Post by Kapitan on Nov 18, 2019 21:26:37 GMT
Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti (1975)
After their initial feverish burst of activity, Led Zeppelin slowed dramatically throughout the first half of the 1970s. But while their first nearly two years of work resulted in the eight-song masterpiece Houses of the Holy, this two-year span resulted in the 15-song, wildly eclectic, and somewhat uneven double album Physical Graffiti.. Released in February 1975, it was their first (and the third overall) album released on their new Swan Song Records label.
This delay was not mere dilly dally: sessions began at Headley Grange in November 1973, but halted after minimal work both because the studio was reserved for Bad Company to record their debut album (also on Swan Song) and reportedly because John Paul Jones was disillusioned with the pace and rigor of touring and considered quitting the group.
After a few months off, the group reconvened at Headley Grange to record eight tracks. But as Zeppelin became the bloated dinosaur of a band we all know—and I mean neither any offense nor any reference to the god-awful late ‘90s, Godzilla-related Puffy Combs remix—these eight songs were too long to fit on a single LP. Rather than cut material, the band decided to polish off some existing recordings and release a double album comprising 15 songs and spanning more than 82 minutes. In addition to the new material, the final album included Houses of the Holy outtakes (“The Rover,” “Houses of the Holy,” and “Black Country Woman”), Led Zeppelin IV outtakes (“Down by the Seaside,” “Night Flight,” and “Boogie With Stu”), and even a Led Zeppelin III outtake (“Bron-Yr-Aur”).
While the album’s music was recorded by spring 1974 and mixed during summer with an intended autumn 1974 release, album artwork delayed release into February 1975.
The centerpiece both metaphorically and almost literally (as the final song of disc one, side two) is “Kashmir.” The Eastern-influenced song had its musical roots in Robert Plant’s and Jimmy Page’s trip to Bomba, India (during which they worked with Indian musicians) and lyrical roots in a drive Plant took through Morocco. (The name is somewhat amusing considering the song’s roots in southern India and western Africa while Kashmir is in northern India and eastern Pakistan.)
“Kashmir” includes one of the most famous guitar riffs in rock history, a status seemingly held by two or three songs per Led Zeppelin album. It incorporates polyrhythmic elements as well as time signature changes, building upon the mystical lyrics and Eastern melodies to create an exotic, unsteady experience for listeners used to straight-ahead rock and roll (like Zeppelin’s own “Rock and Roll,” for that matter). The primary riff is an ascent while the majestic B-section descends, the two in different meters, but all undergirded by John Bonham’s steady, heavy kick-snare bash, a simple two. The math adds up eventually, but of course countless stoned kids sang or played along for years without thinking much about time signatures: one beauty of music is how natural it feels when you’re inside of it.
This eight-and-a-half-minute Middle-Eastern journey is the best known, but not the only epic on Physical Graffiti. Twelve of the 15 tracks clock in above four minutes, with at least three more—the traditional blues “In My Time of Dying,” “In the Light,” and “Ten Years Gone”—would also qualify based on their cinematic scope. These four epics (combining for about 35 minutes of music) were among the eight songs newly written for the album, making the theoretical original release quite taxing indeed.
“In My Time of Dying” shows off Page as a possessed, slide-wielding electric Delta bluesman … for more than 11 minutes. “In the Light” opens side three with echoed synthesizer lines atop a drone. While there are better ways to spend a few minutes of your life, the actual song (when you finally get there) is a good one, a midtempo modern, dark blues with a surprisingly open and bright B-section. After “Kashmir,” it might be the mostly Plant-driven “Ten Years Gone” that stands out, at least among the epics. Like “Kashmir,” it has an abnormal, almost circular guitar riff driving the song, but with less blunt rhythmic force to open, more atmospherics. In classic Led Zeppelin fashion, it builds upon itself through a series of tensions and releases into a great final catharsis.
Not that the whole album had quite those ambitions (or pretensions?). The opener, “Custard Pie”—another new song—is a relatively straightforward if slightly herky jerky rocker. Herky jerky might be a good adjective for other aspects of the album as well: “Houses of the Holy” may stay in four, but the riff and runs try to say otherwise on occasion. For more direct rhythms, how about “Trampled Under Foot,” the chunkiest, least funky funk you’ve ever heard, or “The Wanton Song,” another crunchy riff-driven number where syncopation is as far out as it gets.
The lighter side is present, if not prominent. The beautiful, pastoral “Bron-Yr-Aur” is a showcase for Page’s fingerpicked folk compositional power. It’s a roots rock and roll on “Boogie With Stu” and “Black Country Woman,” while “Down By the Seaside” is a melodic lazy drift (sinister middle section notwithstanding) that could just as easily have come from Queen as from Led Zeppelin.
What does a rock band do when it’s on top of the world? Anything and everything it wants. Physical Graffiti is almost a prototype for massively ambitious descendants like Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion albums that followed a generation later. Unable to winnow down to a tight powerhouse of an album, instead Zeppelin pummel you with force, with sheer numbers. More songs. Longer songs. Bigger songs.
The album was yet another massively successful outing for the group, reaching #1 in the US, UK, and Canada and performing well around the world. It has been certified 16x platinum in the US and double platinum in the UK. Plant and Page have both cited it as among their favorite Led Zeppelin albums.
To me, it is their least rewarding album since their debut. It lacks the warmth and some of the humor of their previous work, and its heavy songs feel almost paranoid, even violent. It’s as if a sleepily satisfied wine and weed love affair gave way to an anxiously up-for-days pharmaceutical nightmare. That said, it still is an enormously important and at times brilliant album that delivered at least one incontrovertible classic and several live staples. If it doesn’t approach perfect album status, it’s hard to argue it’s a very good-to-great one.
After their initial feverish burst of activity, Led Zeppelin slowed dramatically throughout the first half of the 1970s. But while their first nearly two years of work resulted in the eight-song masterpiece Houses of the Holy, this two-year span resulted in the 15-song, wildly eclectic, and somewhat uneven double album Physical Graffiti.. Released in February 1975, it was their first (and the third overall) album released on their new Swan Song Records label.
This delay was not mere dilly dally: sessions began at Headley Grange in November 1973, but halted after minimal work both because the studio was reserved for Bad Company to record their debut album (also on Swan Song) and reportedly because John Paul Jones was disillusioned with the pace and rigor of touring and considered quitting the group.
After a few months off, the group reconvened at Headley Grange to record eight tracks. But as Zeppelin became the bloated dinosaur of a band we all know—and I mean neither any offense nor any reference to the god-awful late ‘90s, Godzilla-related Puffy Combs remix—these eight songs were too long to fit on a single LP. Rather than cut material, the band decided to polish off some existing recordings and release a double album comprising 15 songs and spanning more than 82 minutes. In addition to the new material, the final album included Houses of the Holy outtakes (“The Rover,” “Houses of the Holy,” and “Black Country Woman”), Led Zeppelin IV outtakes (“Down by the Seaside,” “Night Flight,” and “Boogie With Stu”), and even a Led Zeppelin III outtake (“Bron-Yr-Aur”).
While the album’s music was recorded by spring 1974 and mixed during summer with an intended autumn 1974 release, album artwork delayed release into February 1975.
The centerpiece both metaphorically and almost literally (as the final song of disc one, side two) is “Kashmir.” The Eastern-influenced song had its musical roots in Robert Plant’s and Jimmy Page’s trip to Bomba, India (during which they worked with Indian musicians) and lyrical roots in a drive Plant took through Morocco. (The name is somewhat amusing considering the song’s roots in southern India and western Africa while Kashmir is in northern India and eastern Pakistan.)
“Kashmir” includes one of the most famous guitar riffs in rock history, a status seemingly held by two or three songs per Led Zeppelin album. It incorporates polyrhythmic elements as well as time signature changes, building upon the mystical lyrics and Eastern melodies to create an exotic, unsteady experience for listeners used to straight-ahead rock and roll (like Zeppelin’s own “Rock and Roll,” for that matter). The primary riff is an ascent while the majestic B-section descends, the two in different meters, but all undergirded by John Bonham’s steady, heavy kick-snare bash, a simple two. The math adds up eventually, but of course countless stoned kids sang or played along for years without thinking much about time signatures: one beauty of music is how natural it feels when you’re inside of it.
This eight-and-a-half-minute Middle-Eastern journey is the best known, but not the only epic on Physical Graffiti. Twelve of the 15 tracks clock in above four minutes, with at least three more—the traditional blues “In My Time of Dying,” “In the Light,” and “Ten Years Gone”—would also qualify based on their cinematic scope. These four epics (combining for about 35 minutes of music) were among the eight songs newly written for the album, making the theoretical original release quite taxing indeed.
“In My Time of Dying” shows off Page as a possessed, slide-wielding electric Delta bluesman … for more than 11 minutes. “In the Light” opens side three with echoed synthesizer lines atop a drone. While there are better ways to spend a few minutes of your life, the actual song (when you finally get there) is a good one, a midtempo modern, dark blues with a surprisingly open and bright B-section. After “Kashmir,” it might be the mostly Plant-driven “Ten Years Gone” that stands out, at least among the epics. Like “Kashmir,” it has an abnormal, almost circular guitar riff driving the song, but with less blunt rhythmic force to open, more atmospherics. In classic Led Zeppelin fashion, it builds upon itself through a series of tensions and releases into a great final catharsis.
Not that the whole album had quite those ambitions (or pretensions?). The opener, “Custard Pie”—another new song—is a relatively straightforward if slightly herky jerky rocker. Herky jerky might be a good adjective for other aspects of the album as well: “Houses of the Holy” may stay in four, but the riff and runs try to say otherwise on occasion. For more direct rhythms, how about “Trampled Under Foot,” the chunkiest, least funky funk you’ve ever heard, or “The Wanton Song,” another crunchy riff-driven number where syncopation is as far out as it gets.
The lighter side is present, if not prominent. The beautiful, pastoral “Bron-Yr-Aur” is a showcase for Page’s fingerpicked folk compositional power. It’s a roots rock and roll on “Boogie With Stu” and “Black Country Woman,” while “Down By the Seaside” is a melodic lazy drift (sinister middle section notwithstanding) that could just as easily have come from Queen as from Led Zeppelin.
What does a rock band do when it’s on top of the world? Anything and everything it wants. Physical Graffiti is almost a prototype for massively ambitious descendants like Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion albums that followed a generation later. Unable to winnow down to a tight powerhouse of an album, instead Zeppelin pummel you with force, with sheer numbers. More songs. Longer songs. Bigger songs.
The album was yet another massively successful outing for the group, reaching #1 in the US, UK, and Canada and performing well around the world. It has been certified 16x platinum in the US and double platinum in the UK. Plant and Page have both cited it as among their favorite Led Zeppelin albums.
To me, it is their least rewarding album since their debut. It lacks the warmth and some of the humor of their previous work, and its heavy songs feel almost paranoid, even violent. It’s as if a sleepily satisfied wine and weed love affair gave way to an anxiously up-for-days pharmaceutical nightmare. That said, it still is an enormously important and at times brilliant album that delivered at least one incontrovertible classic and several live staples. If it doesn’t approach perfect album status, it’s hard to argue it’s a very good-to-great one.