Led Zeppelin (1969)
Their initial release leans heavily on blues influences and shows very little of the mixture of melodicism and hard rock that would develop soon. The lyrics can be horrible (this applies to most Zeppelin albums, actually) at times, but the music does the talking when it has to. “Dazed And Confused” is the perfect example of this.
Just based on this, there’s no way I’d think this group would go onto anything more than blues remakes and bluesy, stoopid semi-originals. I’m glad I was wrong.
(“Dazed And Confused”)
Grade: B-
2010: Really GOOD blues remakes and bluesy, stoopid semi-originals.
Grade: B+
2012: Yeah, it’s really good. But it’s not great. Not with lyrics that make Black Francis look good.
Grade: B+
9/25/24:
“Good Times Bad Times” is pretty good.
“Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” sucks despite Jimmy Page’s best efforts…I mean, make up your fcken MIND Robert.
“You Shook Me” plods, but is…ok.
“Dazed And Confused” ROCKS if you can ignore Plant’s blatant/stupid sexism.
“Your Time Is Gonna Come” has too much synth but is…ok.
“Black Mountain Side” – Page shows he can play acoustic pretty darn well.
“Communication Breakdown” – Page shows he can play electric pretty darn well. Plant wails about something, but who cares?
“I Can’t Quit You Baby” takes up some necessary space to make a full-length album.
“How Many More Times” is cool and has some nice tempo changes and compelling musicianship.
Inspirational Quote: “SUCK!”
Grade: B (And this time, I MEAN it!)
Led Zeppelin II (1969)
More blooze, stupid lyrics, and blatant sexual references from the boys. All three of these things can be overlooked when the band is rocking the way it can.
Here, that’s limited to just a few songs. Their second worst studio album, after the posthumous ‘Coda’.
(“Whole Lotta Love”)
Grade: C+
2010: Testosterone poisoning…I mean, how STUPID can you get?
Grade: C-
2012: Ehhhh…testosterone doesn’t poison the riffs, and there are riffs. Some.
Grade: C
9/25/24: No change, see above.
Led Zeppelin III (1970)
A switch from overkill hard rock/blues, this album contains mostly ballads. It shows promise in points – the Page and Plant synchronization of guitar and vocal on “That’s The Way”, the “Stairway To Heaven” prequel “Tangerine”, etc…
I don’t think anyone had any idea what was to follow after this.
(“That’s The Way”, “Immigrant Song”)
Grade: B
2010: Upped a notch for radical transformation, and meaning well.
Grade: B+
2012: It’s actually very good because it’s very good. They drop the overkill of I and II and add melody and harmony in believable (and more importantly, listenable) ways.
Grade: B+
9/25/24: No change, see above.
Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
Their generally acknowledged masterpiece, and who am I to argue with songs like “Stairway To Heaven”, “When The Levee Breaks”, and others. Plant manages to write some interesting lyrics for once on this album. Some of them I don’t fully understand, but at least they’re not obviously and embarrassingly stupid. The whole band
contributes to make this a seriously great album/undeniable classic.
(“Stairway To Heaven”, “Black Dog”, “Misty Mountain Hop”)
Grade: A
2010: Transcendent.
Grade: A+
2012: They get by with a little help from their Spirit.
Grade: A+
9/25/24: No change, see above.
Houses Of The Holy (1973)
A great follow-up to IV, this album shows no signs of Zep letting up in their current formula (that is, light and shade mixed together for a wonderful end result).
I’ve become a little bit sick of some of these songs after playing them repeatedly, and I wonder (as I always do) if the music is dated and not as good as originally thought, OR if I just got sick of it for a time. With this album I think it’s mostly the second option.
(“Over The Hills And Far Away”, “No Quarter”)
Grade: A-
2012: Only “The Crunge” makes me cringe.
Grade: A
9/25/24: No change, see above.
Physical Graffiti (1975)
A double album that, for a change, doesn’t make me wish they’d chopped it down into a single one. There’s a little bit of filler here, sure. And the best songs aren’t exactly what you would call “classic” (“Kashmir” excluded). But there’s a whole lot of good-to-very-good stuff here. Disc one I could truly call great. Disc two gives a slight feeling of Deja Vu (“Sick Again”, try to find its near-twin) and isn’t so great. But it’s interesting and at least fairly good. An album worth listening to all the way through.
(“Kashmir”, “The Wanton Song”, “Trampled Under Foot”)
Grade: A-
2010: Pride before the fall.
Grade: A
9/25/24: Borderline, but closer to A than A-.
Grade: A
Presence (1976)
The worst Zeppelin album (yes, including ‘Coda’) of them all if all you’re looking for is the killer track. If good, solid music is what you’re after (or at least, willing to accept) then it’s not a bad selection. I listen to it…occasionally.
(“For Your Life”)
Grade: B
2012: It’s only got two good songs on it. And they’re not all THAT good. “Achilles Last Stand” is an interesting but failed attempt at “Stairway, part 3” or “Kashmir, part 2”. And the fact that every song is at least ok shouldn’t be regarded as a monumental achievement.
Grade: B-
9/25/24: I think it’s good, and I wonder how I could ever have given it below a B until I get to “Tea For One”, which sucks. Fortunately, that’s the last song, so just stop listening when it starts playing: problem solved!
Grade: B
In Through The Out Door (1979)
“In The Evening” was quite enough to sell me on this album for a long time. Jimmy Page’s repeated hooky riff and Robert Plant’s perfectly synchronized vocal response are upstaged only by the mid-song solo, one of Page’s best ever. One of ANYONE’S best ever. Unfortunately, after that song the album is a bit of a let-down. They always did like light and shade, but here the shadiness fades quickly, and what is left behind is a great hard rock band either running out of hard music or switching to synth-pop. Neither of those options do all that much for their legacy. “All My Love” is a fine song, but it just somehow doesn’t seem quite right for Led Zep. Calling it quits here seems (now) to have been a good idea, John Bonham or no John Bonham.
(“In The Evening”)
Grade: B-
2010: “In The Evening” is really really really good.
Grade: B
10/3/16: Ok, take away one really.
Grade B-
9/25/24: No change, see above.
Coda (1982)
When I first started listening to this album, I wasn’t surprised that the tracks weren’t particularly good. After all, they’re admittedly scraping the bottom of the barrel with songs that weren’t good enough for previous release. I fail to see how John Bonham’s death makes them worthy of release now, excepting the possible tribute to him, “Bonzo’s Montreux”, which fails to produce much excitement. The only track that kept me wavering on trashing this album was “Wearing and Tearing”: A nice, fast, riff-heavy, meaningless song. Then I realized I wasn’t giving a couple of other songs their due, mainly “I Can’t Quit You Baby”. It’s still the worst studio album
they’ve ever released, but as is always the case with Led Zep, even their failures have bright spots.
(“Wearing And Tearing”)
Grade: C
2012: Still their worst.
Grade: C-
9/25/24: If it wasn’t Led Zep I would have graded it lower to begin with. But I mean…mediocre is mediocre. Take away “Wearing And Tearing” and this isn’t even that.
Grade: D+
Led Zeppelin: Boxed Set (1990)
Why this? Because I bought the four-CASSETTE box in the HOPE of liking it. Really, I was pretty darn ignorant musically.
Thankfully, this introduced me to the consistent very-good-ness of Led Zep, a brain-rewiring event of GREAT pleasure for a then-impressionable teen. Classic rock, and then very quickly grunge…I was wired to like them both, and in terms of quality I think I got very, very lucky in being chosen-for what I adored musically.
No longer relevant because “format” is no longer relevant since it’s so variable and available, if you listened to this all the way from beginning to end you would probably have a really good time, with a few surprises and an easy pass over the few duds knowing “well, next one’s gotta be good then…”.
Grade: A