Led Zeppelin - The Complete Studio Recordings
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Free Music Notes for The Complete Studio Recordings
Free Music Review: Power, Mystery and the Hammer of the Gods
Hit: 5 Stars
Strange, the Zeppelin legacy. Nowadays, Zep. are largely regarded as the last true rock dinosaurs whose cartoon excess on tour and on stage cataysed Punk and killed off the 60's. Odd that, as listening to this collection of songs I can't find a SINGLE bloated heavy metal track among them. If Metal spawns from below the waist, Zep music comes from an altogether more sinister and mystic place. Sure, it has balls, and Zep could rock with no peers (Rock & Roll, Black Dog, Immigrant song etc) but there is a restraint and spiritual discomfiture in this music which has more in common with mediaeval troubadour folk than Deep Purple style lumpen metal.Zepplin music is of shadows and needful things, not of MTV. Tracks like 'No Quarter' are EVERY BIT as chilling as Robert Johnson's timeless recordings : ' The dogs of doom are howlin' more' indeed. 'Gallows pole' is desperate, and 'the Battle of Evermore' is pure Canterbury tales: Gothic, existential disquieting.
There is lyrical conceit for sure (unintentionally Parodied later by bands like Rush) but the sheer magnificence of tracks like Kashmir' justify the Homerian timbre of the lyric: ' O Father of the four winds fill my sails..'. Truly inspired by ethnic music at its purest and most spiritual long before Paul Simon made it trendy, Zeps best music draws from a huge variety of sources ALL of them base, ancient, spiritual.
Page's restrained guitar work is more effective than any cranked-up modern metaller can ever be, it's what he doesn't play which says the most.'The Rain Song' is just plain beautiful, but again the retraint renders the song imploring, unfulfilled, fearful like almost no other modern music. Plant's early shredding vocals (Whole Lotta Love, Communication breakdown) were effective enough, but gave way to an unsettling existential moan over time, (Kashmir, Achille's last stand, No Quarter). John Bonham's sex groove underpinned all their best work, and gave Hip Hop-pers an obvious drum sample along the way '(when the levee breaks, the Ocean) Don't buy this collection as a historical document, as you would , say, a Who album, for Like Gregorian Chant , Zep music is both of it's time and timeless. Buy it, love it and be unsettled. We will never see their like again. This collection is essntial.
Free Music Review: Best Led Zeppelin box set!
Hit: 5 Stars
A must have for all Led Zeppelin fans! I discovered Led Zeppelin some years after the surviving members of the band had called it quits as a result of the untimely death of drummer John Bonham. All I had ever heard up to that point of the Led Zeppelin legacy was that they are considered to be the granddaddies of Heavy Metal and although this a genre of music that I do enjoy from time to time, I was less then interested in hearing how its "forefathers" had sounded in their heydays. This was until one day I heard one of the most innovative rock songs ever, the song was "Over the Hills and Far Away" and to my astonishment I heard the DJ say that the band was Led Zeppelin. I was amazed and was hooked immediately to the hypnotic sound of Page's guitar, the raunchiness of Plant's raw voice and the hardest playing make-your-ears-bleed rhythm section ever with Bonham on drums and Jones on bass. I wanted all their records and I wanted them NOW but slowly collecting the CD's was beginning to be a pain, Thank God for this box set which is absolutely the best Led Zeppelin box set available. It has all their studio recordings plus Coda that was released after the band called it quits. The box set is beautifully packaged, each CD comes inside its own little hardcover booklet which contains pictures of the original artwork used on the LP's (including all the different artwork used in the multiple releasing of "In through the Outdoor" which was originally released in a brown paper bag so you never knew which art cover was on it, sneaky) plus you get an extra booklet which contains a bio, a discography and beautiful pictures of the band and it all comes in a beautiful little box which you can proudly display. A note on the whole Led Zeppelin/Heavy Metal thing: Yes they played hard but they also played soft. They wrote ballads (i.e. "Thank You", "The Rain Song") as good as any of their heavier songs, they even delved into reggae ("D'yer Mak'er") they were innovative; they were trendsetters (look at all the bands that have attempted to recapture the old Zeppelin magic). There is no way one can label a band that embraced so many different styles of music, always found ways of reinventing themselves and captured such a wide ranging audience that expands through decades and will continue to do so.
Free Music Review: Worth Every Penny (Plus More)
Hit: 5 Stars
How do you review a boxed set of an artist's complete studio recordings? I guess you would first review the band, and then review the features of the boxset. So, that is what i'm going to do.First off, Led Zeppelin, how could you describe them? They're so versitile. The only adjective that comes to my mind is "raw". They have a raw sound, something that makes you know they're real. They had an awesome attitude about their music, and were always attempting to grow as artists. There is no use trying to pick a best album, or a best song, they are all masterpieces. This set tells the story of Led Zeppelin. If you like Led Zeppelin, you'll like the box set. If you don't like Led Zeppelin, you probably won't. In my opinion, they are a perfect mix between being serious and having fun, a perfect mix for rock and roll (in my opinion).
Next off- The boxset. It's great. It's an awesome package, and is well priced for the items contained inside. Inside is a book with an essay and pictures, which is well written, and is very informative. Also, inside are the five other booklets which contain two cds each and the original album art on a black background. It has every page of all the booklets and sleeves that came with the original albums, which is always a plus. Overall, the box has no problems. I get paranoid sometimes, though, pulling out the cds of their cardboard holders in fear of scratching them. So far, though, they haven't been scratched. That's why it's only paranoia, and nothing real. If you are careful, they won't get scratched from the cardboard containers.
If you are looking for all the Led Zeppelin songs, there is no other way to go. If you buy all the albums seperatly, you'll have them all at the same price, but with no booklet or no cool box. If you buy the other box set and the two cds to compensate for the songs not on that box set you'll have all the songs in mixed up order with no original cover art and no essay. So that is why, in my opinion, this is the only way to go. The songs should not be mixed up, because they are put in an order for a reason.
So, the only thing wrong with this boxset is the fear I get from maybe scratching the CDs. Again, If you're careful this won't happen. That's why this boxset gets 5 Stars (4.9).
Free Music Review: The easiest way to review Led Zeppelin as a band
Hit: 5 Stars
This is much easier than reviewing each and every album.The main thing is this: there never has been and never will be another band like Led Zeppelin. That is not to say they are the best of all time (although easily in the top 5), but no one will ever listen to a band and say, "That sounds like Led Zeppelin." Their sound was 100% unique. They took rock, blues, soul, and mysticism, threw it all together and WHAM! "Stairway to Heaven." When someone asks me to describe Led Zeppelin's sound, I always say, "Imagine if they had distortion pedals in the Middle Ages." It's medieval hard rock. And it's fantastic.
From the early blues-rollers like "You Shook Me" to the psychedelia of "Dazed and Confused," Robert Plant's truly inimitable voice and the unmistakable riffing of Jimmy Page made each song unique to the band. But the foursome were also very talented at softer, more intricate work, like the beautiful "Black Mountain Side" and "That's the Way."
But despite all that beauty, it's easy to see why Led Zeppelin scared a lot of peoples' parents. Just listen to "Four Sticks." The guitar riff sounds evil enough, but add Plant chanting like some tenor-voiced witch in 5/4 time? That would make '70s parents wet their pants!
One of the most significant (and overlooked) contributions the Zeppelin made to rock is from deceased drummer John Bonham. He made it safe for drummers to be loud and raucous. Exhibits A-C -- "Moby Dick," "Bonzo's Montreax," "When the Levee Breaks." Killer drumming that can practically stand on its own.
And it's probbly safe to say that Jimmy Page carved himself a notch on the belt of ridiculously-talented guitarists. His powerhouse riffing in songs like "Black Dog," Over the Hills and Far Away," and "The Ocean" proved beyond a shadow of a doubt he was no slouch when it came to the melody.
I could go on and on listing more great songs ("Ramble On," "Gallows Pole," "Immigrant Song"), but there's no point. If you've never heard Led Zeppelin, you should. They're one of the best bands in the history of rock'n'roll, and even if you don't like them, you gotta respect 'em.
Free Music Review: Get this one...
Hit: 5 Stars
...not the two other box sets. Why?
LZ was adamant about people buying their full albums. This full-album approach is evidenced by the fact that they never released a single in the UK. Moreover, LZ was born and popularized during the days of vinyl records, and they wrote their music to accommodate this format. Knowing these things, it is important to listen to each album, at least the first few times through, in the order in which it was intended. The 1990 box set and its 1993 supplement, although handsome and concise (you get all 9 studio albums, plus a few extra b-sides, in only 6 discs), breaks all the songs up in a loose diachronic order. With this set, you have the opportunity to travel through each disc as it was intended to be heard. Moreover, you are not at the mercy of what the record company or the band might think is worthy to appear on one box set or another (I constantly find myself in disagreement over what songs are chosen for "greatest hits" compilations), which we had to endure before the second little box set came out in 1993. (I was always a little miffed that the song "That's the Way" didn't make it onto the first box set).
The re-master quality is great, but there are songs which the re-mastering process couldn't repair, possibly because the master tape was warped or unmanageable (cf. the opening cymbal crash on "Dancing Days"). At times it sounds like the dynamic range of the songs was expanded without any cleanup of tape hiss. They are noticeably louder than previous CD releases prior to the re-mastering process, but there is no need to worry about dynamic range compression - as far as I can tell, there is no clipping or compression throughout the CDs. Other songs, such as "Stairway" and "Kashmir" sound a lot cleaner and clearer, as if recorded just yesterday, but it is the quieter moments where the re-mastering stands out ("Rain Song," "No Quarter," "Stairway," etc.).
If you're looking to experience LZ the way they intended, album for album, pick up this set. The double box set released in the early 1990s doesn't do the albums or the band justice.