Led Zeppelin Music

Album Description

Rising from the ashes of his old band the Yardbirds, session guitarist Jimmy Page formed Led Zeppelin, one of the most powerful, influential, and enduring British bands to emerge in the '60s. Despite the presence of such classic thrash-o-ramas as "Good Times Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown", what set Led Zeppelin apart was the depth and range of their music. Their sound was bathed in the blues, from rootsy covers of Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit YouBaby", to the crunching rhythm changes of "Dazed And Confused".
Few guitarists before or since possessed Page's sense of pacing and dynamics, as exemplified by the traditional acoustic folk elements framing the arena gestures on "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", and the raga-flavoured acoustic mystery of "Black Mountain Side". These elements would continue to evolve on subsequent albums, leading to some of Led Zeppelin's greatest moments.

Album Description

Led Zeppelin II is an album of Jimmy Page riffs so huge, and John Paul Jones/John Bonham rhythms so deep, that the heavy metal genre this classic helped create has tried for decades to catch up, mostly without success. And no wonder: since II catches the band before they'd headed too far into their ridiculous medieval fancies, this might be as good as Zep would ever be. Regardless, the thunderous "Whole Lotta Love," a Top 5 hit, and "Bring It on Home" are very nearly as fierce and twisted as British white blues would ever get.

Album Description

After plundering the Yardbirds' legacy and Willie Dixon (among others) for their blues-riff-heavy first two albums, Jimmy Page and company surprised many listeners with the strong acoustic/folk sensibility displayed on III. Page aficionados shouldn't have been caught off guard; the guitarist had toyed with similar sensibilities and modalities during his brief tenure with the Yardbirds (most notably "White Summer" from the Little Games album). Ever the creative thieves, Zep kick off the album by nicking the riff from "Bali Ha'i" no less, with Robert Plant wailing it to punctuate the thundering FM warhorse "Immigrant Song." Even other electric rockers like "Celebration Day" and "Out on the Tiles" have an inventive, offbeat musicality to them that suggest the band was already wary of stereotyping. But it's the decidedly mellower acoustic groove of the album's latter half that's the news here, from the graceful beauty of "That's the Way" and "Tangerine" to the raw, folksy charm of "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp," "Hats Off (to Roy Harper)," and the traditional "Gallows Pole."

Album Description

Led Zeppelin's epochal fourth album finds both the band's blues-rock thunder and their gentler, more lyrical side filed down to a razor-sharp point. "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll" aren't just perennial air-guitar anthems; they're the ultimate distillation of the blues-inflected, hard-rock fury the band had already been perfecting for the past three years. Robert Plant's Little Richard-on-amphetamines wail rides perfectly atop the band's strategically directed crunch for maximum impact. "When the Levee Breaks"is a titanic take on the blues, with John Bonham's thunderous drums echoing through the subsequent decades. The folkier, acoustic tracks provide welcome moments of beauty and respite, and all the elements of the band's sound come together in "Stairway to Heaven", a suite of shifting dynamics that would become the Eiffel Tower of classic-rock radio forevermore.

Album Description

By 1973, Led Zeppelin was getting used to being the biggest band on the planet (both financially and sonically). Letting their guard down and their spirits wander, they came up with the most widely varied album in their discography. Stylistically, HOUSES OF THE HOLY is all over the map, but it coheres in a grand manner befitting the '70s rock royalty Zeppelin had become. Stepping back a little from the epic scale of ZEPPELIN IV, the group slips into a funky James Brown homage ("The Crunge"), offers one of the first-ever attempts at reggae-rock ("D'yer Ma'ker"), and ventures into Pink Floyd-like prog rock ("No Quarter"). Jimmy Page's guitar work is at its most exquisitely beautiful on "The Rain Song", but the heavy-rock punch of yore is still present and accounted for on "Dancing Days" and "The Ocean". From here, it seemed like Led Zeppelin was capable of anything.

Album Description

After a two-year recording gap (the longest in their recording career up to that point), Led Zeppelin followed the rampant eclecticism of HOUSES OF THE HOLY with the embarrassment of riches that is PHYSICAL GRAFFITI. One could be forgiven for thinking of this expansive double-length set as Zeppelin's WHITE ALBUM. It's a great schizophrenic beast, the first side containing the most concentrated dose of pure hard-rockenergy the band had delivered since their first two albums,and the second showing off the more subtle nuances of their talent.
This is really Jimmy Page's album, from the masterfully moody Eastern setting of "Kashmir" to the poignant liquidity of "Down by the Seaside" and the furious riffing of"Trampled Under Foot". The 1950s-style rocker "Boogie with Stu" (featuring Stones pianist Ian Stewart) and the rural romp "Bron-Yr-Aur" add yet more colours to the spectrum of what may be the most emotionally satisfying album in the Led Zeppelin canon.

Album Description

Presence is one of Led Zeppelin's more overlooked albums, languishing in the monstrous shadow of its predecessor, Physical Graffiti. It's more noted in Zeppelin mythology for the circumstances in which it was recorded, in double-quick time with vocalist Robert Plant's leg in plaster after a car accident. The lack of time does show--much of the album feels like generic heavy rock, bigger on volume than variety. It's worth the price of the album, however, for the 10-minute-plus "Achilles Last Stand" (a crashing, galloping epic with John Bonham sounding like he's replaced his drumsticks with tree trunks) and "Nobody's Fault but Mine," a Blind Willie Johnson blues regenerated with a 3,000-watt boost by Jimmy Page.

Album Description

Though the band likely didn't know it at the time, this would prove to be the last studio record by one of the most famous rock & roll bands in the world. Drummer John Bonham died shortly after its release. Although nothing compares to early Led Zeppelin--and they lost many longtime fans in the late 1970s--this LP is nothing to be embarrassed by. They were quick to embrace and experiment with synthesizers, and while it wears a little thin by record's end (the synth-bloated "Carouselambra" and the slick AOR hit "All My Love"), it adds a certain majestic tone to the heavy-hitting opener, "In the Evening," and gives a rollicking good-time feel to "South Bound Suarez." Plant's howl and Page's bluesy guitars are in fine form on "I'm Gonna Crawl" and the lilting "Fool in the Rain" recalls the pretty numbers from their early career

Album Description

Led Zeppelin s sold-out concert tours became rituals of high-energy rock and roll theater. The SONG REMAINS THE SAME...attests to the group's powerful and somewhat saturnalian appeal at the height of their popularity.

2CD reissue of the soundtrack to their concert film THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME. First released in 76, the recording captures a celebrated three-night stand at NYC's Madison Square Garden in July 1973. The newly updated edition now contains six songs not featured on the original release, and the entire project was remixed and remastered with the band members direct oversight. Featuring liner notes by Oscar-winning director and former Rolling Stone editor Cameron Crowe, the set will be released simultaneously by Warner Home Video with the new, expanded DVD edition of the film.

Album Description

Frequently bootlegged and now digitally remastered by Jimmy Page, these tapes capture a 25-month (1969 to 1971) arc in which Zep's sound grew to encompass the speed rush and jazz/blues festival stuff of their 1969 debut, the fully developed folkie musings of "Going to California" (in which Plant vowed to make a hejira right up to Joni Mitchell's front door), and the band's modestly popular multilayered epic "Stairway to Heaven." The Sessions also give a glimpse of nearly off-the-cuff invention in an intense take on Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues." Most other white blues musicians would've rushed to get this on vinyl; Page and Plant instead used it for parts, most notably taking its profound acoustic freneticism for Led Zeppelin III

Album Description

For a band with such an overarching legacy, the official record of Led Zeppelin's legendary--and unpredictable--live act has heretofore been poorly represented by the disappointing, scattershot soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same. But this triple-disc live set (culled from 1972 Long Beach/LA shows in advance of Houses of the Holy) addresses history with a vengeance, if a few decades late. These shows have rightfully assumed cult status in the bootleg market, showcasing a band at the peak of its creative and performing powers. Zep faithful will welcome the belated release as evidence for enduring loyalty, but younger fans may find its diversity and dynamics even more enlightening--indeed, whole careers have since been built on the musical ideas Jimmy Page and company toss off here as decorative filler. Crucially rooted in the amped-and-hammered American blues of the guitarist's former band, the Yardbirds, the marathon workouts of "Dazed and Confused" and "Whole Lotta Love" (which consume nearly an hour all by themselves) somehow encompass Ricky Nelson, Morocco, James Brown, Holst, Elvis Presley, and Muddy Waters amidst their trademark sturm und drang, while the acoustic set that closes out disc one showcases the band's--and particularly Robert Plant's--good-natured, crypto-Celtic folk appeal with energetic aplomb. Bigger and brasher than just about any rock act that followed in its historic wake, yet ever fan-loyal to its myriad influences, Led Zeppelin's live juggernaut finally gets the monument it deserves.

Album Description

Coda, released in 1982 after the breakup of the band, was the result of a trawl through the studio archives in search of leftover material. In fact, they had already used up almost all of the good stuff; this was Led Zeppelin's only disappointing album. Nevertheless, even relatively poor material by Led Zeppelin is decent and some tracks here are classic, notably "Poor Tom," "Ozone Baby," and "Wearing and Tearing." The latter, one of three outtakes from the In Through the Out Door sessions, features a particularly high-octane blend of stripped-down, grungy rock & roll and is considered their response to the then-burgeoning punk movement. With so little studio material available, live versions of "I Can't Quit You Babe" and "We're Gonna Groove" from 1970 flesh out the set; the former features some blistering playing.

Album Description

Import only highlights collection compiled from the box-set originally released in 1992 but without the interview disc and at a much better price. Because of so many differing opinions, it's hard to pick a definitive Zep studio album because, to be honest, they are all pretty much definitive! If you're looking for a great introduction or overview of their career, then this is it. 26 tracks on two CDs and featuring the original box-sets cover art. All the big hits are here, including 'Communication Breakdown', 'Heartbreaker', Stairway To Heaven', 'Kashmir' and more.

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Interviews with the remaining band members...

Album Description

Here are the original monsters of rock in all their epic, bombastic glory. The Who may have had more decibels (a dubious distinction), but no band took hard rock higher into the stratosphere than the Zep did with their cosmic mixture of deep blues, gothic melodrama, and the supernatural chops of Page, Plant, Bonham, and Jones. For listeners new to the Zep canon, there's no better primer of the band's range and power than this 4 CD box set, compiled and remixed in 1990 by Page himself. All the obvious song choices are here. But even if you've already heard "Black Dog" once too often on the car radio, this set wisely spotlights several overlooked gems, including their ultimate blues lament "I'm Gonna Crawl." It's a blueprint that later generations of head-bangers tragically failed to follow.

Album Description

This set is commonly referred to as the "leftovers" from the other Led Zeppelin boxed set. I actually like this boxed set as much as the first one for a couple of reasons. 1. Some of these songs rank as my favorites: "That's The Way", a beautifully written social commentary on prejudice, "Down By the Seaside", "How Many More Times", and "Living, Loving Maid" are among the band's best work. As a testimony to how talented the group was musically, these songs which made the "second" boxed set, would be the greatest hits for someone else. There is one song which cannot be found anywhere else: "Baby Come on Home", an excellent blues song which would have been a perfect fit for Zeppelin II. 2. Overall, this set has a bit of everything. It shows the wide range of musical styles, from folk and blues inspired songs, to driving rock and roll, to the more electric sound the band was playing with before John Bonham's death in 1980, this set showcases the wide range of musical styles the group created and performed. Well worth the effort, this package should not be viewed as merely "the rest" of their songs. In addition to the CDs, the packaging is wonderful with an extensive insert and great graphics -- an A+.

Album Description

As Basil Bunting wrote about Ezra Pound's Cantos, "There are the Alps... you will have to go a long way round/if you want to avoid them." Led Zeppelin's work is the central fact of 1970s rock & roll; in its loving homage to and shameless piracy from the blues, its glorious and wretched excess, its transformation of hippie and folk-rock graces into a foundation-shaking kaboom, and its offhanded myth-making, the band turned everything caught in its wake into a reaction to it--or against it. The three non-album tracks the box includes are grace notes rather than lost jewels, but the point of the set is to be a Rosetta stone of album rock, the stairway to a gaudy paradise that they constructed.

Album Description

Disc One:
Having previously released no less than four boxed repackages of their studio output, Led Zeppelin may well be the band who made redundancy redundant. Well, surprise! They've done it again. Culled from the band's first four albums by Jimmy Page himself (as if a fourth-grader with an FM radio would have been hard-pressed), this collection captures Page and company's blues-riff-ripping prime, relieved only by the folksy "Battle of Evermore" and the song that made Skynyrd's "Free Bird" (almost) tolerable, the ubiquitous "Stairway to Heaven." Strung end-to-end, this is pretty heady stuff, and a great introduction to Zep's core early work for anyone who's spent the last couple of decades hangin' with Gilligan and the Skipper. The rest of us may just grumble and fast-forward to the previously unreleased 1969 live video clip of "Communication Breakdown." The package includes a 24-page booklet with many rare photos.

Disc Two:
The glory days of Led Zeppelin are chronicled comprehensively in Atlantic Record's 1999 Early Days best-of set, which leaves this '73-to-'79 package shorter on obvious crowd-pleasers. Still, this secondary set shows just how powerful Zeppelin were at their zenith. Taken from the band's final four albums, the songs here--"No Quarter," "Houses of the Holy," and "Song Remains the Same" among them--brought audiences to their feet in stadiums across the world while the Zeppelin juggernaut trampled their competition underfoot. Zeppelin defined hard rock, but were also capable of a delicacy that's easy to overlook; indeed, that dimension is missing from the picture of Zep offered here. Otherwise, these two companion volumes offer a rewarding introduction to Led Zeppelin.

Album Description

Led Zeppelin redefined rock in the Seventies and for all time. They were as influential in that decade as the Beatles were in the prior one. Their impact extends to classic and alternative rockers alike. Then and now, Led Zeppelin looms larger than life on the rock landscape as a band for the ages with an almost mystical power to evoke primal passions.
- from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame web page on the band s 1995 induction
It's rare that a group can truly rock today s world, but the arrival of MOTHERSHIP, the first-ever comprehensive 2CD Led Zeppelin compilation with the soon to follow re-release of The Song Remains The Same on CD & DVD and a concert event reuniting Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones qualifies. Produced by Page and mixed by Kevin Shirley, MOTHERSHIP's 24 monolithic tracks were selected and sequenced by the band, who also oversaw the painstaking remastering. Spanning their epic career, the unprecedented collection pulls immortal songs from all eight of the band s classic studio albums, one of the 20th century's most enduring bodies of musical work. Arguably the most influential and innovative rock band ever, Led Zeppelin has sold over 200 million records worldwide. They continue to inspire successive generations with their passionate, groundbreaking, genre-transcendent, mystic, heavy and blues-infused rock n roll. Forty years since they formed, the song indeed remains the same.