Led Zeppelin - The Albums
Created | Updated Jul 17, 2003
LED ZEPPELIN: One of the most successful bands in history1 though they never released a single in the UK; Endlessly attacked by music critics as 'derivative' and 'clumsy' while consistently inspiring and exciting their fans; Regularly referred to as 'dinosaurs' even though their singer was only 32 when the band broke up after 12 years of wild touring and stunning creativity.
This entry provides an introduction to the eight studio albums, three live albums, one 'mop-up' album and one DVD released to date by Led Zeppelin.
A Brief Introduction To The Band
Why listen to the music? A little introduction may be in order... Led Zeppelin comprised a unique combination of talent. Their leader was Jimmy Page, one of the most experienced and prolific session guitarists of the 1960s. In 1968 he was a member of legendary R&B band The Yardbirds, who were about to split up.
With a number of tour dates still to honour, and with the rest of the band already departed, Page set about recruiting new musicians. John Paul Jones was another respected session man, bass player and musical arranger. He contacted Page after reading a music press article about the new band. Several established vocalists were also asked to join, but all were busy. One of them recommended Robert Plant, a powerful singer from the Midlands. Page went to see him perform and was immediately impressed. They soon found that they had very similar musical tastes and ideas. Just to finish off nicely, Plant was able to recommend an ex-bandmate for the drumming duties - John Henry Bonham.
The combination of the four musicians was stunning. They worked their way through any number of blues, folk and rock'n'roll standards and added elements of American West Coast rock. They started putting together their own songs, often built very strongly on the old originals. In a number of cases they never quite got round to changing lyrics or the odd guitar riff here and there, and that unfortunate oversight has been the cause of a lot of the criticism and a number of court cases over the years. This article doesn't intend to defend the band for this frequent borrowing, but suffice to say that the sound they made, certainly after the first album, bore little in common with their original sources.
The band completed the old Yardbirds tour obligations as "The New Yardbirds". Page was then legally obliged to stop using this name and had to come up with something else. The year before he had played a session with his old friend Jeff Beck and other players, including The Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle. They enjoyed playing together and even discussed striking out as a new group, but decided that the idea would "go over like a lead Zeppelin". The perfect name for a heavy-rock band, it was adjusted to 'Led Zeppelin' for correct pronounciation purposes.
So, at the end of 1968, began the history and legend of Led Zeppelin. The band toured for months on end, building a reputation for unrivalled live performance. Concert reviews refer to the fact that their audiences would actually sit down when the band started playing - knocked back into their seats by the full-out power. They created new attendance records and touring standards. Overblown stories of their excesses have been written about in any number of books since that time. Some of them may even be true, but that's for somewhere else. This article is about the music; light and heavy, dramatic and soothing, wild and inspiring. Most often described as 'tight but loose'.
There is a more detailed biography of Led Zeppelin on H2G2 here, but this entry is about the officially released music and film.
The Eight Studio Albums
Led Zeppelin
Release date:
January 12, 1969
Songs:
Good Times Bad Times/Babe I'm Gonna Leave You/You Shook Me/Dazed And Confused/Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side/Communication Breakdown/I Can't Quit You Baby/How Many More Times
Notes:
Reported to have been recorded in under 30 hours, the first Led Zeppelin album was rooted in the late 60s hard-rock sound of Cream, The Who, the original Fleetwood Mac and, most of all, The Jeff Beck Group's album Truth which had many similar elements including a cover of Willie Dixon's You Shook Me. Beck is said to have taken the similarity as a personal insult from Page.
This album contains one of Led Zeppelin's most famous songs, Dazed and Confused, which would run to half an hour or more in some concerts and includes Page's trademark use of a violin bow to play 'weird noises' on his guitar (wonderfully parodied in Spinal Tap where the guitarist uses a violin instead of a violin bow). Considering that the four musicians had only been playing together for a couple of months and that singer Robert Plant was only just twenty, this is one hell of a confident and powerful album. But there was a lot better to come...Led Zeppelin II
Release date:
October 22, 1969
Songs:
Whole Lotta Love/What Is And What Should Never Be/The Lemon Song/Thank You/Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)/Ramble On/Moby Dick/Bring It On Home
Notes:
With little doubt the most powerful heavy-rock album ever, sealing Led Zeppelin's reputation for delivering excitement and drama, it was recorded in a number of different studios while the band toured extensively. Starting off with a quiet cough and ending with a soft blues harmonica, the bits in between are as heavy as it gets.
Whole Lotta Love, traditionally used as the theme tune for the long running BBC chart show Top Of The Pops; The Lemon Song, one of the finest ever examples of a rock band truly playing together; Heartbreaker, extraordinary riff and that killer lone-guitar solo in the middle; Ramble On, with its Tolkien-inspired lyrics and beautiful vocal. Well, the whole album is pretty much flawless.Led Zeppelin III
Release date:
October 5, 1970
Songs:
Immigrant Song/Friends/Celebration Day/Since I've Been Loving You/Out On The Tiles/Gallows Pole/Tangerine/That's The Way/Bron-Y-Aur Stomp/Hats Off To (Roy) Harper
Notes:
A more experimental album, with a leaning towards a more folky, accoustic sound, but still containing the expected powerhouse songs, this album was not received well by the dreaded critics. Led Zep were way above criticism though, and tracks like the superpowered Immigrant Song and Since I've Been Loving You are beyond words anyway. Apparently you can hear Bonham's bass drum pedal squeaking throughout this song.
Out On The Tiles is a unique track in that the drums effectively take the usual guitar solo spot, weaving and hammering while the guitar and bass hold the rhythm. That particular song benefits greatly from being played very loud. The droning bridge between Friends and Celebration Day was added at the last minute when the original, and apparently brilliant, intro was accidentally wiped by a recording engineer. The Roy Harper of Hats Off To (Roy) Harper is the folk musician who sang Have A Cigar on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here album.Led Zeppelin (Untitled Fourth Album)
Release date:
November 8, 1971
Songs:
Black Dog/Rock And Roll/The Battle Of Evermore/Stairway To Heaven/Misty Mountain Hop/Four Sticks/Going To California/When The Levee Breaks
Notes:
On original release, this album had no indication of the group name or album title anywhere on sleeve or label. It is often referred to as Four Symbols, Zofo or Led Zep IV. It contains Stairway To Heaven. Nuff said. That alone has made it the fourth biggest selling album by a British band (after Dark Side of the Moon, Rumours and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band).
The story goes that Robert Plant made up the lyric to Stairway To Heaven on the spot the first time he heard the tune, most of this improvisation remaining in the finished song. Plant now refuses to sing the song, and doesn't even like discussing it, although he's happy to play plenty of other Zeppelin material. This is very similar to Radiohead's problem with their song Creep - it's become so well known that they've had to stop playing it just to get on with their lives and their careers (although Radiohead do, very occasionally, play Creep as a special treat for very good audiences). The Battle Of Evermore is a duet between Plant and the great English folk singer Sandy Denny. The drum intro for When The Levee Breaks is said to be the most sampled piece of music ever. The remastered version of this song brings the drums up out of the mix to where they belong, the perfect example of John Bonham's unique power.
Houses of the Holy
Release date:
March 28, 1973
Songs:
The Song Remains The Same/The Rain Song/Over The Hills And Far Away/The Crunge/Dancing Days/D'yer Mak'er/No Quarter/The Ocean
Notes:
A real diverse selection of songs which each work on their own, but maybe don't hold together as well as previous or later albums. The Rain Song uses a mellotron for the string sound. This notoriously complicated machine works in a similar way to a modern sampler, but due to the existing technology of the time, it actually uses a separate tape loop for each note. Still, the sound it produces is so 'warm' and natural that the mellotron is still used by a number of bands.
Other songs on this album have Led Zeppelin stamping their heavy mark on James Brown style funk (The Crunge) and a sort of over-the-top drum powered reggae (D'yer Mak'er - sounds like 'Jamaica' you see! Help!) But there's some lovely songs here, including No Quarter which is still part of the ex-members' live sets. A truly fabulous recording of Page and Plant performing a live version of the original arrangement of No Quarter is available on their 1998 CD single Shining In The Light. Absolute must-have for any Led Zep fan. Then there was a bit of a gap until...Physical Graffiti
Release date:
February 24, 1975
Songs:
Custard Pie/The Rover/In My Time Of Dying/Houses Of The Holy/Trampled Underfoot/Kashmir/In The Light/Bron-Yr-Aur/Down By The Seaside/Ten Years Gone/Night Flight/The Wanton Song/Boogie With Stu/Black Country Woman/Sick Again
Notes:
Well. A double album which never lets up on the heavy sound (save for a little gentle accoustic picking on Bron-Yr-Aur, the second Led Zep track to be named in honour of the little cottage in Wales where Robert Plant spent time on holiday as a child and where much of Led Zeppelin III was later written). Dynamic rock music at its finest, and to top it all there was Kashmir. Such a dramatic piece of (non-classical) music has never been heard. It builds and builds and makes you turn the volume up to 11 on the dial. And, for once, Robert Plant's lyrics are really quite poetic: "Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, Across the sea of years, With no provision but an open face, Along the straits of fear." Ooh, lovely. Truly a classic and essential album.
Presence
Release date:
March 31, 1976
Songs:
Achilles' Last Stand/For Your Life/Royal Orleans/Nobody's Fault But Mine/Candy Store Rock/Hots On For Nowhere/Tea For One
Notes:
Recorded during a period of disaster for the band, and particularly Robert Plant who sang from a wheelchair while recovering from a serious car crash. Routinely cited as Led Zeppelin's weakest and most obscure album, it really has improved with age and contains some of their funkiest ever songs, For Your Life, Candy Store Rock and Hots On For Nowhere. It has the epic Achilles Last Stand, a highlight of the Knebworth footage now available on their 2003-released DVD and the turbo-R&B of Nobody's Fault But Mine. The album ends with the sublime blues solo of Tea For One, said to have been recorded by Jimmy Page in one take, perhaps his finest solo yet.In Through the Out Door
Release date:
August 15, 1979
Songs:
In The Evening/South Bound Saurez/Fool In The Rain/Hot Dog/Carouselambra/All My Love/I'm Gonna Crawl
Notes:
In Through The Out Door was mainly written by Robert Plant and Led Zep's extraordinary bass-player and multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones. They were the two members who were most 'together' at this time - the ones who turned up on time in the studio - and this led to the new collaboration. Perhaps the most dated of Led Zeppelin's albums, mainly due to the dominant keyboard and synthesizer sounds of the time, it still contains a number of great songs.
Kicking off with the drone introduction to In The Evening, which quickly bursts into a classic Led Zep riff, the album tends towards a carnival sound, grooving piano, whistles and fast drumming. The two stand out songs come at the end with All My Love, a powerfully moving song dedicated to Robert Plant's dead son, and the orchestral blues of I'm Gonna Crawl. Just a year later John Bonham died in his sleep after a long drinking session and the remaining members of Led Zeppelin announced that they simply could not carry on without him.
The Left-overs Album
Coda
Release date:
November 19, 1982
Songs:
We're Gonna Groove/Poor Tom/I Can't Quit You Baby/Walter's Walk/Ozone Baby/Darlene/Bonzo's Montreaux/Wearing And Tearing
Notes:
Coda is a small collection of unreleased tracks, a soundcheck recording and a newly constructed drum solo piece. There are outstanding individual songs which no Led Zep fan will want to miss, but it's not highly regarded as an album. Bonzo's Montreaux, created from studio recordings of John Bonham hammering his kit to fantastic effect, then treated to electronic magic from Jimmy Page is a magnificent alternative to the more often heard solo Moby Dick. Poor Tom also highlights Bonzo's driving drums and the soundcheck recording of I Can't Quit You Baby is incredibly tight and echoing. We're Gonna Groove is an overdubbed version of the live performance which can be seen at the start of the Albert Hall footage on the Led Zeppelin DVD.
The Live Albums
The Song Remains the Same
Release date:
October 22, 1976
Songs:
Rock And Roll/Celebration Day/The Song Remains The Same/Rain Song/Dazed And Confused/No Quarter/Stairway To Heaven/Moby Dick/Whole Lotta Love
Notes:
Led Zeppelin had twice attempted to make a professional film of one of their performances, but the band seemed to be developing and changing so quickly that the footage was effectively out of date before it could be edited and released. Finally, they decided to combine film of their 1973 Madison Square Garden performances, along with newer backstage footage and five "fantasy sequences", one for each member of the band and one for their infamous manager Peter Grant.
The resulting feature film was released in 1976 along with a soundtrack album which actually used a number of different recordings to those in the film. Both the film and the soundtrack were nowhere near the usual Led Zeppelin standard and have never been remastered, either for DVD release or, in the case of the soundtrack, to fit in with Jimmy Page's CD remastering project in the 1990s. They have both been effectively abandoned to history but they do have their place in the story of Led Zeppelin, having been the only official live material available before 1997 and the only live film before 2003.
In fact, the soundtrack includes some amazing performances, particularly in No Quarter and Whole Lotta Love, and the film... well, it has its moments. Perhaps an extended and cleaned up version of the soundtrack, including the extra tracks from the film and the 2003 DVD, will be released one day for re-evaluation.BBC Sessions
Release date:
November 11, 1997
Songs:
You Shook Me/I Can't Quit You Baby/Communication Breakdown/Dazed And Confused/The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair/What Is And What Should Never Be/Communication Breakdown/Travelling Riverside Blues/Whole Lotta Love/Somethin' Else/Communication Breakdown/I Can't Quit You Baby/You Shook Me/How Many More Times/Immigrant Song/Heartbreaker/Since I've Been Loving You/Black Dog/Dazed And Confused/Stairway To Heaven/Going To California/That's The Way/Whole Lotta Love (includes medley of Boogie Chillun', Fixin To Die, That's Alright Mama and A Mess Of Blues)/Thank You
Notes:
The first new official release from Led Zeppelin for 15 years was a comprehensive collection of sessions and live recordings for the BBC. So comprehensive in fact that there are three versions of Communication Breakdown and duplications of several other tracks, though these simply demonstrate Led Zeppelin's diversity in performance of the same song.
The recordings were made between 1968 and 1971 and capture their performances of the time wonderfully, even if the studio audience don't seem to react quite as enthusiastically as they would in a full concert hall, merely clapping politely at the end of the unreleased-at-the-time Stairway To Heaven. For Led Zeppelin fans, this 2CD set really helped to fill a massive gap in their catalogue. Although the recordings had been available for many years as bootlegs, the remastered versions were really something else.
For nearly six years this was the definitive Led Zeppelin live recording. Then it was eclipsed. Totally.How The West Was Won
Release date:
May 26, 2003
Songs:
LA Drone/Immigrant Song/Heartbreaker/Black Dog/Over The Hills And Far Away/Since I've Been Loving You/Stairway To Heaven/Going To California/That's The Way/Bron-Y-Aur Stomp/Dazed And Confused/What Is And What Should Never Be/Dancing Days/Moby Dick/Whole Lotta Love/Rock And Roll/The Ocean/Bring It On Home
Notes:
How The West Was Won, a 3CD live set compiled from recordings of two Californian shows from 1972 was finally released in May 2003 after years of rumours and speculation.
Combining crystal-clear remastered live tapes with some of the best performances Led Zeppelin ever gave. From the bursting power of Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker and Black Dog (after which Robert Plant nonchalantly says, "Good evening!") through beautiful performances of Over The Hills And Far Away, Since I've Been Loving You and Stairway To Heaven to the perfect accoustic set of Going To California, That's The Way and Bron-Y-Aur Stomp ("Strider!"). And that's just Disc 1. There's some 25 minutes of Dazed And Confused and a similar length Whole Lotta Love and not one dull moment. John Bonham's drumming is perfect throughout, a total highlight being The Ocean on the third CD. Nothing could beat this...
The DVD
Led Zeppelin DVD
Release date:
May 26, 2003
Songs:
We're Gonna Groove/I Can't Quit You Baby/Dazed And Confused/White Summer/What Is And What Should Never Be/How Many More Times/Moby Dick/Whole Lotta Love/Communication Breakdown/C'mon Everybody/Something Else/Bring It On Home/Black Dog/Misty Mountain Hop/Since I've Been Loving You/The Ocean/Going To California/That's The Way/Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp/In My Time Of Dying/Trampled Underfoot/Stairway to Heaven/Rock and Roll/Nobody's Fault But Mine/Sick Again/Achilles Last Stand/In the Evening/Kashmir/Whole Lotta Love + Various Interviews, TV Clips and Promos.
Notes:
...but wait. Led Zeppelin DVD, a five hour plus 2DVD set compiled from footage of the band taken throughout their career, released on the same day as How The West Was Won, has broken all sales records for music video (nearly three times as many first week sales as the previous record holder) and a look at the contents shows why.
Starting with the camera walking onto the stage of the Royal Albert Hall with the band in 1969, John Bonham sits down behind his kit and rattles out a couple of warning drum bursts. We get a small hint of what's to come. Led Zeppelin had been together for less than a year when this show was filmed, but the performance is faultless, experimental, playful, overpowering. The DVD also contains brilliant film from 1973 (Madison Square Garden), 1975 (Earls Court) and 1979 (Knebworth) and lots of extra clips, interviews and promos.
A highlight is a clip from a French TV show circa 1969 where they find themselves on the same bill as the Salvation Army Band. A tracking shot from a frankly shocked-looking Sally Army lady, across the studio to Jimmy Page grinding and scraping his guitar through the 'weird bit' in Dazed And Confused is priceless. Other highlights include a storming performance of Trampled Underfoot at Knebworth, the 1973 version of The Ocean with shouted intro from Bonzo and the intimate and perfect accoustic set from Earls Court.
At last, a true record of why it is that Led Zeppelin remain so revered so long after they last performed.
1Some official lists (e.g. RIAA) show Led Zeppelin as second only to The Beatles in US album sales - well in excess of 70 million albums sold in the United States alone, and more than 200 million Worldwide.
