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Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
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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
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"The feedback is humbling and inspiring": Jimmy Page reacts to fan response to Led Zeppelin movie
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Jimmy Page has taken to social media to thank fans for their reaction to screenings of the Becoming Led Zeppelin movie. "In light of your incredible responses and the demand for the Becoming Led Zeppelin film from those of you that have either viewed it at the IMAX or during its general cinema release, I must say that feedback from fans is just humbling and inspiring," says the Zeppelin man. "Thanks to everyone for your enthusiasm – and here's the trailer for those of you who haven't seen it yet." [Trailer Below] Becoming Led Zeppelin premiered earlier this month and has since taken over $6M at the box office worldwide after grossing $3M during the opening weekend. The film's $2.6M opening in the US represented the biggest-ever opening weekend ever for an IMAX-exclusive music release. While Jimmy Page has now reacted to the reception afforded to Becoming Led Zeppelin, the other members of the band have not publicly commented, and Page was the only member of the band who attended the film's original premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, Elsewhere, the official Led Zeppelin social media accounts have not mentioned the film at all. The band's Facebook/Instagram and Twitter/X pages have been dormant for nearly two years – the last post on each platform shared news of a clear vinyl reissue of Led Zeppelin IV in April 2023 – while the band's most recent post on TikTok was the previous month, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band's 1973 album Houses Of The Holy. Becoming Led Zeppelin UK Screenings and Tickets Becoming Led Zeppelin US Screenings and Tickets
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
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The Led Zeppelin Documentary Attempts to Show the Rock Gods As People
From the start, director Bernard MacMahon and writer and producer Allison McGourty knew there would be obstacles involved in making a documentary about Led Zeppelin, especially one done with the band's cooperation. This is a group that has famously and diligently guarded its legacy, always maintaining a sense of mystique and rebuffing many earlier pitches for a movie like that. 'Our sense was that there was absolutely no intention of ever doing a Zeppelin film,' MacMahon says. Atop that challenge was the matter of what would actually be in the film, since Zeppelin footage is as hard to find as someone in the Seventies who didn't own a copy of Led Zeppelin IV. As lead singer Robert Plant told the team at a meeting, bringing up their notoriously belligerent manager Peter Grant, 'I don't think this can be told. Peter wouldn't let anybody film us.' According to McGourty, 'Grant would rip the film out of cameras and eject people from their concerts.' More from Rolling Stone 'Becoming Led Zeppelin': What's in the Authorized Documentary? The Trailer for the Long-Awaited Led Zeppelin Doc Is Here Who Will Reunite Next? We Place Odds on 17 Groups, From Led Zeppelin to One Direction Nevertheless, MacMahon and McGourty carried on, resulting in Becoming Led Zeppelin, a two-hour doc that opened in select IMAX screens last weekend and will have a more widespread release starting Friday. Over its duration, we see Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, and bassist John Paul Jones, in newly conducted interviews, reminisce about their childhoods and early musical endeavors, from playing in churches to wailing in hippie-rock bands. And thanks to clips that MacMahon and McGourty eventually hunted down, we're able to hear and see epics like 'How Many More Times' and 'Dazed and Confused' in all their monolithic, blues-drenched, full-length glory. What you won't see, however, is anything of the band's history past its first two albums: No tales of on-the-road debauchery, no discussions of the making of 'Kashmir' or 'Stairway to Heaven,' no misty-eyed memories of drummer John Bonham's death in 1980. Aside from Plant referring obliquely to 'drugs and a lot of girls' during their 1969 American tour, the only women in the film are clips of wives and girlfriends. Becoming Led Zeppelin focuses on the band members' formative years as kids and musicians, culminating with their triumphant show at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1970. 'If you were doing a movie about the space race, it would be the journey through the Fifties and it would culminate with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon and then returning home,' MacMahon says. 'That's the end of the story.' As dazed or confused as Zep fans may be by that framework, MacMahon says he and McGourty had always planned on Becoming Led Zeppelin to focus on the 'becoming' part. They envisioned a 120-minute work that could be shown in theaters for the maximum immersive sonic experience. MacMahon also thought back to a Zep paperback he owned as a kid that only told the group's tale up through the early Seventies. For him, the saga after the completion of 1969's Led Zeppelin II isn't nearly as compelling as what came before. 'That story didn't interest me,' he says. 'Up to 1970 is the point where everything that happens is unique to them: the combination of these four individuals and the specific things they do and the choices they make and how they become hugely successful. Once that is achieved, the events that follow are often incredibly similar to countless other things that have been successful.' 'Album, tour, album, tour, album tour,' adds McGourty. MacMahon, on a dual Zoom with his collaborator, nods in agreement. 'This person falls out with this person. Someone becomes a drug addict. Blah, blah, blah. You've just heard it over and over again. But who these people are has never come out. No one knows who they are, personally.' Such a limited time frame must have also appealed to the band, sparing them from revisiting tragedies like the death of Plant's five-year-old son Karac or having to address any groupie tales. But to press their case, MacMahon and McCourty spent half a year researching the amount of archival footage they could potentially use. Then they compiled those images to create a storyboard — a visual script — in a black leather-bound portfolio that they brought to each band member in meetings. 'They weren't open to it when we met with them,' MacMahon admits. 'But as we were walking through the storyboard, it's as if we were walking through their childhoods.' During a seven-hour sit-down with Page, MacMahon felt a moment of revelation when they arrived at photos of the studio where the newly formed band first jammed on 'Train Kept a-Rollin'' for nearly an hour. 'I remember Jimmy had this sense of joy appearing on his face like he was back there again, and remembering what he thought of them back then,' MacMahon says. 'Those feelings were coming back. I could see him going, 'Oh, you know, this could work.'' MacMahon believes that the band also responded to American Epic, his 2017 series (co-produced by McGourty) about early 20th-century American roots music. 'I think it touched them to be considered as following on from Charley Patton and that film's approach to getting inside the music, its influence and what made it,' MacMahon says. 'We came presenting this story that was similar to the American Epic story, except it was about them.' Which isn't to say the filmmakers weren't tested. During one early conversation, MacMahon says Page asked them to name the band Plant was in when Page first heard him sing. MacMahon correctly answered 'Obs-Tweedle.' 'And Jimmy said, 'Very good. Carry on.'' With the band's blessing, the director and writer interviewed more than 100 Zep associates, from pals from their youth to engineer Glyn Johns. In the end, they would up using those conversations primarily as fact-checking tools and not incorporating them into the film. 'People waited this long to hear the group tell their story,' McGourty says. 'They've never done it before. So let them tell it.' To jog the band members' memories during those interviews, the two would show them vintage photographs of buildings from their youth or blast a piece of music especially loud. But as they were warned, film or TV footage of Zep during that period was hardly plentiful. The filmmakers eventually came upon three unheard interviews with the press-shy Bonham from the early Seventies and were given access to his father's home movies of young John by way of Bonham's sister. When they heard about the existence of illicitly shot footage of Led Zeppelin's 1969 show in Bath, McGourty flew from L.A. to the U.K., to what she calls 'this mysterious little medieval village where they filmed the windmill in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.' There, the owner of the footage agreed to let them use it, but with preconditions. 'I had to send a car for him so he could accompany it all the way to our London facilitator to transfer it,' she says. 'He didn't want to let it out of his possession.' MacMahon and McGourty say they had editorial control over the contents of the film, and Page attended a screening of a rough cut at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. Later, Plant attended another screening in London and turned to McGourty and said, 'That was my life.' Since Plant's family apparently didn't know that his parents had kicked him out of the house when he chose to pursue music, their reaction, McGourty says, 'was very moving.' So, will there be a sequel that ventures into Led Zeppelin's later years? The filmmakers are cagey. 'I haven't even given it a second thought,' says MacMahon. 'This is the film we wanted to make. It was like climbing Everest. All I know is a sequel would be an enormous amount of work. I don't contemplate that lightly.' Although it's not a biopic, Becoming Led Zeppelin could also serve to introduce a generation born this century to more rock gods of old, the way Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis, and now A Complete Unknown already have. MacMahon says that wasn't the plan, yet he can envision such a scenario. 'The moment the kids go into that cinema and hear that music coming out the speakers, some of them are definitely going to be thinking, 'I wonder if I could do that,'' he says. 'It's kind of a clarion call. You can do this. You just need three other buddies and one other bloke keeping everyone away. You don't need 100 samples and fucking 10,000 lawyers having to give your songwriting credits to 15 engineers. 'And,' he adds, 'who wouldn't want to wear those clothes? That shit looks cool.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
