Rating: 9/10

Top Track: ‘Whole Lotta Love’

Oh. Yeah. It’s time to cover the greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll band of all time. That’s right; I’m takin’ Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. Led Zeppelin baby! If you were to ask me which band I would see live if I could travel back in time, it’s LZ hands down. The closet I’ll ever come to that happened last November when I saw Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening at the House of Blues in Boston. Now, seeing the late, great John Bonham’s son crush the drums just like his daddy while musicians who sounded just like Page, Plant, and Jones accompanied him was amazing, but it still wasn’t the real thing. It’s like buying store-brand Cheerio’s instead of the real thing; it may taste similar, but, deep down, we all know it’s not the same thing. So, all I have is listening to Robert Plant belt and scream while Jimmy Page shreds away through my speakers. This album was released during a very busy point in the band’s early career. All the songs were written during the band’s tour of their first album, ‘Led Zeppelin’, and recorded at different locations throughout the United Kingdom and North America from January to August 1969. It was a commercial success. It was the band’s first album to reach number one on charts in the UK and the US. Even the album’s cover designer, David Juniper, was nominated for a Rest Recording Package Grammy Award.

There were really only two horses in the race for Top Track, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘Heartbreaker’. It was a tough decision. I ultimately landed on ‘Whole Lotta Love’ because of how it ends. Both songs have legendary guitar riffs and unforgettable guitar solos, but ‘Whole Lotta Love’ ends with a fantastic vocal performance from Plant. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Bonham’s incredible percussion solo. As a whole, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ is a more experimental, abstract song; and as much as I love ‘Heartbreaker’, it’s more a straightforward hard rock song. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I believe that thinking outside the box is what drove this band forward and influenced so many future rock legends. The way Jimmy Page layers the guitar tracks in this song makes it sounds like there are two different Jimmys talking to each other through their instruments. Page’s love for the blues comes through when he slides down his guitar and adds his own twist by making it sound like there are fighter jets overhead. Page is far and away my favorite guitar player to play air guitar along with. While I can play my air guitar along with pretty much every song on this album, there’s something about this song in particular that just gets me every time. The Led Zeppelin fans know what I’m talking about. I’ve tried and failed to sing “Oh!” just like Robert Plant does. How does one man sing one syllable so well?

One thing, I think everyone should know about this band is that Jimmy Page was the mastermind behind almost everything the band did. He wrote almost all of the music and produced every single one of the band’s albums. Shoot, he even brought the entire band together. He had the idea for a heavy-sounding supergroup in the late 1960s while hanging out with The Who’s drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle along with Yardbirds’ guitarist Jeff Beck. Unfortunately, a lack of a solid vocalist and contract obligations killed the idea. During that time, however, Moon suggested the name “Lead Zeppelin” after Entwistle made the comment that the project would take to the air like a lead balloon. After joining and playing with The Yardbirds for a bit, Page’s dream came to fruition. Band members Keith Ralf and Jim McCartney left the Yardbirds in 1968, leaving Page to reconfigure a group to finish tour dates in Scandinavia. Page eventually ended up recruiting vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. Bassist John Paul later contacted Page asking to join the group. This new group finished the tour as the New Yardbirds, but later established themselves as their own group under the name “Lead Zeppelin” inspired by John Entwistle’s past comment. The same was soon changed by their manager, Peter Grant, to “Led Zeppelin” to avoid the mispronunciation of “Leed Zeppelin“. And thus, Page’s supergroup was formed.

It’s crazy to me that Jimmy Page came up with all of these amazing guitar solos and riffs for the first four albums in just three years. I mean, every single track off of this album is just teeming with guitar genius. Even songs like ‘Moby Dick’, which is mostly just a long Bonham drum solo, features a great combination of drums and guitar right at the beginning. Even ‘Thank You’ features some great acoustic guitar, showing just how talented the young Page was. Now, I could go on for miles about how great Jimmy Page is, because there really would be no Led Zeppelin without him. But there wouldn’t really be a Led Zeppelin without the other members either; or at least the band wouldn’t have been as great as it was. Both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant shared an extreme love for the American blues. While Plant wasn’t the guitar player page was, he manage to bring his blues influence into his vocals by giving his own take on the wailing classic blues singers were known for. And when the band really wanted to dive into the blues sound, he was ready to go on harmonica. Just listen to the beginning of ‘Bring It on Home’.

Let’s talk about that Led Zeppelin rhythm section. I’m going to be honest, they do not get the amount of credit they deserve. Granted, to Led Zeppelin fans and drum-heads, John Bonham is the greatest drummer of all time. As a LZ fan, I concur. This man laid the groundwork for future hard rock and heavy metal drummers and continued to be a drumming icon up until his untimely death in 1980. Bonham made it known that the drummer wasn’t in the band just to keep rhythm, they could be a driving force within the band and even be a contributing factor in terms of songwriting. Bonham brought in a lot of his own ideas for songs, which was unprecedented with bands at the time; the drummer was usually considered dispensable. The other half of LZ’s rhythm section consisted of bassist John Paul Jones, easily the least popular member of the band. That’s not a slight to good ol’ JPJ, but when you’re in a band with Page, Plant, and Bonham, it’s very likely that you take the backseat. However, every great band needs a great bassist and there are some fantastic bass lines throughout LZ’s catalogue. A great example off of this album in particular is ‘The Lemon Song’. JPJ served as a great ying to Jimmy Page’s yang. He wasn’t flashy, he considered “cool”, but he was definitely a major factor in LZ’s success.

Many people think of Page and Plant when they think of Led Zeppelin, and I don’t blame them. They take up a lot of real estate on people’s Led Zeppelin pie charts, if you will. My pie chart will always give 1/4 apiece to each founding member. I love this band and I love this album (my favorite LZ album). I am definitely going to cover more Led Zeppelin in the future. Rock on!