LED ZEPPELIN II

Led Zep II. IMO, this is the heaviest album of the band. It will be a major source of influence for the hard-rock as well as the heavy metal genre. It will establish their fame worldwide.

This is probably the reason that it is a bit underrated on this site (at least by some of the most influent reviewers). I totally understand their meaning but for those same reasons I will rate this one pretty high. When I have discovered this wonderful site (in 2004), I would have never dreamed to be able to post a Led Zep review on PA. Since it has been possible, I can fully express my opinion about this great band in rock history.

The year of release of this album, they will be asked to play at Woodstock. Led Zep will turn down the offer because they got a better deal for a few gigs with higher pay. The week-end of Woodstock, they will play each night at different places (San Antonio, New Jersey and Connecticut). They will very deeply regret this choice. To compensate (but there is no such compensation) they will play at the Texas Pop Festival two weeks later. This is one of Peter Grant's very few blunder as a manager.

Led Zep will have the habit (but so will the Purple and the Heep) to start an album with a magical opener. "Whole Lotta Love" is the archetype of a heavy song. Incredible riff, extremely strong bass & drumming and fabulous vocals. As they were used already in "Dazed" and "How Many More Times", Led Zep will deliver a rather psychedelic middle part. This strange middle section featuring some recorded drums, vocal sounds from Plant, and backwards echo is a great moment for fans.

A section of its vocals will also cause the band some legal problems since Willie Dixon will claim the lyrics for the section "You Need Love" (obviously not a Led Zep original). He sued Led Zep in ... 1985 for this.

Unbelievable to have such a track on a single ? Can you imagine : 5'30" of the loudest treatment you can get ? In 1970 ? Still, "Whole Lotta Love" was released and it will peak at Nr. 4 on the US charts.

It was their first record to enter into my discography.

"What Is..." is a great song. Very quite start, the tempo gets suddenly wild and then ... quiet again. This quiet/heavy interchange will take place several times (they already did something similar with "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" on their first album. I like this song very much. It gives the listener some fresh air to breathe after "Whole Lotta". Very good track.

"The Lemon Song" is a pure blues song. Page's bad habit in appropriating the work of others will again cause Led Zep some legal problems. It is made of several blues sources. Mainly "Killing Floor" from Chester Burnett. Zeppelin was sued and settled out of court again, meritoriously. The other parts are "Squeeze My Lemon" and "Traveling Riverside Blues". To close the subject, there were some other portions of the song related to Albert Kings "Cross Cut Saw", and Lightning Slim's "Hoodoo Woman".

After the bluesy intro (1'30"), this song gets wiiiiiiiiiild and rocks like craaaaaaaazy. Page delivering a superb solo. We'll switch again to the blues section in which Jones plays a great background bass. This section is famous for its explicit lyrics : "Squeeze me baby, till the juice runs down my leg. The way ya squeeze my lemon-ah, I'm gonna fall right out of bed "! Fortunately for them, the league for women's right was not yet in place. Otherwise, I guess that would have suffered another trial ! Back to the rocking side for the end of this great track.

"Thank You" is the only quiet song here. A bit in the vain of "Your Time Is Gonna Come" but better, less mellowish. It also features a very good and rhythmic section. IMO, one of the two average tracks of the album.

"Heartbreaker" is one of the hardiest song they will ever write. Hard-rocking all the way through. Misogynous lyrics (to keep the image building) : it will feature one of the most furious Page's studio guitar solo. About it, Jimmy said : "The interesting thing about the solo is that it was recorded after we had already finished "Heartbreaker". It was an afterthought. That whole section was recorded in a different studio and it was sort of slotted in the middle. If you notice, the whole sound of the guitar is different.". It is just brilliant.

Everyone knows the linking with "Livin' Lovin' (She's Just A Woman)". Fans are missing this on compilation efforts. Not hearing the intro for "Livin'..." after the last word of "Heartbreaker" : "Heartbreaker, Heartbreaker, Heart! ... "With a purple umbrella and a fifty cent hat, Livin', lovin', she's just a woman". Weird ! This is another MCP (male chauvinist pig) song : "When your conscience hits you, knock it back with pills..." Explicit enough. Hard-rocking as hell, it is another great song featured. It was the B- side for "A Whole Lotta Love". This single was my entry to the band in December 1970. What a gigantic single (both sides) ! How many (more) times did I (will I) listened to it ? Countless !

"Ramble On" is another variation of "What Is...". It refers to The Lord Of The Rings (Mordor, Golum and the evil one). Very surprisingly, Led Zep will never play this song live. Plant will include this track during his solo tours in the early 1990's and it will be featured in almost all the shows of the Page/Plant world tour (98/99). It was one of the many highlights of these concerts (to which I was so lucky to attend in December 1998 in Ghent, Belgium). The shift between a nice and gentle song (even spacey at times) and a wild and vigorous rock one is remarkable. One of the best number on this album.

"Moby Dick" is of course not the greatest song from Led Zep. It has a great guitar intro (over a minute) that leads to a drum solo. It was not frequent (and still isn't today) to have a drum solo on a studio album (Tull had done this with "Darma For One" on "This Was" as soon as 1968). More than anything it will be a pretext for a great drumming experience during their live gigs. And I can tell you, it was quite an experience...

"Bring It on Home" is made of two parts. First one sounds like the Williamson's blues original (1963), Plant singing through a harmonica microphone and amplifier. The second part is again a wild hard/heavy song like only Led Zep could produced in 1969. A great way to close this excellent album.

Zillions of fans will embrace Led Zep music from then on. It will be the first of a long list of Nr. one on both sides of the Atlantic. This album is legendary. It will open musical directions unknown so far and therefore I rate it five stars. Not for any prog-relation of any kind because there is none, just because it was a pivotal album in hard/heavy rock music and I whole lotta love it.

AT THE TIME OF RELEASE, NO ONE WOULD HAVE EVER CONSIDERED THIS ALBUM AS PROG RELATED. NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN THE MEANTIME. IT'S JUST ONE OF THE BEST HARD TO HEAVY ROCK ALBUM OF ALL TIME.

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