Songs: Black Dog, Rock and Roll, The Battle of Evermore, Stairway To Heaven, Misty Mountain Hop, Four Sticks,
Going To California, When the Levee Breaks.
Comments:
Is
there anything that can be said about Led Zeppelin’s 4th -and
probably most famous Album? To be able to give a more or less objective opinion
on Four Symbols or Runes or Zosa as the Album is also often called I might try
not to consider the following facts:
·
Robert Plant is a Cock-Rocker who is
often overdoing the wailing and showing off;
·
Led Zeppelin’s lyrics generally suck;
·
The songs on this Album get constant day
to day Airplay on Classic Rock radio stations;
·
A couple of songs on the Album are not that great.
If
I do that this Album would score 10 out of 10. Because no band was able to release
such an Album back in 1971. Led Zeppelin has been often accused of stealing
riffs from old blues songs but who didn’t. Rock & Roll and Blues only have
so many possible musical combinations! It’s more how you play it than what you
play and Led Zeppelin played like no band before them. And many tried to
imitate them afterwards but few, if any, came close. Together with Led Zeppelin
I, IV is my favorite Led Album. They are just completely different. The Debut
Album is a very coherent album and the songs complement each other in an
extraordinary manner. It’s almost like a perfect jam during a very inspired
live show.
Led
Zeppelin IV is not like that. It’s much more a collection of mostly great songs
put together in no particular order. It’s almost like a Greatest Hits Album.
One of the reasons for this is that the band had more time to concentrate on
actually writing songs of their own. This Album shows Led Zeppelin on the top
of their song-writing capabilities with Stairway to Heaven as the undisputed crown
on their work. If they would have stopped here they would have been called as
great as the Beatles and the Stones by everybody but they didn’t and most of their later
work is simply not on par with their first 4 albums.
Well
let’s have a look at the individual songs then, as they are more important than
the sum of the total:
The
Album kicks off with the confident dark rocker Black Dog quite possibly written as an ode to Peter Green, the
founder of Fleetwood Mac. The stop and go moments in the song do show similarity
with Oh Well. Black Dog is not a
great song but it’s loud, raw and hard and it’s a good opener.
The
second song, Rock & Roll, to me
represents all that Classic (Hard) Rock is about. It’s based on Rock and
Roll and boogie from the fifties but played in a fast and furious way. With
pounding drums, howling guitars and screaming vocals, in short everything that
parents in those days were afraid of but their children adored.
The Battle of Evermore is
a song that divides even the Leddest of the Fans. Some think it’s better than
Stairway and some think it’s not that good. In my opinion it’s certainly
pretentious but not in a bad way. I like these medieval style songs and since
it’s about War, howling and wailing do not seem out of line here. And Jimmy plays a
wonderful mandolin. The song also benefits froms the vocals of Sandy Denny.
I
can’t find words to describe Stairway to
Heaven. The melody is stunningly beautiful, Robert is actually singing,
Page is great on acoustic guitar and the combination of a soft and a loud part
is one of the, if not the, main trademarks of Led Zeppelin. Although I would
have loved the soft part to be longer. But then we might have missed one of the
best guitar solos in Rock & Roll history. It’s the song that got me really
interested in Rock Music in the first place and I don’t think I’m the only one!
It’s
quite a change from Stairway to Misty
Mountain Hop. It’s more of a groove or chant or almost rap, set against a
mixture of Arabic Music and Blues. It’s not a great song but it’s still
listenable.
Four Sticks
is the only song on the album I could easily live without although there is
some great drumming going on. But the riff, although funky, is a bit boring and
the song, well, is nothing special.
My
favorite all time Led Zeppelin folk song must be the hippie Going
to California, based on Joni Mitchell’s
song California.
The
album closes with the unbelievable and scary
When the Levee Breaks. Yes, it’s a bit too long and it does gets monotonous after five minutes or so. But it’s a
great Doom Blues with these hard pounding drums, the great slide guitar and
Robert’s Harmonica. Never heard a song like that before or after. I think it’s
quite unique.
So
after the more laid-back and folksy Led Zeppelin III, the Led was back with an
album full of heavy metal rock with some mystical folk and Louisiana blues
thrown in for good measure. The fans adored it and it went to #1 all around the
world. And it really stood up to the test of time. For me the band reached the
highest point in their careers. In terms of songwriting, in terms of mastering
their instruments and in terms of production. They would go on making nice
songs from here on but never again an album like this!
So
I would have given this album 10 points out of 10. But let’s be honest, Robert
Plant is a Cock Rocker and he does overdo the wailing and howling from time to
time. And the lyrics do suck for most of the time. And I’ve heard all these
songs already a thousand times before. And I’m not that fond of Misty Mountain
Hop and Four Sticks although they are certainly not as bad as some would lead
us to believe. So in the end it’s a very solid 9 for one of the greatest
Classic Rock Albums of all time!
Rating: ********* (9 out of 10)
Black = Good Songs
Green = Great Songs
Red = Could Be Better
Who should buy this Record: Everybody!! One of Led Zeppelin’s Best Album and
one of the true Classic Rock Albums of All Time. Get It Now!
