
2 The Rain Song
3 Kashmir
4 In My Time Of Dying
5 No Quarter
6 When The Levee Breaks

Strawman To Heaven, tho, is one song I don't think I need to hear many more times in this life.

i like Kashmir but i think it does the least to justify its length of all of these songs
that highbrow criteria seems a bit inimical to judging how epic a jam is. the "kashmir" riff, over and over again, conjures up a pretty heady, hypnotic headtrip

IN THE EVENING IS EPIC I DONT CARE IF ITS NOT SEVEN MINUTES

EPIC (echo echo echo) = Kashmir
but
Song I love the most and what I voted for = The Rain Song

For the former, you 'retire' it once you've heard it enough;
with the latter, my admiration only grows with time.

I have a soft spot for "Since I've Been Loving You" -- works both on the album as sequenced and individually, maybe more traditional-as-such than a lot of the other monsters but no less atmospheric or strong a performance for that.

Version of Since I've Been Loving You on How the West Was Won is really good. I voted Achilles but nearly voted Rain Song.

This is a tuffie but I went for "Kashmir".

I would've voted for Achilles Last Stand, but then I saw Tea for one, and stuck it on and voted for it. Haven't listened to it for ages. Remember reading a thing about Jimmy Page staying away for two or three days before playing that, which is one of these things that helps you to like it.

White Summer/Black Mountain Side for me...

Despite the lack of credit given to Davey Graham and Burt Jansch, this is one of the great electric psych-folk jamzzz.

I think Black water side is an old folk tune, not something Bert Jansch or Davey Graham wrote, although Jimmy Page clearly does love Bert Jansch.

I think the bible is an old story, not something King James wrote, although Christians clearly love the King James version.

(and yes I know that Jansch learned it from Anne Briggs, IIRC)

(...and Page plays it on ZepI pretty much the same way Jansch plays it on his, somewhat earlier, recording iirc).

went with No Quarter but really coulda been any one of five or six ... In the Light (outro so rad), Carouselambra, Rain Song, Achilles

Kashmir was never one of my faves

i voted for kasmir and i will not apologize

Toss up between "Kashmir" and "When the Levee Breaks", and "Kashmir", but only by the slightest margin.

whoops, "Kashmir" WINS by the slightest blah blah blah no one cares.

"Kashmir" used to be my favorite LZ track, but is dropping via burnout. "In My Time of Dying" used to be my least favorite, but then I started tuning out everything but Bonham and it turned mindboggling. They're passing each other in the middle going in opposite directions.

I'd like to have voted for In My Time of Dying, but it really has to be When the Levee Breaks

In the Light these days (great tune and it hasn't been played out)

When I saw Plant in 1988 he started one song with the introduction to "In the Light" and then all of a sudden the "Nobody's Fault But Mine" riff dropped in. Hell of a medley.

I think "Achilles.." (love that upthread description of Iron Maiden being born) will do fine, so I voted for "Tea For One".

"Stairway To Heaven". When something old is still being overplayed, there is usually a reason for it.

I thought you'd be the one to vote for Carouselambra, Geir

― Geir Hongro

^^^^overplayed

Can't believe When the Levee Breaks isn't getting more love.

i don't usually remember much about it besides the drums (and not just the intro)

It's the best. Those last thirty seconds

When something old is still being overplayed, there is usually a reason for it.

Geir more repetitive than a James Brown drum pattern

Another vote here for "The Rain Song," although I could easily have gone "Since I've Been Loving You," since I just love that damned riff Page plays over the turnarounds. "Levee" simply suffers from overexposure for me.

CAROUSELAMBRA

but fuck every single one of these songs is unfuckwitable

ACHILLES LAST STAND

When the Levee Breaks of course! It sounds like the Mississippi River if you ask me.

there are indeed no wrong answers, but nothing on this earth sounds like when the levee breaks.

No Quarter is pretty fuckin' epic. And When The Levee Breaks is immense. And Johnny Fever OTM re In The Evening.

But seriously fuck how many times you've listened to it or whatever nothing is more epic than Kashmir.

Impossible....
What about Dazed & Confused? Esp the live versions of that number

I originally voted "Levee", but I'm listening to "In the Light" right now, and the ascending guitar part is so happy. this song is like "Tangerine" in that it's never played on the Get the Led Out Rock Block, and I can't remember it when I'm not listening to it, but I want to hear it over and over again.

"In The Light" has ALWAYS been one of my fave Zep toons. Since I was gifted the PhysGraf cassette as a kid for x-mas in like 1986. It just blew my mind. First exposure to something drone/mid-east motifs ... such a mind trip .. "and ... if... you ... feeeeeeeeeeel" ... then again, Led Zep was always the "first exposure" to all kinds of shit. That's kinda the genius of them and why Page and Plant are http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4030854/Led-Zeppelins-Robert-Plant-made-a-CBE.htmland heros.

bah, looks like article was removed...

in any case ..

fave thing about "In The Light" is the incredible chorus

Always been amazed at the way Page plays the ascending guitar line on the chorus, and John Paul Jones plays a descending line against it. Listen to it! so friggin cool. That might be one of the reasons why this incredible track feels so wild, but mostly it's those crazy breaks with the Indian motif. Led Zep at their absolute best, over the top, even better than "Kashmir", and why it gets my vote for best LZ epic.

again, we ALL love Kashmir. It is near and dear to our hearts. But I ask you, zeppy fans, is Kashmir really wilder -- and more indicative of the orientalism -- than "In the Light" ? maybe not! they were definitely the twin titans of the PG LP, but dammit, "In the Light" blew my mind more than "Kashmir", but they are both fever-dream champions

just love Page moving up the fret-board as Jones moves down the fretboard ... sounds so wicked

it's not about wilder. it's about epic. "in the light" is huge, especially the two minute synth glide into the song. the riff and the drums on "kashmir" though are the biggest thing they ever did, "levee breaks" included. ask puff daddy

Seeing the choices in this poll makes my brain explode with indecision. I want to vote for Rain Song, but Carouselambra...plus I haven't heard Presence in way too long and kept meaning to play that the last few weeks...argh.

Must think about it some more.

nothing here (anywhere?) is more epic than "Achilles Last Stand," so that. otot, best, deepest, grandest, heaviest = ???

otoh, rather.

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gifhttp://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-ledzeppelin.gif

This is much harder than the Hobbit Jams poll. How on earth are you supposed to choose between The Rain Song and No Quarter?

I'm a big fan of Mellotron so Rain Song it is

It's kind of shocking to me the number of Zepplin songs I only know by tune and not by name.

same here, getting the box set which has inspired me starting all these LZ threads recently was a real eye-opener, like hearing "The Ocean" hundreds of times and not knowing that was its title or even that they had a song by that title.

I went with Rain Song, it's the first LZ song i ever tried to learn to play and gave up on

i'd like to hear a lot of these now but sadly don't have them with me.

"Achilles' Last Stand" is one of my favorite songs ever altho I hardly like Led Zep at all.

Carouselambra wins in a most difficile contest…

ultimately voted for "Kashmir," one of the hardest choices yet.

If Dazed And Confused was 33 seconds longer it would make it a lot easier to choose a winner. After listening to all of these last night and this morning I ended up voting for No Quarter, but it was hard choosing between at least 5 of these.

Maybe Zeppelin album openers would make a good poll next - be interesting to see if anything can beat Immigrant Song.

"whole lotta love" and "custard pie" aren't bad either

Anybody know anything about this box set? Are the remastered CDs available individually? Because the quality on the Physical Graffiti I've downloaded is fucking brilliant compared to my CD.

achilles. used to jam on it in my high school band. :-)

I got that box set a couple months ago. I had been collecting the mini replica CDs and was only missing LZI, but the notion of having them all packaged up like this in a box was too much to pass up.

Regarding the sound, I wasn't able to discern any difference between these and the round of reissues that immediately preceded them. It's perfect. I read something about a difference between the actual Japanese Rhino release and the one produced in the US: that the latter lacked the recently filled-out version of TSRTS... In any case, mine didn't.

If you are interested in these as a fetish object it's pretty over the top. ITTTOD is not only packaged w/ the 6(?) alternate covers, but the inside sleeve actually changes color, like the original LP, when brushed or touched w/ water. The amount of detail is pretty ridiculous, from the faux-leather finish on TSRTS, to raised text and even an alternate cover for the first record. Obv. no expense was spared. Pressed to gripe, it would only be that the few non-album tracks are not included (Hey Hey, What Can I Do, Traveling Riverside Blues, what else...?)

Did it have the spinning image-wheel from III?

Sorry, so to answer your question, you can get the mini-replicas individually (if you can still find them) but they are not recreated with the same level of detail, nor in "SHM-CD" — which to my ears was indiscernible — as in this box

xpost Yeah, it has the spinning wheel, Physical Grafitti has the interchangeable windows — seriously, they are EXACT replicas of the LPS in every detail as far as I can tell, and I grew up fondling these LPs.... God bless the Japanese for caring.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"they ask no quarter"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

holy toledo.

i didn't vote in this, but i'm pleasantly surprised to see three voted for Carouselambra - the song that got me obsessed with Zep as a kid. i probably would have voted for No Quarter, but i just couldn't decide between like four songs so gave up on it.

Where was In My Time of Dying

Disregard, it took second to last. Which is a joke.

surprised you care, what with black sabbath being better etc etc

I may think Sabbath is better but I still like some Zeppelin. I think Physical Graffiti is a great album.

xxxxxxxpost:

I stand corrected — finally got around to Coda on the Japanese mini LP replica box, and yes, tacked on at the end are "Baby Come On Home," "Traveling Riverside Blues, "White Summer/Black Mountain Side," & "Hey Hey What Can I Do."

So, yeah. If there's a fire here I grab the Fall Peel Box, that Ayler Mausoluem thing, and this, and my daughters...

Ahem...never heard this one live before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBMi6lN5wkI