Best Led Zeppelin Album?

I'm all about III...I tend to like IV and Houses the most when they get closest to III's sound...

III is also one of the reasons I voted for 70 on the 70-71-72 poll...

I also really like the first album...it seems the most Amon Dull II-acid-rock-ish of them all, thx to Dazed and Confused and How Many More Times...

(though PG disc 2 could have it all over the first irt acid rock...been a long time since I gave it a spin)

I must admit I tend to listen to disc 1 more

I liked "In my time", "Trampled", "Kasgmr" and "Boogie w/ Stu"

The rest passed without.

I've been listening to PG for years and it just struck me today how fierce Page's guitar tone is on (the song) "Houses of the Holy." I want all guitar to sound like that all the time.

i generally love the acoustic stuff on the other early albums, but for some reason III just leaves me cold.

Physical Graffiti won, what else do you want? Justice was done. I would personally like to see Presence higher in the tally, but you can't have everything, I guess.

"Night Flight"

also "The Rover"

How the fuck did zoso or the first album not win this?? fuck ilx contrarianism.

the debut only got FIVE votes?? you gotta fucking be kidding me.

oh come on, i'm sure most of the people who voted for houses, IV and graffiti still REALLY LOVE the debut. they just don't think it's THE BEST.

yeah that album might be the biggest bridesmaid of them all

otm (x-post)

my order goes something like this:

1. Houses Of The Holy
2. IV
3. Physical Grafitti
4. II
5. In Through The Out Door
6. I
7. Presence
8. III
9. Coda

they really were just on some other shit with Houses....just these incredible tones and textures Page was putting together with all the layers of guitar, less blues-based than the earlier stuff but still real hard rocking. i don't even like "D'yer Maker" that much but when you put it on an album with "The Crunge" I kind of get the whole spirit of it, stretching out and incorporating different sounds.

How the fuck did zoso or the first album not win this?? fuck ilx contrarianism.

??? almost everybody in the normal world calls Houses of the Holy the best all-around LZ album, don't they?

I agree with Bee Ok

1. Houses Of The Holy
2. IV
3. Physical Graffiti
4. II

^ The only ones I've paid for. Also the order I would rank them based on which ones I listen to the most.

not sure what 'normal world' is in this case but it's always seemed to me that out of the more popular half of their catalog Zoso is the biggest and the default consensus pick.

One of the things I love about III is that "Out on the Tiles" and "Tangerine" never got played on the rock radio where I live(d), so when I finally got III, it was "WTF! these songs rock!"

I don't think any other band has such a high percentage of radio songs.
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almost everybody in the normal world calls Houses of the Holy the best all-around LZ album, don't they?

it seems like it's always II and IV as the undisputed , but Houses is it for me. and "Houses" is often my favorite song by them, and I don't know why they didn't put it on the album, because they seem like a band that reading the history would diminish it (opposite of The Who)

my theory about that has always been that it's a little bit similar to "Dancing Days" and so they decided only one could be on the album and had to ditch the would-be title track because "Dancing Days" is the shit

I don't think any other band has such a high percentage of radio songs.

Trying to work your way through "Physical Graffiti" is a chore. Maybe it's just the pressing I've got, but is it supposed to sound so muddy and indistinct?

Well, I'd describe the 2CD set I have as 'clear as a bell'.

Maybe that's it, I don't think I've ever been able to listen to that album all the way through, I always bale out at some point

Guys the fourth record is not called "Zoso," come on.

I can only cluster them into groups, even the least of these is Godhead

1. III/Physical Graffiti/Presence

2. IV/Houses of the Holy

3. I/II/In Through The Out Door

I wonder if people who voted for one of the first two records fall into a different, less enthusiastic category of fans than boosters of III or Physical Graffiti? By that I mean the kind of late-adapter (I've done this w/ other bands) who by default is listening for what he's been led to expect — in this case purplish, OTT blues ripoffs...?

Which is not to say they didn't continue to do that over the years but the influences were subsumed into their own sound, e.g. "In My Time of Dying" is more representative of "Led Zeppelin" to me than "You Shook Me"...

I wonder if people who voted for one of the first two records fall into a different, less enthusiastic category of fans than boosters of III or Physical Graffiti? By that I mean the kind of late-adapter (I've done this w/ other bands) who by default is listening for what he's been led to expect — in this case purplish, OTT blues ripoffs...?

No

Ha but if you never listened to PG all the way through you are basically my case study

I voted for Physical Graffiti because I wanted to

The last time I was at Strictly Discs I found a used copy of the remastered In Through the Out Door and bought it. My least favorite clerk was like "Really? Out of all their albums?" I said "IT IS AWESOME." Just like that. He meekly replied "most people go for one of the others" and I raised myself to my full eight feet, unfurled my black leathery wings, and intoned ""I AM NOT MOST PEOPLE""

he got the hint i think

― Dimension 5ive, Thursday, April 12, 2007 5:52 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

d-damn...

I've been listening to them since I was 7 years old though! (xp)

Ok, but come on you are definitely in the "less enthusiastic fan" category for not even being able to stomach what many/most fans consider their magnum opus

Fair enough, I wouldn't particularly call myself a Led Zeppelin fan anyway

Only means you still have something left to live for.

Guys the fourth record is not called "Zoso," come on.

chill out, it's fun to call it that informally now and again.

I call it I-Vee

xpost...like i was kinda sleepy watching this Traveling Wilbury's documentary(!) on Sundance last week and realized I was unduly dismissive (MEAN, even) at the time when actually those songs are pretty good and I was listening for the wrong thing, and maybe I'll pick up that record now...

Or: I am old.

Runes

Hunchback With Bundle

That Which Cannot Be Named

Why does Bill Magill hate II so much?

Guys the fourth record is not called "Zoso," come on.

2. IV/Houses of the Holy

It's not called "IV" either.

isn't it untitled?

1. Physical Grafitti
2. Coda (complete box set vers)
3. III
4. II
5. Four
6. Houses of the Holy
7. Presence
8. In Through The Out Door
9. I
10. other records by other bands

True enough but "Zoso" is WAY OUTTA LINE...anyway it's not a word, it's a symbol representing Saturn... /end pre-pubescent pedantry

"Why does Bill Magill hate II so much?"

???????????????????? It's certainly not my favorite, but I don't know if "hate" describes my feelings for it.

I hate II with a passion rivalling my feelings for post-rehab Aerosmith.

― Bill Magill, Thursday, 12 April 2007 20:27 (1 year ago)

Nice work. I forgot I said that. I don't like it, I especially dislike the Lemon Song. Plus I have no use for Heartbreaker/LLM or Whole Lotta Love. I like What Is.. and Ramble On. That's about it.

I'm really not the biggest Zeppelin fan at all.

weird. i always saw II as more or less the blueprint for early-Sabbath. what could be more Bill than that?

I would have thought the same.

It never clicked with me. I don't know about II having much influence on Sabbath, I know they were gigging pretty hard by then and already had what they were going to put on wax, at least initally, pretty worked out. They were heavily influenced by a lot of the stuff on I.

II does kind of blow...Whole Lotta Love is pretty much summation of first album, and I do like What Is, Ramble On (dig that mellotron), I even like LLM & Heartbreaker: extending the quicksilver pop of Communication Breakdown, but just before it reached perfection on III with Immigrant Song and Out on the Tiles...still cmon...Lemon Song and Bring it on Home are as cumbersome and boring as anything on Daydream Nation, and Moby Dick is even worse...a terrible idea for an album track...II is definitely a classic example of the hastily patched-together follow-up album, but since Zep are pretty much Norse gods of teh rawk, it still rules at least 70% of the time...I'd prolley rank it just below Zoso/IV/untitled/stfu...

oh yeah Thank You kind of sucks...Planet Caravan shits upon it from the golden heavens...