Latest news with #LedZeppelinII
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why Physical Graffiti Reigns as Led Zeppelin's Definitive Album
The post Why Physical Graffiti Reigns as Led Zeppelin's Definitive Album appeared first on Consequence. Editor's Note: The debate over which Led Zeppelin album rocks hardest will probably never end. In that spirit, Jim Shahen cast his vote a year ago today for the band's sixth album, 1975's Physical Graffiti, as the record celebrated its 50th anniversary. We revisit his essay today as Physical Graffiti starts its push for 50. Agree with him? Disagree? Let us know which album you think is the definitive Led Zeppelin album. Two questions for you. The topic is Led Zeppelin. First: What words would you use to describe the band? My answer: Monolithic. Mighty. Musically ambitious. Sneakily diverse. Technically brilliant. Second: What is the definitive Led Zeppelin album, the one that best describes what they're all about? Possible answers: Led Zeppelin II. Solid choice. Hard to pick against an LP that has 'Whole Lotta Love', 'Heartbreaker', 'Moby Dick', a song utilizing a lemon as a sexual euphemism, and some Tolkien-inspired fare. It's solid, but sadly it's incorrect. Led Zeppelin IV. The safest, and arguably the most popular, choice. Has all the staples of classic rock radio, like 'Black Dog', 'Rock and Roll', and 'Stairway to Heaven'. You also get the folkie side with 'Going to California', two more brilliant Lord of the Rings homages in 'Battle of Evermore' and the trippy 'Misty Mountain Hop', plus it closes out with the swaggering blues metal of 'When the Levee Breaks'. Sure, you could play it safe, pick Led Zeppelin IV and feel confident in your decision. But, again, it's the wrong answer. My (100 percent correct) answer: Physical Graffiti, the double LP that celebrates its 50th anniversary today. Here's why. Led Zeppelin never did anything small. At its best, the group went for grand, sprawling artistic statements, sometimes to the point of excess. A double album, by its very nature, is exactly that. It lends itself to stylistic detours and sonic experimentation. But in recording one, an artist runs the risk of their ego inspiring boredom and diminishing what could have been a great single LP by tacking on a bunch of filler. But when you're Led Zeppelin, an act that had already spent half a decade cohesively weaving together strands of hard rock, blues, country-folk, and funk into your sound, a double album is an ideal outlet to cut loose. And that's what makes Physical Graffiti so special, so quintessentially Zeppelin. Over the course of 15 tracks, the band showcase the full range of their capabilities, interests, and ambitions. You've got the relatively straightforward rockers that first brought Zeppelin to prominence. 'The Rover' is anchored by one of Jimmy Page's crunchiest guitar grooves and a pummeling beat from John Bonham. Then there's 'The Wanton Song', a blistering four minutes of Zeppelin firing on all cylinders. Page uncorks one of his most torrid riffs, the rhythm section hits you in the gut, and Robert Plant's screaming vocals are godlike. And horny. Very, very horny. In fact, if there's one lyrical thread that runs through Physical Graffiti, it's just how libidinous Plant was between the years 1972 and 1975 and the truly awesome and awesomely unsubtle lengths he was willing to go to ascribe words to it. The swaggering glam blues of 'Sick Again' is about some groupies the guys, ahem, knew from Los Angeles. In the hands of a lesser singer, 'Boogie with Stu' would be a forgettable Ritchie Valens-indebted, boogeyin' jam session. Instead, Plant's squealing admonitions that he 'don't want no tutti-frutti, no lollipop, come on baby just rock' make it one of the highlights of the LP's final side. And there are a pair of tracks rooted in metaphor that put the earlier referenced 'The Lemon Song' to shame, musically and lyrically. First is the opening track of Physical Graffiti, 'Custard Pie'. John Paul Jones mimics Page's grimy lick on the electric clavinet, providing the ideal backdrop for Plant to thirstily entreat some unsatisfied mama to ditch her man and allow him to 'chew on a piece of your custard pie.' Like so much of the band's work, it's rooted in blues tropes (in this case, that of the backdoor man), but whereas songs like 'The Lemon Song' or 'Since I've Been Loving You' are relatively formalist in terms of adhering to blues constructs, it's on 'Custard Pie' that Zeppelin really took their blues background and turned it into something uniquely their own. Zeppelin takes this funkier spin on the blues even further just a handful of songs later, resulting in what is this writer's favorite track on the album. 'Trampled Under Foot' takes its lyrical concept from Robert Johnson's 'Terraplane Blues' and warps it into something wild. Jones is back on the clavinet. Drawing inspiration from Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition', he plays some frenetic, red-hot funk. It's the foundation of the song, accentuated by Page's wah-wah-filtered fretwork. Over the top of that, Plant gloriously preens and leers and drives the car parts-as-sexual-metaphor theme as far as he can. While Physical Graffiti is a showcase for Led Zeppelin's genre-repurposing skills, it's also home to their finest interpretation of the blues with 'In My Time of Dying'. The piece starts on a foreboding note and slowly builds tension with its acoustic country blues deathbed lamentations. Then the tension explodes when the bombastic heavy blues-rock kicks in, and the song's narrator is finally facing his death. Clocking in at 11 minutes, 'In My Time of Dying' is sweeping, dramatic, and powerful, and one of the boldest musical moments in the group's career. Just on the basis of what's been mentioned so far, the case for Physical Graffiti as THE Led Zeppelin album is nearly made. The band refined its hypersexual, riff-rock and took it to new levels. On 'Houses of the Holy' and 'Down by the Seaside', Page and Plant reveal a knack and appreciation for classic pop hooks and structures. All that's really needed is the inclusion of one of Zeppelin's definitive hits to bring this answer on home. And a double LP that's gone 16 x platinum probably has one of those, right? Right. Physical Graffiti has 'Kashmir'. There's not really anything you can say about 'Kashmir' in 2020 that hasn't already been said in the past 50 years, but let's give it a shot. In the beginning of this, the words 'stylistic detours,' 'sonic experimentation,' and 'grand, sprawling artistic statements' were used. The operatic sweep of 'Kashmir', from Page's droning riff to the lush string and horn orchestration and the varying rhythmic structures of the song, is all of that. 'Kashmir' is swirling and mysterious, reliant on un-Zeppelin-like instrumentation and arrangements for its hypnotic brilliance. It's deeply embedded in the pop culture landscape, serving as a punchline to a Clooney-Pitt-Damon gag in Ocean's 12 and re-entering the music charts when Puff Daddy sampled it for his hit 1998 single 'Come With Me'. In 2014, the live take from Zeppelin's 2007 reunion show won the band its first Grammy. For 50 years, this song has enchanted and endured, serving as an eight-minute representation of the mystical aura and power that are staples of the group's mythology. By pretty much any metric — critical, commercial, or artistically — 'Kashmir' is a grand triumph, a crown jewel in the band's catalog. And there's no better place for that jewel to be nestled than in the middle of the rock legends' crowning achievement and best work, Physical Graffiti. Pick up a copy of Physical Graffiti here… Artwork Why Physical Graffiti Reigns as Led Zeppelin's Definitive Album Jim Shahen Popular Posts J6 Prison Choir to Perform at Kennedy Center Paul Simon Sets 2025 North American Tour, Marking Miraculous Return to Stage Creed and Nickelback Lead 2025 Summer of '99 and Beyond Festival Grimes Turns to Twitter to Beg for Elon Musk's Attention Amid Child's "Medical Crisis" The 69 Sexiest Film Scenes of All Time Kanye West Acknowledges Report That He's Inhaling Nitrous Oxide Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Becoming Led Zeppelin' Brings the Legendary Band Back to its Beginnings
L.A. based Becoming Led Zeppelin filmmakers Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty aren't just fans of the classic rock band's music, they're fans of the mythos. Not the salacious side that probably first comes to mind when rock fans think of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones or the late John Bonham, but before and during their first meetings and fortuitous formation, when each member was on the precipice of individual greatness, elevating his craft and seeking creative alchemy.'I love the story,' MacMahon, who directed, tells us during a spirited Zoom chat just before the riveting new documentary's release. 'I knew that they'd never done a film and they'd never told their stories.'Indeed, the boundary-breaking British rocker's trajectory has been chronicled many times before, but these accounts have come from others and often focused on later years, when they were already rock gods, and when the tales were sexier and ultimately, more tragic. Bonham's substance abuse related death in 1980 led to the band's break-up of course, but their hedonistic hijinks, from groupies to heroin addiction to the occult, started much before that. Basically the 70s were a whirlwind of beautiful music and bad behavior. But from 1968-1970, when the band first met, made music and toured, rockstar trappings weren't on anyone's mind. The doc delves into the personal backgrounds of each player and their impressions of their first sessions, so the 'Becoming' in the film's title is literal— we only get to see their journey up until the release Led Zeppelin II. It was a timeframe that really was all about the music, even if most didn't quite get what they were doing at first. Page was coming out of playing guitar with the Yardbirds, and yearning to do something more experimental, while bassist Jones and drummer Bonham had been busy session musicians also seemingly looking for a new challenge. Plant was the perfect piece of the puzzle to stand up front, a powerful and sensual vocalist who was mastering his instrument much in the same way as the the group find the groove in early footage is nothing short of transcendent and the filmmakers are smart enough to know that fans want to see the full raw performances. Part concert film and part member memoir (including an incredible found audio interview with Bonham from Led Zep's early days), the movie serves to highlight the intricate vision of Page and the genius of his mates in bringing it to life, both in the studio and on as the movie shows, people didn't 'get it' at first. In the U.K., the band were not a hit right away. "So they set out on this mission to try and get their music out there," MacMahon says. "When no record company in Britain wanted to sign them. No one wanted to book them because, you know, they're still known as the Yardbirds, and they hadn't had a hit for years. So they go off to America to get a deal, and then they manage to start breaking through on the West Coast scene. And Jimmy's like, we've got to do albums, no singles, so they're just playing whole sides of albums on FM radio here."And just as the band was gaining traction the U.S., they got eviscerated in the press, "including Rolling Stone, which was the big counter cultural paper in 1969," Macmahon adds. "But they soldiered on at that point, not doing media, not doing TV, just reaching their audience through records and live shows." The lack of interviews made it more challenging for MacMahon and McGourty's research, but they were clearly determined. And getting the guys to agree to make the doc and do new reflective interviews may have been the hardest part. People called the duo "mad" and "insane" for even trying, as the band have been notoriously private about discussing their history for decades. "We searched and looked for every fragment of archive that existed, then we wrote a script, then we storyboarded it to see if there was a film that could be told," MGourty says. "That was a seven month process before we even got our first meeting with Jimmy." Turns out Page and Plant were fans of the duo's previous project, American Epic, and Jones loved the four-part series (covering the first-ever music recordings in the U.S. from country to blues) after watching it, so they were in. Sort of. Page did test their knowledge of the band's timeline and more obscure facts about how they formed during their first meeting, pulling ephemera he'd saved from a plastic market bag. Luckily all the research paid off."Their would never have been Becoming then Zeppelin, if it wasn't for American Epic, because we thought this was the next story that picked up where that left off, which is back to the Second World War and 50s music scene," explains MacMahon. "And that brings us into the late 60s, when everything really explodes in a whole different way. Led Zeppelin was the great story that'd not being told." Watching and hearing how it all came together is a true gift for fans and as we share with the filmmakers during our interview, it feels like a tonic for troubled times. Especially in IMAX theaters, where it debuted on Feb. 7, the film (in theaters nationwide since Valentine's day) is an immersive escape, an artistic celebration that provides a break from the menacing mess of our modern times, which is what music and movies are for. And it leaves you wanting more. "This period, with these two amazing albums with unbelievable music on them, is unique to Zeppelin," Macmahon says. "It sees four totally different guys and no other musicians sound like them. If you took any one of those guys out of that band, you would not have Led Zeppelin. None of them are replaceable. So these guys coming together, then their journey, and the fact that they barely know each other... they literally hit the ground running— and working."Of course, as Zeppelin's fame rose, life got more raucous and decidedly darker for the group, which many consider one of the greatest of all time. But it's refreshing to watch them before all that and as MacMahon notes, they produced more great music in spite of, not because of how their lives changed, in the years that followed. "We made this movie to give people this positive story, this inspirational story about music and the endeavor and its power," he concludes, noting how exciting it is to watch in a big cinema (it will be streaming soon, too). "We wanted to take you into this world."
The Guardian
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Becoming Led Zeppelin review – enjoyable retrospective will be met with a Whole Lotta Love
Time to get your head in the speaker bin of pop-cultural history for this enjoyable if truncated film about the early days of heavy rock legends Led Zeppelin – the cheerfully ridiculous joke name invented for them by Keith Moon, a play on words that is now almost invisible, like the Beatles. It's an authorised guide that stops at the release of their second album, Led Zeppelin II, in 1969. Fans may be disappointed that the film quits before Stairway to Heaven. But they may also wonder if this arrangement gets us out of some tricky questions about the band's later years, namely the rumours of their on-tour shenanigans and some of their more distinctive enthusiasms. There is, thankfully, no mention of Aleister Crowley. No doubt about it, though. Once you hear the colossal opening chords to Whole Lotta Love, no power on earth will stop you nodding along. (The question of how on earth this loftily album-based band allowed that riff to be used as the signature tune for Top of the Pops is not touched upon.) The film is structured around archive clips and good-humoured interviews with the surviving members of the band; drummer John Bonham died in 1980 at the age of 32, following a history of depression and drug and alcohol abuse – another topic that the film's early-days format avoids. His recorded voice is used, but there is no explicit mention of his heartbreakingly early death and the emotional effect it must have had on the rest of the band. There is the legendarily priapic Pre-Raphaelite lead singer Robert Plant, with his golden curls and wailing scream; an old press headline describes the pre-Zep Plant as the 'Tom Jones of the Midlands', which hardly does him justice. One fascinating photo of him in his pomp (and no one was pompier in his snake-hipped pomp than Plant) shows him hanging out with Germaine Greer. Lead guitarist Jimmy Page was the band's de facto leader, a brilliant virtuoso soloist and composer with a Montgomery-ish flair for command; bass guitarist and arranger John Paul Jones seems to have been the laid-back voice of reason; and then there was the mighty drummer Bonham. The band came up as hard-working musicians. Plant and Bonham gigged with various bands, while Page and Jones were session regulars who played on Shirley Bassey's recording of Goldfinger. Page also worked on recordings by Lulu, Donovan, the Kinks and the Who. His own breakthrough was joining the Yardbirds, the band who, in their next incarnation renamed themselves Led Zeppelin. With the help of their terrifying manager, Peter Grant, (affectionately remembered here as akin to a 'mafia boss'), they secured a uniquely advantageous deal with Atlantic Records in the US, where their super-heavy sound and endless touring made them hugely popular stateside before they started playing in the UK. So they became the first British band who had to break through in their home country after they'd already conquered America. The memories that Plant, Page and Jones give us have a great charm and warmth, with Jones recalling developing his musical talent early on by playing the organ in church. And it's a reminder that the 1970s rock gods were war babies; all of these long-haired pagan deities have black-and-white photos of themselves in school uniforms and short trousers with mums and dads who did their best by them. Plant was going to be a chartered accountant before he went into music. Overall, this is a likable and well-researched film, but there is something unsatisfying in ignoring the band's later stages. Perhaps Part II is in the works. Becoming Led Zeppelin is out now on IMAX, and on general release from 7 February
