Artist Spotlight: Led Zeppelin

The band Led Zeppelin is pretty much synonymous with classic rock, and hard rock in general—so much so that the stylistic variety of their music is often overlooked.

Jimmy Page had been the third lead guitarist (after Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck) in the Yardbirds, but after the rest of the band slowly dropped out around him, he was left to cobble together a new band to complete the Yardbirds’ touring commitments. He recruited singer Robert Plant, who brought along drummer John Bonham. Bassist John Paul Jones, who had worked with Page before in various recording sessions, completed the group.

They finished the tour as the New Yardbirds, but soon renamed themselves Led Zeppelin, reportedly to poke fun at claims that their project would crash like a lead balloon. Rock music would never be the same.

I had originally created a whopping four CD-length playlists of Led Zeppelin, which took me a while to piece together. But when I realized I’d only cut 20 songs from their entire studio album output, I decided to pare it down to two CD-length playlists of the music I loved the most. There are some notable omissions, including their most famous song, but I can live with that.

I’ve included the original four playlists at the end of the post, for those who want a deeper dive. (Even these are missing a few tracks some consider essential.)

Playlist 1

Led Zeppelin starts off as a proto-heavy-metal blues-rock act, with some extended psychedelic interludes giving the songs some space.   Led Zeppelin II has the best reputation of their late-‘60s albums, but I found it fairly easy to make cuts from it—I have a hard time buying all that “When the mountains crumble into the sea” lovey-dovey crap from a guy who less than a year before was crying out, “Soul of a woman was created below!” I’m all for a little battle-of-the-sexes trash talk, from either side, but the phony sweet talk turns me off.

Led Zeppelin III is more flower-power in spirit (and lyrical content), and Led Zeppelin IV seems to encompass all they’d done before, in one of the great albums of classic rock.

Playlist 2

An obsession with groove begins the take over on Houses of the Holy, continuing through Physical Graffiti and Presence. During the mutant funk of “The Crunge,” Plant even does an amusing imitation of James Brown asking for a bridge. In Through the Out Door finds the band exploring different musical avenues and in general aiming for a less heavy sound.

Artwork:

• Led Zeppelin: Source, Discogs.com, Fair Use.
• Led Zeppelin III (back cover): Source, Discogs.com, Fair Use.
• Hindenburg disaster photograph: By Sam Shere (1905–1982) – Zeppelin-ramp de Hindenburg / Hindenburg zeppelin disaster, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19329337