LED ZEPPELIN II

At the stage I am at enthusiastic musical collection, people give it for granted that I am great fans of seminal bands, such as Black Sabbath, The Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, AC/DC and Land Zeppelin, to mention only the foreign bands. They just imagine that just because I know a lot about underground or unknown artists, I know all these by heart and I am also a specialist on every matter regarding these guys; and every time I voice my opinion those people end up either negatively surprised or enraged because I either (mostly) don't care about them (the majority of the band's albums), or profoundly dislike another, being The Beatles the only exception in this lot (because I love them so much).

Even though you may be wondering which are which, allow me to go ahead and say that this review specifically will be dedicated to kick off my hate-infused passion for a British rock group that bears the status of being a legendary entity among many; whose albums are definitely above any and all criticism; whose members are geniuses whose brilliance cannot be even grasped by mere commoners; whose musical production has been, unfortunately, the entrance to older pop music for generations. Yes, believe it or not, I am talking about the famous lot who called themselves Led Zeppelin.

Before I enter in the bashing review proper, a little voyage down memory lane by my part will be necessary for anybody to understand my reasons for giving such a harsh rating for an album that is beloved by many. Well, I've been involved with music since a very tender age and I've played musical instruments since the age of 4. Since an equally young age I have been listening to music on a daily basis and, even though I only started my own music collection in recent years, I have always listened to the discs my parents had, specially the ones from my father. Being born in the early 1950's, and always being a music aficionado, his firsts loves were The Beatles and blues music in general (specially Chicago blues), hence my love for (Chicago) blues and (most of) The Beatles. No Led Zeppelin, however.

After about twenty years of listening to blues, and listening to the many appeals of one of my uncles to urgently fill this musical gap of mine, I bought all six classical Zeppelin albums: from 1 all the way to Physical Graffiti. The experience was both disastrous and traumatizing. I do not feel that there are any huge problems with the recording itself or with how the band played their instruments or with the technical parts of the recording process (tapes, mixing, mastering, etc.). My problem is with the compositions themselves; my problem is not with any of the peripheral elements of this (or in fact, any of their albums), but with the actual content of Led Zeppelin II.

I have seen people dance around the subject of how the production of Led II could have been a lot better or how the guitars or bass or drums could have been improved in some way or even how the songs themselves could have turned out better if they actually stopped touring, sat down and wrote the songs. All of this does not matters for me in any way, because even if the mixing or production was better, even if the songs were a little better . . . Regardless of the other problems, this album, as well as most album by this band, suffer from a dreadful lack of innovation or even originality.

As some have noted before me even in ProgArchives, Jimmy Page, as well as the other members of the Zeppelin, practically plagiarized songs from every artist they liked wile writing their songs. It is actually quite impressive that none of the many blues men (most from the Chicago blues sound) went after the band in search for their due royalties (or at least the studio companies who own or owned at the time the rights songs' rights), specially since Led Zeppelin albums sold like hot bread during the early 70's.

Still, in spite of having no legal problems regarding plagiarism (none that I know of, at least), as a music fan and music consumer I should point this out, in order to avoid people from having the same problem that I had: flushing money down the toilet with albums that are actually worsened versions of the blues masters from the 50's and 60's.

Although much has been taken from other artists and for that there is little originality, it must say that this album is not all bad. After all, if you copy competent people you will eventually have something sounding half good, which is the case: the band's proficient copying managed even to replicate some of the quality from the people they borrowed their ideas, but don't expect much.

Rating and Final Thoughts

At this point, I don't believe there is much to add to what has already been said. If you like (good) blues and have been listening to it for more than a couple of days, it is highly probable that this album (as well as most of Led Zeppelin's discography) will strike you being as boring and superfluous. If you don't, however, you might even enjoy.

Share this LED ZEPPELIN review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to CCVP
• Report this review (#871340)
• Buy LED ZEPPELIN music online with PA partners
• Show all LED ZEPPELIN MP3/Stream
• Go to LED ZEPPELIN page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Led Zeppelin II page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for LED ZEPPELIN related discussions