Led Zeppelin - Best and Worst Albums

There's just not enough Jimmy on ITTOD. That, and Plant's vocals are pretty well shot. Every time he tries to let out one of his patented screams...I wince at the results.

I tend to gravitate towards PG, IV, Houses, III & Presence. I don't listen to the first two that often anymore....but with these new vinyl re-issues, I'll be all over them.

 

The Best - 1st.
The worst - Coda.

 

This is a funny thread. Very funny indeed. When it comes to bands like Led Zeppelin, there are NO "bad" albums, in my opinion. Why? Well, there are so many bands who would die to have any material similar to what great bands like Zeppelin put out in their prime. It's not to often with today's musical recording industry to have bands like Zeppelin that reach such heights.

 

Yes, because they weren't Communication Breakdown, Friends, The Lemon Song, Black Dog, No Quarter, etc. They get points for not recycling their back catalog and moving forward and away from their blues/folk roots like they did with the funk and reggae stylings of 'The Crunge' and 'D'yer Mak'er' on Houses. ITTOD is their "Kid A" if you will. You may not like the results but you've gotta give 'em an "atta boy" for not coming out with Led Zeppelin 5. As to your original question, yeah, I personally like all the songs you mentioned.

 

Absolutely not. The Stones did it regularly in the seventies and eighties, didn't they?.

 

I don't really think it should count for less but some here think Coda should count for less because it is outtakes. I was just making a point.

 

Because the Stones were working actively as a band on an album and happened to work in older tracks. That's not the same thing as a band breaking up, then a while later, collecting unreleased tracks spanning a decade. It's the same thing at all. I really can't believe that has to explained.

 

I think he was referring to PG, when Zep was "working actively as a band on an album and happened to work in older tracks."

 

If it wasn't for JPJ's horrible synth, Plant's shot voice and the quality of the songwriting ITTOD would be one of their top albums. The cover's really nice.

 

Can't you say that about anyone's bad album?

 

If JPJ had used a Hammond Organ. a Mellotron, a grand piano. an ARP Odyssey and a VCS3 instead of what he used the album would already be three times better.

 

I like all of them. IV, II and PG are my top three. In the last twenty years, III has gained the most favor with me, and HOTH has lost the most.

 

I think he got it about right. The comments about In Through The Out Door and Presence were a fair appraisal - I like the latter but would never recommend it to someone curious about Led Zeppelin; as for the former I was really disappointed when I heard it in 1979, it was as though my worst fears that maybe they'd made all the great albums they were ever going to had been confirmed, and 35 years on I still find it insipid.

I'd maybe give Houses of the Holy an extra star but it's place in the list is about right. It's difficult to prevent personal preference from influencing what is the right order broadly speaking, I guess.

 

What about Plant's shot voice and the quality of the songwriting? Would a mellotron and a B-3 fix those too?

 

Houses of the Holy is my favorite followed by III and Physical Graffiti

 

Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg recorded album after album with shot voices. All My Love is a great song. Plant should have pitched his voice lower for most of the other songs. Peter Grant should have confided in them that Hot Dog wasn't a very good song and they could have gone back to the drawing board on that one. The album was definitely salvageable.

 

Ok, you're the one who brought up the shot voice and poor songwriting. But I get your point. Not at all sure why you think Grant had any say over which songs to include. His Executive Producer credit was basically a sweetheart deal. He was a wrestler who happened to manage the band. JP did all production.

 

Maybe the guy from Polar Studios could have whispered something into their shell-likes. The whole band were fans of Elvis' Sun Sessions. They MUST have known Hot Dog didn't measure up.

 

They didn't even know D'yer Maker didn't measure up, so why would they notice that about Hot Dog. Look, you're preaching to the choir. Not a great fan of ITtOD, and I may be the only one who thinks the tracks from those sessions which appear on Coda suck even worse than the counterparts on the album.

 

I like D'yer Maker

 

I took a scissor and cut that and The Crunge (talk about cheesy synths!) out of my vinyl copy. I'm having a hell of a time taping the rest of the songs back together in their original concentric pattern!

 

I like D'yer Maker and The Crunge more than No Quarter.

 

I know why HOTH isn't one of my top Zeps. Why is it yours???

 

Problem solved!

 

At our school you could play records in the library and LZ4 was played non stop for two years. When HOTH came out it was sweet relief. It's also their most experimental album. Fave tracks: Over the Hills and Far Away and The Ocean.