My Favorite Album

Image from Amazon.com

In my previous post I wrote about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of my all-time favorite movies that also celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year.  Interestingly, my favorite music album also celebrated its fiftieth anniversary earlier this year.  The album is Physical Graffiti and comes to us courtesy of the, in my opinion, greatest band to ever exist…the immortal Led Zeppelin.

By way of introduction, Led Zeppelin was started by Jimmy Page in 1968.  Jimmy Page had gained a reputation as the best session guitarist in the British music scene before growing frustrated with the lack of creative opportunities and joining the popular band The Yardbirds, whose previous members included fellow legendary guitarists Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck.  After The Yardbirds disbanded, Jimmy Page decided that he had a lot more he wanted to do musically and started forming a new group.

He initially wanted to form a four-piece group with himself and Jeff Beck on guitars and John Entwhistle and Keith Moon from The Who filling out the lineup on bass and drums.  Jeff Beck declined the offer while Entwhistle and Moon chose to remain with The Who.  Jimmy Page later approached vocalist Terry Reid about joining his new band, tentatively called The New Yardbirds, but when Reid declined he recommended Robert Plant.

Robert Plant had previously been the vocalist for a group called The Band of Joy, whose drummer was a young powerhouse named John Bonham who would become, in my opinion, the greatest drummer ever.  After Robert Plant joined Jimmy Page, John Bonham followed shortly thereafter.  The final ingredient, the bassist position, was filled when a session player on the level of Jimmy Page named John Paul Jones, who had previously worked with Page, asked about the vacant position and was soon offered it.

Each member was the best at what they did at that time, and they combined together in a way that produced an influx of awesomeness that I doubt will ever be equaled.  A couple of months after forming, in January 1969, Led Zeppelin released their self-titled debut album .  The Blues-Rock masterwork forever changed the world of music, and was followed by Led Zeppelin II later the same year.  Led Zeppelin III and their untitled fourth album were followed by Houses of the Holy before what I consider their magnum opus, Physical Graffiti, was released in February 1975, the band’s sixth album in six years.

The album’s creation began in earnest in January of 1974 when the band went to a now famous house in southern England called Headley Grange where they would sometimes retire in order to focus on writing and recording.  After a short break, during January and February of that year, Led Zeppelin had what is quite possibly the greatest two-month recording period in music history when they laid down nine new songs.  After recording the new tracks, they found that the songs combined for a total run time longer than a single album could be at the time.  Rather than cutting any of the tracks, the band decided to add some songs that they had previously recorded and not included on any of their previous albums to make Physical Graffiti a double album.

Image from YouTube

The Originals

As previously stated, Physical Graffiti began with nine new tracks.  The first one of these started out as an instrumental composed by Jimmy Page and John Bonham during a stay at Headley Grange in late 1973.  Robert Plant would later add lyrics to this track and it would become the Zeppelin classic “Kashmir”, which Jimmy Page would later claim is the definitive Led Zeppelin track.  The other eight came about during the January-February recording period mentioned earlier, a world altering creative period.

The album begins with “Custard Pie”, one of the greatest opening tracks of any album and a showcase of Led Zeppelin’s unequalled ability to take the soul of the Blues and crank it up to 11 with excellent guitar riffs, bass lines, vocals, and drums.  This track also benefits from John Paul Jones showcasing his prowess on any keyboard instrument, in this particular case a clavinet, as well as the inclusion of a Jimmy Page guitar solo played through a synthesizer and Robert Plant showcasing his mastery of the old Blues Harp (harmonica).

This album also includes my favorite song not just on this album or by this band, but ever, In My Time of Dying.  This third track on the album is Led Zeppelin’s take on a Gospel song alternately called “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed” originally recorded by Blues legend Blind Willie Johnson.  The introduction of the song, with Jimmy Page playing a simple but incredibly effective slide guitar riff, is enough to draw someone in and make them want to crank up the volume.  The rest of the track gives each member a chance to shine and show why they were the best in the world.

I will play this song for people who aren’t familiar with Led Zeppelin, or who need to know why I consider them the greatest band of all-time.  I also use this song to show why I believe that Jimmy Page is the greatest guitarist ever as his otherworldly solos where he alternates between traditional fretting and slide guitar are borderline supernatural.  As a drummer, I am especially in awe of John Bonham’s amazing work on this track and in general.  John Bonham proved to be indispensable to the album’s greatness as a whole through greatly contributing to the arrangement of this track and many others on the album, even being given a chief songwriting credit on “Kashmir” and a jam track called “Boogie With Stu”.

Another great original track on the album is “Trampled Under Foot”, Led Zeppelin’s take on the Robert Johnson song “Terraplane Blues”.  This was the first song I played when I ran the St. George Marathon and is especially unique as it features a Funk-inspired sound and John Paul Jones once again breaking out the clavinet.  In place of a guitar solo, John Paul Jones plays a blistering one on the clavinet that joins with Bonham’s driving beat to create a force of nature to which one can’t help but react.

The other original tracks on the album are the aforementioned “Kashmir” along with “The Wanton Song”, “In The Light”, “Ten Years Gone”, and “Sick Again”.  All of these are outstanding and do a great job of conveying Led Zeppelin’s excellence and versatility that would forever change the face of Rock, and Popular Music in general.

The Outtakes

The other seven tracks on the album were previously recorded songs that had not been included on albums largely due to time constraints and feelings from the band, particularly leader Jimmy Page, that they didn’t go well with the rest of those albums.  An interesting example of this is the track “Houses of the Holy”, which was originally intended to be the title track for Zeppelin’s previous album.

One of my biggest pet peeves in music is albums consisting largely of what I call filler tracks, songs that are only on an album to pad it out so that vendors can justify selling a full album, where only a few songs are put together with any kind of effort.  Physical Graffiti could have easily succumbed to this pitfall with old songs being put in to extend it to a double album, but the “outtake tracks” greatly contribute to not only the length of the album, but the quality as well.

The outtake tracks came from recording sessions for the albums Led Zeppelin III, their untitled fourth album (which Jimmy Page refers to as the fourth album), and Houses of the Holy.  I own the album and listen to it on a vinyl EP, the first side of that EP begins with “Custard Pie” and ends with “In My Time of Dying”.

The filling that completes what might be the best side of any record is the excellent track “The Rover”, which was recorded during the sessions for “Houses of the Holy”.  “The Rover” is indicative of what I mean when I say that the outtake tracks are not filler.  Rather than being a throwaway track between two great ones, it is an excellent number that stands on its own.  I especially love the excellent bassline provided by John Paul Jones in this Blues-Rock masterpiece.

The other outtake tracks showcase Led Zeppelin’s versatility as they encompass various subgenres such as “Boogie Woogie” and smoother fare, that are all performed with excellence.  Of the outtake tracks, my personal favorites are “The Rover” and a leftover from the sessions for the fourth album called “Night Flight”.  “Night Flight” is a spectacular driving track fraught with Bonham’s expert drumming, John Paul Jones showing his beyond impressive skill with both the bass guitar and keyboards, Jimmy Page providing an excellent guitar riff with an irresistible hook, and Robert Plant peppering it all with vocals that are at once crisp and raspy, like a Bluesman simultaneously doubling as a choir boy.

Physical Graffiti can be accurately described as 83 minutes of sheer awesomeness and is my pick for the greatest album ever made.  It is the greatest vocalist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer of their time coming together to perform over a dozen expertly crafted songs across a variety of subgenres under the Rock umbrella.  I mentioned my dislike for albums that are mostly filler tracks, and the flip side of that coin is albums with no filler tracks that can, and often demand to, be played from start to finish without skipping any songs.

Any double album is a risky venture, it can either be a timeless masterpiece where a band or artist creates something that is beyond impressive and shows a level of talent and ability in being able to make a lengthy album that is also high quality.  Or, a double album can amount to nothing more than a bloated, soulless vanity project.  I say that the greatest albums are the ones with no filler tracks, by extension the most impressive albums are double ones that can make that statement.

Physical Graffiti is an amazing double album with no filler tracks.  What makes this an especially impressive achievement is that making it a double album literally involved adding older tracks to it in order to pad it out.  For a lesser group or artist this would have sealed the album being a bloated vanity project.  However, in the hands of Led Zeppelin, the tracks all fit together with nothing wasted and in a way that does nothing to lessen the final product.  If you have never listened to this album, do yourself a favor and strap in for 83 minutes of awesomeness that will at the very least rock your world, if not blow your mind.