Best Led Zeppelin album

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[Breeze54]

1. Led Zeppelin II 1969

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~liden/zen_songs.html

Ramble On
(Page/Plant)

Leaves are falling all around
It's time I was on my way
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged
For such a pleasant stay
And now it's time for me to go
The autumn moon lights my way
And now I smell the rain, and with it pain
And it's headed my way
Ah, sometimes I grow so tired
But I know I've got one thing I got to do

Ramble on
And now's the time - the time is now
To sing my song
I'm going 'round the world
I got to find my girl - on my way
Been this way ten years to the day
I gotta ramble on
I gotta find the queen of all my dreams

Got no time for spreadin' roots
The time has come to be gone
And though our health we drank a thousand times
It's time to ramble on

Ramble on

Mine's a tale that can't be told
My freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air
Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor
I met a girl so fair
But Gollum, the evil one, crept up
And slipped away with her, her

Ain't nothing I can do, girl
I guess I'll keep on rambling
I'm gonna sing my song
I've gotta find my baby
I'm gonna ramble on - sing my song
Gonna work my way all around the world
Ramble on

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2. Great album with no filler.

[Throd]

3. Song Remains The Same because

as a live performance they had to put it all out there without hiding behind retakes and overdubs etc. It seemed to me that the band was playing just beyond their abilities, pushing extra hard, so I forgive them of any fuck ups or miscues that may have occurred. I always like live recordings as a test of what a band is truly made of.

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7. That's a good theory

[grannylib]

4. Ah man, that's tough...II, IV and Physical Graffiti are tied in my book

but I voted Physical Graffiti for Kashmir and the coolest album cover ever...

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6. I have the original with the cut-out windows... didn't they change it

later on to just a flat printed album cover? I seem to remember looking at it once in a record store and it didn't have the cut-out windows.

[grannylib]

37. Boy, I don't know...I had the original too, with the cutouts...one thing I

really miss about albums...you just don't get the same level of artwork on CDs...

[Zomby Woof]

21. "Physical Graffiti" should have been a 3-sided album

Johnny Winter did that with "Second Winter" because he had too much good material for a single album, but not enough for a 4-sided double. Zeppelin had the same problem with PG. It was mostly filler left off of previous albums anyway, for good reason. I love the album, though. :thumbsup:

[trogdor]

23. Even the filler was noteworthy.

And even their shittiest album rocked. Led Zep was that good.

[LynneSin]

25. You're talking side #4 with Night Flight, Wanton Song, Boogie with Stu

and Sick Again.

They are filler songs but I absolutely love those songs. Night Flight is another song in my top10 alltime favorites and when I saw Page&Plant back in 1997, they opened with the Wanton Song

[smtpgirl]

27. I think that those songs are the best on the album

filler or not

[LynneSin]

29. Well Kashmire, Trampled and Ten Years after rocked too

Along with "The Rover" another so called "Filler Song". That's #4 on my list of all time favorite Zeppelin songs. I always believed that the Rover was the secret to world peace: If we just hold hands, if we can just hold hands

[Zomby Woof]

41. I didn't say I would cut side 4 as it is

I would probably take off "In My Time of Dying", which is a horrible rip-off and reverts back to the poor blues parodies of the first two albums (far better versions exist), and "Down By The Seaside" (turn DOWN the chorus pedal, Page!), and "Black Country Woman" - if those were saved for "Coda", that would have been far better, lol.

I like "Night Flight" and "Wanton Song" too.

So a leaner, meaner "Physical Graffiti" would be:

1. Custard Pie
2. The Rover
3. Ten Years Gone
4. Houses of the Holy
5. Trampled Underfoot
6. Kashmir

Disc 2:
1. In The Light
2. Bron-Yr-Aur
3. Night Flight
4. Wanton Song
5. Boogie With Stu
6. Sick Again

But hey, I am just having mindless fun... when I listen to the CD, I rarely skip over the weaker cuts. :P

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28. I still think it should have been released as a single album, with

"Houses of the Holy," "Trampled Under Foot," "Kashmir," "In the Light," "Bron-Yr-Aur," "Down by the Seaside" and "Ten Years Gone" as the only tracks. I think it would be held in higher regard now. The songs on the other sides are superfluous, to me anyway.

[Zomby Woof]

5. Houses of the Holy

The masterful untitled album was a tough act to follow, and they not only met the challenge, they exceeded expectations, and they didn't do a retread. In fact, it fulfills the experimentation begun on III and adds a dimension missing on the great untitled work. It's confident and tight throughout. Page's textures are all in place, the changing tempos, the humor, and the pacing - it's a total package. Favorites include: "No Quarter", "The Rain Song", and "The Song Remains The Same". I even like the James Brown-on-acid joke "The Crunge" and the pseudo-reggae "D'yer Maker".

Tied with it is Led Zeppelin III. This is a very underrated work. "Since I've Been Loving You" was the first time Page sounded like he was playing the blues and not a parody (which is the principal flaw with the first two albums, especially the VERY overrated "II"). The instrumental variety added some excellent flavors, especially "Tangerine", "Hangman" and "Out On The Tiles". Even the cheesy (and what is LZ without some overblown cheese?) "Immigrant Song" makes this my other favorite Zep album.

I like "Presence" too, which is their most underrated. And as mentioned above, "II" is their most overrated. No wonder Willie Dixon sued them. Page must have known he was in danger of becoming a self-parody, and I have no doubt legions of addled teens (or today's classic rock radio junkies) would have followed them over the cliff if he had kept rehashing the first two albums for the next ten. His muse took in some Joni Mitchell and other textures to salvage the third album and help them establish their own direction, rather than repeating the endless swagger of white-blues cockrock that should have died with the Yardbirds.

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8. Great post. "Hots on for Nowhere" rocks. "The Crunge" does nothing for me.

[southpaw]

11. I'm wit dat

Zep put out several really solid albums (ZoSo, III and Graffiti among them) but Houses has always been my hands down favorite.

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9. Nobody else wants to vote?

[LynneSin]

10. I just found your poll and I'm still debating

You could have replaced CODA (which pretty much was reject stuff tossed together for a quick sale after Bonham's death) with "This is too damn hard to pick one"

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12. But "Coda" does include "Hey Hey What Can I Do," which, up until "Coda,"

was (to the best of my knowlege) only available as the B-side of the 45 single of "Immigrant Song." (I think that's correct, as I have the imported Japanese 45 of it.) The rest of "Coda" is pretty much filler, IMO.

[LynneSin]

14. Actually no it doesn't. It wasn't until the box set that Hey, Hey was

published on anything but '45 format.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000002JSR/sr=8-1/qid=1156343015/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7946333-5141536?ie=UTF8

In case you don't believe me

:shrug:

But it does have a great live version of "I Can't Quit You Baby"

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24. You're right, I hadn't taken out "Coda" in years, and I assumed it was on

that, which obviously it isn't. I only have "Hey Hey What Can I Do" on a 56 I which I bought in 1979, and it is a Japanese 45 which I bought as in import in the U.S. The A side is "Immigrant Song" and the B side is "Hey Hey What Can I Do." I only bought it because that was the only way to buy "Hey Hey" at that time, even though it was being played on the radio frequently on album-oriented-rock stations.

[LynneSin]

31. I have that on both vinyl and CD single

:D

[Taverner]

35. Japanese versions of Coda had HHWCID

As well as Travelling Riverside Blues

[southpaw]

17. Another positive from CODA

That full-blast rendition of 'I Can't Quit You, Babe'

It was like they cranked everthing up to 11 and let it rip.

[LynneSin]

18. That was better than the original

I think Page realized he had mostly crap on the album and had to put something worthwhile for buying it, which is hat live version of "I Can't Quit You Baby"

The whole album is made up of songs created for previous albums but deamed not worthy enough. But the interesting thing about CODA is you can hear the different LZ periods from the blues first albums, the mega-massive sounds of the middle era to the movement towards the 80s in the last album.

[querelle]

13. II

My god, is there any song better than the Lemon Song?

Q

[LynneSin]

16. I keep thinking I should have voted for II

My favorite two Zeppelin songs are "Ramble On" and "What is and What Should Never be". But for overall album I went with Physical Graffiti

[Joe Fields]

15. There is no such thing as a "best" Zeppelin album.

[taterguy]

19. I vote for the BBC Sessions

I loved Zep when I was a teenager, spent 20 years thinking I was too cool for them and picked it up on a whim when I saw it at the library. They really were an amazing band, especially live. The 13 minute Whole Lotta Love medley just blows me away.

[LynneSin]

20. I love the fact that they put 4 versions of Communications Breakdown....

on the CD and everyone of them are both amazing good and very unique from the others

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32. I forgot both "The BBC Sessions" and "How the West was Won"

I should have included both of those in the poll, and dropped "In through the Out Door" and "Coda"

[Taverner]

22. Physical Graffiti - and to think it was mostly outtakes

Some cut from previous albums (Houses of the Holy) some just the band screwing around in the studio (Boogie with Stu) and some of it just unreleased because it was too long to fit on one of their previous albums (Kashmir, In My Time and Dying)

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26. I always wondered if "Physical Graffiti" might have been better received

by music critics if it had been released just as a single album, with just "Houses of the Holy," "Trampled Under Foot," "Kashmir," "In the Light," "Bron-Yr-Aur," "Down by the Seaside" and "Ten Years Gone" as the only tracks. That would have made the whole of it seem better.

[LynneSin]

30. Critics hated LZ and those so-called 'filler' songs were some of the best

I mean, I love Kashmir! It was played on my 16th birthday over the radio as a request for me and hell, it's my damn cell phone ring tone. But if I had to choose which songs I loved the best off of PG it wasn't the mainstream songs but the quirkly fillers with both Night Flight and The Rover in the top 10 of my all-time favorite songs.

[Taverner]

33. Ooooh loves me some Rover

And of course, Ten Years Gone - that's on MY top 10!

I distinctly remember riding a Greyhound from Placerville to Sacramento, back when they still had a smoking section on those busses, driving through tule fog, listening to that tune while puffing away on a cig. Ahhh, good times, good times.

[LynneSin]

34. I remember hearing it on the radio back when the first gulf war happened

And I just thought that this is how life should really be - happy, whimsical and joining hands

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36. "Ten Years Gone" is one of my favorite LZ tunes - and it reminds me of

sitting near a swimming pool at night, in someone's backyard, nobody swimming, the pool light is off, everything is dark, just everyone sitting there on a warm summer night, circa 1976, everyone just sort of zoning out and listening to that song. Every time I hear it, that memory instantly reappears. The LZ section of my iTunes playlist looks like this:

[LynneSin]

38. I have all Led Zeppelin on my Sony Netman....

...except a few of the 30min "Dazed&Confused" songs since the Sony only is a 1gig and holds 695 songs based on each song being 4min long.

That includes the collection CDs of "Song Remains the Same", "How the West Was Won", "BBC", and both Page & Plant albums "Unledded" and "Walking in Clarksdale". Plus a host of my favorite Robert Plant songs.

I'm looking to upgrade to the new 2gig Sony Netman. I like that their Altrac3 technology compresses even further than an MP3 allowing you to hold more songs but still keep the quality

[ProfessorGAC]

39. Graffiti. Followed Closely By The Third Album

I think PG is their masterwork, but i've always found the third one adventerous and interesting.
The Professor

[last_texas_dem]

40. Voted for "III"

I tend to be a sucker for albums with a soft side and a hard side, which that album seems to be one of the first examples of. Plus, as cheesy as I feel saying this, that album just has a great "vibe" to it. I'm a big fan of pretty much every song off of it (I'm making an exception for "Hats off to Roy Harper" which isn't horrible but is a pretty disappointing way to end an album compared to some of LZ's other album closers), especially "Since I've Been Loving You", "That's the Way", and, especially, "Tangerine." There's just something indescribably awesome about when the guitar solo kicks in on "Tangerine."

My second-favorite is "Houses of the Holy." "Over the Hills and Far Away", "Rain Song" and, yup, "D'yer Mak'er" are some of my all-time favorites, and I love the variety of styles on both this album and "III." That's probably what makes those two my favorites. I guess I'm just not enough of a ballsy, bluesy, flat-out hard rock fan, so I tend to like the LZ albums that seem to branch out a little more.

(Oh yeah, and "IV" is definitely up there, too, but I've played it so much that I rarely feel like listening to it any more.)

[Initech]

42. I'm the only one who voted for Presence?!?!?!?!

I mean COME ON, 'Achilles' Last Stand' ALONE makes the album great!

[Zomby Woof]

43. I cite it as their most underrated

Does that help? :-)

"Tea For One" is my favorite on that album... some of the nastiest blues Page has ever played. But "Achilles Last Stand" does indeed shred my speakers.