Honestly, people, come on. Sure, I don't reach for it as often as I once did (like say, multiple times a day every day of 6th grade). But, this bad boy is brilliant! After the lukewarm reception for their unexpectedly acoustic-dominated third album, Led Zeppelin appear to have concocted the perfect blend of mellow and heavy...a stone cold classic.Side One opens with "Black Dog," which is quite possibly the greatest hard-rock groove e-v-e-r. Hey, hey, mama/Said the way you move/Gonna make you sweat/Gonna make you groove...bodacious, my brother. And Plant's Ah-oh, Ah-ah, Ah-oh, Ah-ah, Aaaaaaaah...? You know you love it.
"Rock and Roll" is up next, and only slightly less classic on the classic rock scale (say 9.99 as opposed to the 10.0 of the opener). But, why split hairs? It's been a long time since I rock and rolled...Page was certainly at the top of his "guitar-god" game in 1971. (PS - Damn the Cadillac commercials.)
"The Battle of Evermore" is acoustic based, and features the guest vocals of the late Sandy Denny--the only Zep song to feature a guest vocalist, unless I'm forgetting something. It's likely the most skipped song in the history of rock albums, purely as a result of its placement in the running order, coupled with the immense number of casual fans who've purchased this album (sales over 20 million). Heck, even I'll admit to having skipped it many times 'back in the day' (to use the parlance of our times). It might bloody well run on a bit long at nearly 6 minutes, but it's a damned fine tune nonetheless. It's probably even enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence, given the whole fantasy/Lord of the Rings boom.
"Stairway to Heaven" closes the first side. What can be said? It's a perennial winner of "greatest song ever" contests run by classic rock stations across this great land. Page's guitar solos in this song are widely touted as amongst the greatest ever recorded. And, of course, it is the perfect blueprint of the slow-mellow-song-turned-heavy-hard-and-fast. Let's not hold all of its imitators against it, please.
Side Two opens with "Misty Mountain Hop," one of my personal favorites. Great, great guitar/keyboard combo from Page and the ultimate utility man, John Paul Jones. Of course, Bonzo pounds away at the drums, as well.
"Four Sticks" is a heavy/dark/groovy song for which the title is allegedly based solely on the fact that Bonham played the drums with 2 sticks in each hand on the recording. It's not my favorite by any means, but still a solid track.
"Going to California" is a folk-rock acoustic tune, allegedly an ode to Joni Mitchell. An excellent song to mellow one's mind. Beautiful.
The album closes with a classic tour-de-force, "When the Levee Breaks." This is basically the culmination of, and good-bye to, Zeppelin's original heavy blues roots. It's quite possibly the quintessential example of their shameless plundering of the blues, albeit amped up with tremendous volume and heavier riffs. There's really not another song from this mold on any of their subsequent albums, although their first two had been full of them. I love that stuff, myself, which is why I count their first, second and fourth among my very favorites. Don't get me wrong. There are great hard rock tunes on their later albums, and they never fully removed themselves from the blues. They just became less blatant about the whole imitation-is-the-highest-form-of-flattery approach.
#66 on the Rolling Stone "Top 500" list? I'd say "underrated" doesn't begin to describe that placement.
Labels: Led Zeppelin IV, Runes, Untitled, Zoso
Shelly and I treated ourselves to a rare, just-the-two-of-us getaway yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. We saw the movie Fracture. It was enjoyable enough, I suppose. But, here's the problem I had with it:
