Is physical graffiti a well recorded album?

Bottom line IMO: Physical Graffiti wouldn't be Physical Graffiti if it sounded like bleedin' Aja

 

first UK, first US, Classics sound good to me

2015 release cut the life out of it

 

I always felt the beauty and craft of the band/Page as a producer, was that they were able to put out eight albums that are each quite unique sonically, and yet somehow work well together as a progression or evolution. Every album is "how it should be" for the material in question and for the band's evolution, right until the end.

That said, the three that really stand out for me sonically are II, Houses, and Out Door. I think maybe because I tend to like contrasts or opposites. I think II is the ultimate "warm ambient rock and roll record", while Houses and Out Door share a bright, lush, crystalline type of quality that is every much "Zeppelin" as the sonic texture of II. Yet both are quite opposite in their textural and tonal aim.

In between, you have albums like III, or Presence, that seem to occupy a middle sort of ground.

I always felt that the debut, IV, and Graffiti were the most dirty or organic sounding productions (and that's not meant as bad in any way).

In short, I think every album was very carefully intended to sound the way it does. Page may have his favorites, as do we, but I wouldn't change a thing about the sonics, or material, on any of these eight cornerstone works!

 

That's why he generally switched up recording locales and engineers for every album.

 

No.

 

My copy is a German pressing bought in the early to mid 80's.
It's a glorious sounding record.

 

I don't find it muddy at all on my system just lacks a little low end on some tracks, I have a UK 80's pressing.

 

I am glad you mentioned this because I was confused by everyone saying “PG is well recorded or not”, since it is basically a compilation album. Agree completely with you that the HOTH songs shine.

 

First let me say that Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite groups in the world, I love their albums. But there is a very real and solid reason, why after the Physical Graffiti album, Led Zeppelin went from recording their albums in castles, mansions, on the lawn in their English gardens, and other exotic locations, to recording their last two studio albums in what were at that time, two of the finest audiophile state-of-the-art studios in the entire world (Musicland in Munich and Polar Studios, in Stockholm). Turns out in the castles and exotic locations, they just weren't getting the sounds they wanted.

Same thing with the Stones, who went from recording their albums in lavish mansions, funky studios in Jamaica, an empty venue in Rotterdam, and other similar exotic locales, and they ended up the decade in pretty much the same exact places -- Musicland in Munich, or back at Olympic in London, and then ultimately they discovered EMI-Pathe-Marconi studios in Paris to end out the decade. At first, the trend among '70s groups was to record on location somewhere funky and exotic, and then take it somewhere "nice" to do the final mix and overdubs and polish it up. Eventually, after a while, I guess they all just realized it was easier and better to record the whole thing in a professional place, that everybody knew sounded good.

I happen to think that "Bron-Yr-Aur" is the best-sounding RECORDING on the whole Physical Graffitti album. And that's the oldest track, from Island Studios, in Basing Street, where "Stairway" was recorded.

 

It might give Steely Dan fans conniptions but for the most part I think it sounds fine. Maybe a bit "washed out" sounding in places, but nothing distracting. Has a real "live" ambient sound on some tracks that probably influenced Steve Albini's approach to recording.

 

The recently surfaced 'bin master' tapes are an interesting listen. PG sounds considerably less murky in places.

 

Does that mean the "film" or muddiness that some complain about is in the mixing? Or maybe, could it be that many of us heard later pressings from a well-used mother or stamper? Or could it be our own copies are just well worn?

 

Well they recorded at Polar Studios because Bjorn from ABBA gave them three whole weeks of free studio time... and for ol' Led Wallet himself (Jimmy Page), that was like a red rag to a bull; Peter Grant once quipped that if you ever wanted to do Jimmy in, all you needed to do was throw ten pence under a moving bus!!!

But the real reason they didn't record in England post-1974 was because the socialist Labour government of the time had hiked the tax rates for the highest earners up to absurdly punitive levels, and the band (plus just about every other high-earning individual in Britain) fled the country en masse as tax exiles rather than give the government a staggering 97% of their earnings!

 

I do tend to think most of the non Nevison recorded older tracks sound better, but probably not more hi fi. The album is meant to be cranked, and if done half proper, near impossible for PG to not sound great.

 

Didn't the Stones do their roving studio routine solely as a tax shelter?

 

i enjoy it very much.

 

I like the Dan, and I think Physical Graffiti sounds great. The world would be a boring place if everything sounded like Aja, Yes 90125 or a Taylor Swift LP. It can be fantastic when an artist uses the studio as another instrument like that. But it's also great if the artist uses the tape to just capture a particular moment or performance. The likes of Physical Graffiti, Exile (which is a whole other level of mud), Tonight's The Night, Layla and others are great albums. They are great recordings. By definition, they are well recorded.

 

Perhaps he means it was a Brownstone.

 

I did wonder if Page deliberately left the mixing slightly muddy as Plant's voice was beginning to show the effects of wear and tear. To my ears, on the 1974 recorded tracks especially Custard Pie, he's further down in the mix than previous albums and sounding decidedly hoarse. He sounds better on the "out-takes" from '70-72, though this might be confirmation bias because I've heard so many '75 bootlegs where he sounds flu-atrocious.

 

I would say the recording quality is 'variable' - in line with an album recorded over a period of 4-5 years in a variety of studios.

 

Well I'm sure that taxes were a factor, but my main point was that after Physical Graffiti, '74 or '75 or so, both Zeppelin and the Stones didn't record in any mansions or castles or funky buildings, after experimenting quite a bit along those lines earlier in the decade (the Stones recorded at Nelcotte, and at Mick's house, while on tour at Muscle Shoals, in an empty concert venue in Rotterdam, etc). After wrestling with mixing Graffiti (and they did grapple with it, it took a lot of effort to mix those tracks) Zeppelin opted to skip all that ambiance and atmosphere, and went to state-of-the-art studios for the rest of their career. (Although yeah, they did later rehearse at Clearwell Castle in 1979-80-ish, but they very conspicuously opted NOT to record there, even though Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and others had already used the facility to make albums, Zep did not).

As far as Polar Studios goes, at that time some massive hit records were coming out of there. Musicland was desirable because they had a Helios console there, that was very in-demand type of mixing desk (a type that Jimmy had worked with before, both at Olympic, and with the Rolling Stones mobile truck) . The Helios mixing desk has a very recognizable "sound" which really isn't a "sound," so much as it is basically just really awesomely GOOD SOUND ...think crunchy, heavy rock music of the '70s, the good kind of EQ and compression (there were compressors and EQ in the mix console channels). A ton of really great classic rock records were made on Helios consoles, in fact there was a scramble in the '80s among engineers and studios to buy them up before they disappeared.

Taxes were surely a factor, but again...my point was that lots of groups experimented with recording in ambient or exotic locations in the '70s, and then abandoned that trend by the end of the '70s, and opted instead for hunkering down in pro studios, to get "known" results instead of wrestling with their mixes later.

 

I concur

 

1. Great music, great album. Very enjoyable and I've been loving it since I was 13.
2. I listen to and love much "low fi" or whatever you wanna call it music like bootlegs, garage stuff, punk, sludgy psych etc. I'm very fulfilled by awesome music that sounds like a$$s

That said, all the other lz records that I've gotten to "keeper" copies of imo sound a lot more clear punchy and hifi than pg does. That gives me the impression maybe that the pooch got screwed a little. Especially when you consider the epic and giant nature of many of the songs, it seems a weird choice to present stuff like that in a "raw" or spontaneous way, so maybe it wasn't a choice?
I feel like time fades away and tonight's the night both sound better than this copy, and those literally are raw and live. Also taped w a van I think?

And did someone invoke Taylor swift? Ha!

 

Its the loosest album they made up to that point. I think it would have been a mistake to have it sound like LZ, or III or Houses. Too many warts. No need to highlight them.

 

Given that PhyGraff was recorded across several sessions in several studios with several engineers, I’d blame the quality of the mix.

Still, my favorite Zep album whenever I’m not listening to Presence.