My earliest memories are hearing this constantly on my cousin's record player. "Whole Lotta Love" would be a confusing song to me for years and years as I had no idea Robert Plant wasn't saying, "You need Kool-Aid." Make no mistake it was an awesome song, but it was too weird for me at the same time. It didn't help that when Houses of the Holy came out the only song I heard on the radio was "D'yer Mak'er" a song that to this day makes me throw up a little in my mouth when I hear it. The cover was cool though, and my cousin's had it tacked to their bedroom wall. My cousin's were cool.
When the band released In Through the Out Door in 1979 it was a perplexing record, as "Fool in the Rain" was irritating, and any song that used a coaches whistle was stupid. I had also gotten it into my head that Jimmy Page was a shitty player who was messy, sloppy and sounded like a twelve year old kid who'd gotten his fingers caught in the strings. The first time I heard "Stairway to Heaven" was at my best friend's house when we took his older sister's album and played it. When we got to the recorders we started giggling. What the hell was this? I don't think we made it to the end. Yeah, so for decades I'd more of less constantly shit on Led Zeppelin as the most overrated and bloated band to ever grace the land.
So it was no surprise that back in the day, I never had anything by the band. Of course over the years there would be songs I thought were kind of cool, and but I wouldn't never consider myself a fan. Things started to change when I picked up Mothership back in 2007, and shortly after that I would end up with all of the band's albums. It was a lot to digest, and frankly I did cherry pick. I never really spent a lot of time with the individual albums. There were a lot of cherries. Still it was "Whole Lotta Love" that brought me full circle. I was older now, and I had figured out Robert Plant was singing, "You need cooling" which made a lot more sense. Even with the hippy dippy theremin meanderwanking this was a killer song. Classic rock radio didn't hurt either, and the sheer number of killer tracks from the band was astounding. Oh sure, I still feel that Jimmy at times has the worst case of sausage fingers in the game, but my goodness the man knew how to pull things together.
You don't often find their records, which is cool and weird considering how many albums they sold, you'd think there'd be a little more product out there ... but nope. They tend to get snatched up. So it was a surprise to me when I found a copy of Led Zeppelin II in decent shape and was cheaper than I expected it to be. This was something I was looking forward to spending some time with. After all, since it's initial release back in 1969 the album has been remastered, and re-issued in various deluxe editions, but I was regressing and going back in time. Oh, I'm sure what I have is nowhere near being an original release, it was in print a long time before vinyl was phased out. For fun I'm going to rundown the songs as they play. I'll come back later and fix things and maybe edit ... or not. I am a fundamentally lazy person.
"Whole Lotta Love" Boom. Mic drop. The album would be considered a classic with this one song. Keeping in mind this was 1969 it has managed to span generations now, and is still an unbelievably awesome song. Robert Plant was the shit. Jimmy killed it, and his solo influenced generations of players and is still being copied and replicated. This is to say nothing about the two Johns.
"What is and What Should Be" The slow groove at the start with a phased Plant vocal erupts into the chunk riff, and then goes on to build throughout the song. The soaring backing vocals, and the wicked slide work is awesome and the song keeps building. It ebbs and flows taking the listener on a frenetic journey. Besides any song with a gong by default is going to be huge. The song is all sweaty balls and swagger. The fact it fades out is besides the point.
"Thank You" this song is absolutely jaw dropping. The combination of the slower pace, and the jangly guitars that are anchored by John Paul Jones bass, and John Bonham's heavy metronome is so good. The acoustic guitar solo was the right call. There's a reason Robert Plant is revered as a rock vocalist. The guy really laid out the blueprint, and after all this time he's still held up as one of the best ever.
What a killer first side. Side two here we come.
"Heartbreaker" Okay, this is where things are a little more complicated for me. First the good. Holy shitballs, the riff and groove here are just crazy good. The guitar solo will fall into two parts. The good. The structure and energy and way Jimmy tortures the notes is sheer ecstasy. Those first pull offs are just so goofy and good. Now the bad, this is also the song where much of my long held bias originated, as much of the second half of the same solo sounds like Jimmy got his fingers stuck under the strings. This is a fantastic song, and as I've played the album over and over, even the perceived sloppy bits seems deliberately crafted and there are no wrong notes. If anything was to be cut and removed things would fall apart. It all needs to be there.
"Living Loving Maid" abruptly starts right on the heals of "Heartbreaker" and is another riff heavy classic.
"Ramble On" Yeah, hippie dippy silliness ensues. Yeah, this is great.
The last two tracks are essentially the same in terms of being blues based rockers. "Moby Dick" being a classic deep cut, and is probably one of the few songs with an extended drum solo that gets played on classic rock radio. Yeah, I do l listen to the radio on occasion in the car. "Bring it on Home" is a straight ahead blue rocker, and seems tame and paint by numbers by today's standards. However it's those same standards that have turned "Johnny B. Goode" into a musical footnote.
I have to say, spending a few days really settling into this album has been a treat. More than once my wife has come down while this has been blaring away, and stayed to listen for a bit. Often commenting, "My goodness this is so crunchy and heavy, I love this."
The sheer number of classics here is kind of mind boggling. I don't know if there's a perfect album, but this is pretty bloody good. Hard to believe this was released in 1969. This is an album of the times that has also somehow managed to transcend them.
Nice trick if you can pull it off. I suppose this is why they're revered as one of the greatest bands ever.
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