Led Zeppelin
BBC Sessions (1997)

review by: Mike Webb
Date: 10/18/00

Led Zeppelin was arguably one of the world's greatest rock'n'roll bands. The BBC Sessions shows why.

If you've had a regular diet of Zeppers in your teens like I did, you may have tired of the band like I did. For years the sound of Led Zep made me run for something fresh, something not bluesy or nostalgic. So when my friend from Atlantic Records sent me a copy of the BBC Sessions, it sat wrapped up for over 6 months.

Then I got that annual urge to hear the boys, so I pulled out this disc. I sat in amazement as Page's guitars crackled, Plant wailed, Jonesy did a little of everything, and the heavy handed Bonham beats made my ass shake. It's loud, hot rock, served up fresh during the band's first creative peak (69-71). The best part is the recordings took place before some of the material was ever released to the public on vinyl, so some song arrangements are different, and it's not the same old tired Zep.

The most brilliant parts are the almost punk "Something Else", the funky break in "Communication Breakdown", the super sexy take on Robert Johnson's "Travelling Riverside Blues", the hard driving, free-form "Immigrant Song", and the incredible proof in the pudding that John Bonham was inarguably the world's greatest rock'n'roll drummer - ever. This CD is the essence of rock'n'roll.

Led Zeppelin
Complete Studio Recordings (1993)

review by: Glenn Pfeifer
Date: 12/21/01

"Zep II is definitely the best Led Zeppelin album…no doubt!"

"How can you say any album is better than Zep IV!!?? It has Stairway, Black Dog, Rock n Roll…"

"Which is why everyone is sick of hearing it! Physical Graffiti is their most daring work – Jimmy Page’s most dynamic and varied guitar production!"

"You guys are all missing the point. It all started somewhere…with Zep I. Right from the first notes…Dah nant! Tick tick tick tick tick tick. Dah nant! Good Times Bad Times…right on through to Dazed & Confused. They never topped that excitement."

"Are you insane? They were just discovering their electric blues sound then…Plant barely even wrote lyrics then…he just ripped off bits of blues classics that no British or American white boy knew."

And so it began…a simple informal verbal poll taken around a poker table one late-night-turning-into-early-morning…a quest for the best Led Zeppelin album ever released. Or, at least, the best according to every red-blooded, Zoso-drawing, Whole-Lotta-Love screaming, "does anyone remember laughter"-reciting, Heartbreaker solo air-guitar imitating American male I could find. And boy did I find plenty of opinions!

"How can you even place In Through the Out Door on this list??!"

"It was a studio album, so it makes the list. The poll is to get the best Led Zep album, so it has to be included in order to vote on it."

"Forget it! I’m crossing it right off. Page was a mess, Bonzo was drunk through all the sessions…it’s practically a Plant solo disc!!"

"All right, all right. Let’s remove the albums we think don’t make the final cut."

"Coda is definitely out. That was just leftover tapes they threw together after Bonham’s death."

"But it got rave reviews in Rolling Stone."

"Exactly. Rolling Stone sucks. And so does Coda."

"All right, Coda and In Through the Out Door are out…what about Presence?"

"Presence has that fucking killer song….No no no no no noooooooooooobody’s fault but mine. Bern nern nern nern neh now nooooon."

"Yeah but that’s about it…I think it goes."

"Me too."

"All right, Song Remains the Same goes because of live status." For the first time, I got no argument.

"That leaves six discs: One, Two, Three, Four, Houses of the Holy and Physical Grafitti."

"Now that’s a desert island disc collection. You don’t even need a babe."

"Yeah, you can jerk off while listening to Plant moan!"

"I think One and Three should go."

"Yeah, I agree. They just don’t have the power of the other 4 albums."

So we arrived at a final four. Zep II, with it’s classic line-up of radio staples, intense solos, Ramble on and Moby Dick. Zep IV, which none of us really wanted on the list but all agreed it had to be there. It was the album you had to have if you had any notion of being a Zeppelin fan. The biggest song in the history of Rock n Roll first of all, Rock n Roll second of all…but Zep IV did more than that. It showcased the talents of all 4 members of this supergroup unlike the three previous discs had. Houses of the Holy may simply be the perfect album period, never mind just Led Zeppelin. Everyone had a Houses of the Holy story, whether it was smoking joints in the car cranking the cassette, or heavy petting in the basement with the album volume just low enough to hear her father coming down the stairs…Houses was in the fabric of our beings. Last but in no way least was Physical Graffiti. The largest Zep collection, not only in terms of size, but also content. They attempted almost everything they were capable of on that disc…and that’s what may have hurt it in the end…because the best songs on it are the ones that ring true with Zep power, or ring sweetly with Page virtuoso.

Basically, in the end, we agreed to disagree. Houses of the Holy won the actual vote count, but as I said, more because of good memories than the best music. But then again, isn’t the good memory the best part of the music.

To avoid this dilemma at your next poker party, or your next joint smoking/heavy petting session…get the entire Studio Recordings this holiday. Then conduct your own personal poll. 10 albums. Only one Led Zeppelin. That’s about as Merry as Christmas gets. –gp fife

review by: David Brown
Date: 11/15/03

Rediscovering Houses of the Holy

I just purchased Led Zeppelin's Complete Studio Recordings box set. I spent much of high school listening to Zeppelin off of tapes, most of which were copied from friends back in the glorious heyday of the dual cassette recorder. As I moved away from cassettes to CDs, I didn’t upgrade much Zeppelin – just the 1st album and Physical Graffiti. I also got the original 4 CD box set, which covered a lot of material. I felt I was pretty much set for a while. Especially considering that between wearing out my tapes and years of overexposure to homogenized classic rock radio (“Here’s the start of another Led Zeppelin six-pack! Only on [insert your local classic rock station here]!”), I was pretty much burned out on Led Zep for a while.

But we always go back to the those we love, so the remasters were finally brought home in one fell swoop, courtesy of a steal of a deal from the fine folks in Terre Haute, Indiana (you record club geeks know what I’m talking about).

Today I’m reindoctrinating myself with Houses of the Holy. First of all, I’m realizing how much I missed the 1st time around. My stereo circa 1987 was a Fisher compact unit with zero bass response. And those little headphones that came with my Sony Walkman apparently weren’t designed to pump bottom end into your skull. Now that I’ve upgraded my ‘kwipment, these songs sound soooo much better. I have a nice set of German headphones I’m listening through right now (they’re fucking GERMAN!) with amazing bass response, and I find myself not even paying attention to Jimmy Page. I’m unable to focus on anything but Bonzo and Jonesy. Of course HOTH was more of a JPJ album: "No Quarter," "Rain Song," lots of nice keyboard work throughout. Great stuff, and not yet cheesy (see "All of My Love" – apologies to people who love that song, but the synth sound makes it a nickel short of unlistenable for me).

I also realized that the imperfection in the very beginning of "Dancing Days" was actually on the master. I always thought it was my crappy tape. As the song opens, the sound kind of breaks down, like they were playing a little too loudly for the mics to handle. Low and behold, it’s right there on my remastered CD! I like that. Nostalgic.

I never really liked "The Crunge." Probably because the guitar part is so lame and uninteresting for someone of Page’s inventiveness. It sounds like something I would come up with. But the drum/bass groove is so solid and sounds great on the remaster. I also have to hand it to Plant: he somehow pulls the lyrics off, even though they sound like they were improvised on the spot (as indeed the whole song does). Check out these lyrics: “I ain’t gonna tell you nothing I can’t tell you no more she’s my baby let me tell you I love her so…” That’s called not getting in the way of the groove. No Norse mythology or flimsy sexual allegory – just words.

And I almost forgot about Jonesy’s little synthesizer lick. It comes out of left field and sounds completely out of place. The first time you hear it, you look behind you, wondering where that strange noise is coming from, like maybe something’s caught up in the dishwasher. Yet it’s incredibly endearing. That in combination with the lyrics plus the tag line at the end (Plant joking about the fact that the song has no bridge) all give the song a goofy campiness that makes it work. After all, how could anyone take a bunch of skinny white English boys playing seriously syncopated funk seriously?

If I have one complaint about HOTH, it’s that there isn’t enough loud, sloppy guitar playing from Page, although I could make that complaint about almost any album after the 2nd one. Page has always been one of my absolute favorites on guitar. Not just because of his creative approach, masterful composition skills or flamboyant spontaneity (somehow I’ve started describing Elton John). I love his willingness to sacrifice precision for speed, to risk everything in order to keep careening further into the void, ever faster, higher, LOUDER. He was the embodiment of everything the electric guitar was meant to be. His playing was RAUNCHY (as Plant described it in an interview recalled in the liner notes of the remasters). Sure, I love his acoustic songs, but that’s not what ultimately makes me worship him in the pantheon with Hendrix and precious few others. It’s that devil-may-care, suck-it! attitude of "Dazed and Confused," "Heartbreaker," and "Custard Pie." But let’s not hold it against him on HOTH. "The Rain Song" and "The Song Remains the Same" more than make up for it.