LED ZEPPELIN - PHYSICAL GRAFFITI - Swan Song SSK89400
24 February 1975
24 February 1975
Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE Led Zeppelin. I have every album (I even own all 6 copies of In Through The Out Door!). But this for me confuses the hell out of me when it constantly crops up right near the top (sometimes No.1) in the 'best rock albums of all time, ever, absolutely, etc. etc.).Firstly; a double LP with 15 songs on, 8 of which were originally intended to be the 'album', but apparently these 8 were too long to fit on a conventional single LP (roughly 45 minutes). So, they decided to make it a double album and filled the remaining LP with previously recorded material - in other words...outtakes that weren't good enough for Led Zep 3, the 4th untitled LP and Houses Of The Holy! So, if they weren't good enough for those albums, why should they be good enough for this?
Yes, there are some absolute crackers on PG, namely In My Time Of Dying, Trampled Under Foot and Kashmir. But let's face it, Plant's vocals are probably the naffest he's ever recorded. He croaks and wheezes his way through most of the album, obviously his voice is shot from 9 previous US tours, one after the other (as well as UK and and other global gigs). Page is out of his face on heroin most of the time and Jones had actually quit to become a choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral! Only Peter Grant's insistence he take a few weeks off (how generous!) to recover from exhaustion persuaded him to return. So, I think it's safe to say their hearts were probably not quite in it!
Some great songs, but a victim of their own overblown pomp and publicity which meant they felt they could do no wrong and was the herald of the punk backlash against the 'boring old farts' and 'dinosaurs' criticism of 1976 onwards. Could have been a classic single LP, but it's a bit of "Emperor's New Clothes" for me I'm afraid.
Now...on to Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion I and II...a classic single LP instead of 8 sides of pretentious farting about trying to be the Rolling Stones (don't get me started on crap albums containing 1 or 2 decent songs being lauded as 'classic albums'!!!)...where have we heard that kind of thing before?
1 comment:
I must disagree whole-heartedly with you on this issue. Physical Grafitti is Zeppelin's greatest album in my opinion, and even more impressive in that, as a double album, it is all killer, no filler. Some of the rawest stuff since their first album ("The Rover" - are you kidding me? That is one nasty groove), plus some really nice mellow stuff ("Down by the Seaside"), acoustic rock ("Black Country Woman"), an instrumental, and you have an overall diverse rock album that doesn't get stagnant. This album should probably be placed in the top 5 ROCK albums of all time.
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