In my mind Zep had two studio phases--  a largely improvisational 'true blues' approach for the first three, and a more compositional approach for the fourth album on.

As I can only choose one based on objective standards, I'd give it to Phys for consistency of content, fidelity & production, and full collaboration between all four members.

As I mentioned to you before, I absolutely love ZoSo, it is a great and historic album; but you are right, Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's statement album. The staggering amount of excellent material on that double album set is really a testament as to how good Zeppelin was by 1975. There are sprawling epics, there is funk, there is heavy metal, blues, and one of the most lovely acoustic pieces you'll ever hear....

Difficult to pick between the first four (so I went for the o,ne with fewer votes)

Love the debut, can't listen to II because I heard it way too much at house parties, and if I love Zoso's A-side (near-perfection), I was never a fan of the flipside.

III is the one I heard least, probably because not often played at house parties, because too acoustic.

HofH has enough good material for one great A-side (if No Quarter makes the jump, but the rest is pure dreck.

Graffiti is just a bottom-of-drawer compilation (three good tracks over 2 lps is way too few), and Presence (what a sh*tty artwork) has three tracks lost between horrid stuff. Outsdoor is nothing woth remembering, IMHO

As I am uninterested in quibbling this morning, I will just say they are 1A and 1B in my opinion.

You're right and it is subjective. One thing about Led Zep is their output is remarkably consistent (imo of course) - they didn't produce a duff song until Hots On For Nowhere.

Jaketejas wrote: Although Zoso is the best from my perspective and I honestly can’t see how anyone could choose otherwise (it’s just THAT good!), your choice is equally as valid. How can music be anything but subjective? One might say ... oh, the production was better on one album over another, but does that make the music better? Not always. Sometimes, production improves albums and sometimes good production turns raw energy into sterility. One might say that the chord progressions are better, or that the phrasing is better, or that the call and answer blues works better. I would argue that to be the case with Zoso, but that is all entirely subjective.

ZoSo is their best when you aren't a Zep fanatic, haven't delved deeply enough into their full catalog, or simply think Black Dog or Four Sticks or Misty Mountain Hop are great songs.   Though fun, satisfying and well produced, the fourth album is more a statement of theater and attitude than it is a collection of quality compositions.   When reduced and broken down, ZoSo reveals itself as a work more of embellishment and illusion than inspired song craft.   Nothing wrong with that, but the musical content was far greater on almost all their other releases.

ZoSo is your favorite when you're twenty, tolerable when you're thirty, and old hat by the time you're forty.   But Phys is somehow always fresh and ready for further spins, further exploration, their White Album.   ZoSo not so much.

Jaketejas wrote: I’ve actually played quite a bit of their music at one time or another, so I wouldn’t categorize myself in that way. Nevertheless, I’m afraid that I do not share your perspective. For all of the actual musical qualities that I detailed earlier, Zoso is for me their peak. Perhaps you overplayed the album? That’s what it sounds like from your post, and I have admittedly done that with some albums - in some cases, so much so that I never want to hear them again. Let's see what the poll shows.

Went with Zoso....mostly due to 3 tracks...Battle, Stairway and Levee....like the first 7 though and almost went with the first due to it's bombastic debut. Also think Houses to be very good other than those two strange diversions into 'funk'.

PG would have made a killer single...too many 'xtra' tracks  for me to say it's their best.

It's kind of tricky for LZ. One could easily say that CTTE is the best Yes album even if it isn't their personal favorite. Another example might be Moving Pictures for Rush. The line between what one considers to be the best and what is their personal favorite can get blurred quite easily. For LZ it would most likely be(imo) 2, HotH or 4 but even those albums all have some stuff that could be considered a bit weak. 

The Dark Elf wrote: Interesting results so far. Fairly evenly spaced. I would like to hear the justification for the one person who selected In Through The Out Door. Granted, everything is subjective, but the original question was what was the best Zeppelin album, not your favorite. If one were being objective, I'm not sure how you could quantify ITTOD as the best album Zeppelin ever released.

No accounting for taste. I find Presence and ITTOD to be fairly boring myself but my guess is someone voted for it as a joke.

I would say Physical Graffiti, IV and II would be the most logical choices as their best (or I could come up with logical arguments for any of them), with HotH, I and III following in a 2nd tier. Although I personally like Presence, I don't think it's on the same level, and I think even less of Up the Down Escalator.

^ Everyone who owned an original vinyl pressing knows it ... well most did, it was sort of a 'secret'.

“Going to California” would be a great Zeppelin song for me except the absolutely stupid lyrical passage:

Let me guess. It makes you want to punch Robert Plant on the nose? 

^Plant was describing (in veiled terms) what the band had been through to that point--  by '71 they were gods, had been thoroughly battered by the press, and they all hated flying on airplanes which they had to do in order to tour.   Huge success and Peter Grant's relentless tour & recording schedule didn't help.

But yeah, those lyrics are far from his best.

Descending scales as found in the intro to Stairway to Heaven have been around forever. Which is why the whole Spirit lawsuit is a joke. Here, 17th century and in the public domain for a few hundred years:

Or another 400 year old folk song as played by The Modern Folk Quartet in 1963

Presence. It gets a mauling. People moaned when there were acoustic numbers, then when there were none they moaned about the absence on Presence. No radio hits here really. This was and is deep cut stuff. Their Wish You Were Here to Zep IV's Dark Side. Throw in Station To Station and we have a trifecta of what great 70s rock was really about.

Achilles Last Stand with that minor 6 intro and the journey and sections throughout. Outstanding drumming and restraind solos as Jimmy Page applies his art. The reason I lik listening to Zeppelin is listening to this guy play (which he does very well here). For Your Life is what happens to You Shook Me (also brilliant). Exceptional solo.

Royal Orleans. Rhythm section madness as Plant negotiates the dynamics. Bonzo exceptional as the band, under pressure at the time, delivers material that even if a sog was not great is easily disguised by their stunning ability to play the hell out of anything.

Nobody's Fault But Mine. Unlike Whole Lotta Love only the lyrics are nicked - Zeppelin took all of Bukka White's riff (his arrangement for the number) and Willie Dixon's lyrics and "wrote" that one. (White's was on utube for a while but seems to have vanished. Worse than their "writing" In My Time Of Dying  ten years or so after Bob Dylan first covered it. But other than that, for me unforgivable blemish, deliberate plagiarism Nobody's Fault is bliss. Here Page has a killer riff. Never fouled up in concert it is a sublime piece of how blues can really be progressed. Stunning solo and the band are just fantastic.

Next up Hots On For Nowhere and Candy Store Rock are the only weaker moments. Good performances on songs that are is search for a melody or hook. Nice rhythmic approach but that's it... Ok but needed some more thought.

I know Page Plant made Tea For One into a medley with SIBLY but really they are very separate. Another ultra cool opening riff and then of all things it slows down to a crawl. The ride cymbal guides us through this desperate blues. The lyrics are complemented by the deep soul of Page's guitar work which both understated and sublime in it's haze. It's long but it is worth every moment.

More solos, more performance, more spontaneity more cohesion, no stupid lyrics (That Going to California moment). No excessive vocal ad libs that annoy some. Epics standing toe to toe with the best of the others, though really only Kashmir is equal. Levee and Stairway are sublime and close and Dazed is possibly a good source of many ideas they get for this. No pop songs, this is hard core rock at it's most uncompromising. It is dripping in atmosphere as well.

Context and comparison.

So a couple of tunes probably needed a little more thought (I am perfectly happy to be wrong here), doesn't take away from the most complete album statement. Parts of Zep 1 (most of side 1) couple of moments off Zep 2, most of Zep 3 and 4, 3/4 of HoTH Just want to say their choice of No Quarter was the wrong one. The Electric Ladyland recordings are close to the concert ones at 10 minutes and sound way more cool and interesting. A bit of editing of guitars and take three is the one.. Most of PG also (In The Light a little under cooked, like Candy and Hots. Seaside is nice but a little featureless for such a slow number - go directly to Tea For One. If we forgive Plant that most wretched of 70s rock lyric topic for Sick Again we have to accept the same drivel on For Your Life. But his performance of both particularly the latter is outstanding and hides the drivel - rock stars moaning about groupies and cocaine. Such hard, miserable lives. A tear.

Side 2 or tracks 4, 5, and 6 may be the best side of rock ever released for Graffiti which, if spit into different albums might have given Presence runs for their money. Close but the performance and cohesion of Presence gives it the edge. But that side 2 of Graffiti...

Like the multiple sectioned performances of Dazed And Confused in concert and probably No Quarter live this is the sort of thing where no one can ever get anywhere near Led Zeppelin. Though Rainbow came close with Long Live Rock and Roll as Blackmore tried to do his version of Graffiti. Lady Of the Lake is his "rewrite" of the Wanton Song. Now if that one had turned up on Presence instead...

Great review of Presence.

Actually, Bukka White did not write or originally play "Nobody's Fault But Mine", that was Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. The song was already in the public domain by 1976. That voice. Killer! 

Here's the one I was thinking of by the Beatles … opening chords to Michelle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoBLi5eE-wY" rel="nofollow -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoBLi5eE-wY" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoBLi5eE-wY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoBLi5eE-wY" rel="nofollow -

Love Page's use of the chords, though.  I think he throws a nice chord inversion in there (voicing).  And, then that transition to the next part.  Sublime.  But, don't listen to it TOO MUCH!

  

and I's has to ask... though you are probably going to break my heart..

how many Beatles albums do you own.

 

I'll soon need two hands to count all of my Beatles albums, as I currently have five albums by the Fab Four, although that includes compilations too.

 

That's good to hear. I wouldn't want to end up being Trampled Underfoot.

Dude, whatever you think about "Thank You", take it from me -- you whip out the acoustic and play that in a bar, you are going to get laid. It's just one of those songs. You mentioned "Nights in White Satin" elsewhere, it's like that.

*spits Raff coffee all over monitor*

now that is truly heartbreaking... next you'll tell me Dark Side ain't doing it either...

so what does the youngin' set turn to when it is time to get to it...

edited for clarity

Songs from the Wood?

Having played in bars for decades, I can tell you not everything works as an aural aphrodisiac.

But for humor's sake I do recall an interview with Paul Simon where the interviewer was going on and on about Simon's lyrical profundity and the impact his compositions had on society in the 1960s. After gushing about how deep Simon's songwriting was, the interviewer finally asked Paul what drove him to play guitar?

Simon got an evil smirk and replied something to the effect: "Chicks. Are you kidding me? I was a 5'3'' Jewish kid."

I agree.  

In Through The Out Door although I only own the last 3 studio albums plus a 2 cd compilation (although the sound is dreadful!)

My favourite LZ album is The Way The West Was Won. Easily one the best live recordings of any band there has ever been imo.

How The West Was Won is definitely an improvement on The Song Remains the Same live album. They picked the wrong album tour to film.

Just found this. Much appreciated.

I'll be spinning Presence with some new ears.

IV.

micky wrote: the brown bomber.. that rules all kinds of heaven and hell.. so much more you can ignore the musical sh*t stain that is Thank You... even Zep could wiff once in awhile..

 

Was tempted to go with micky's totally senseful II (IMO)..   certainly a bomb of an album!  it has more songs too..  

By the way..  I like 'Thank You' very much also. 

That's kind of how I feel too. I guess with that in mind I "should" have voted for 4 but I think going to california, four sticks, when the levee breaks and battle of evermore are technically a bit weaker than the rest of the album.