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Physical Graffiti

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti Audio CD

A fair review of the Led Zeppelin "Physical Graffiti" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Led Zeppelin reviews here, or go back to the Led Zeppelin tabs.

Band: Led Zeppelin
Title: Physical Graffiti
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Custard Pie 2: Rover 3: In My Time of Dying 4: Houses of the Holy 5: Trampled Under Foot 6: Kashmir 7: In the Light 8: Bron-Yr-Aur 9: Down by the Seaside 10: Ten Years Gone 11: Night Flight 12: Wanton Song 13: Boogie with Stu 14: Black Country Woman 15: Sick Again

Pure 70's.
It's all here: heavy kronch ('The Rover', 'Custard Pie'), pseudo-satanic rock ('In My Time of Dying'), English countryside acoustic rock ('Down by the Seaside') and an Eastern-influenced epic ('Kashmir'), along with many other great tracks. This underappreciated LP often dwells in the shadows of "Zoso" and "Houses of the Holy", which is a shame, because it is one of Zeppelin's best and most diverse collections. The album has just never gotten the attention it deserves by critics, or indeed the media, although it is one of the top-selling LP's of all time. True fans know what Zeppelin albums matter, and this is one of their best, and an essential, indeed archetypal 70's album.
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Cleaning Out the Vaults Never Felt So Good!
That said, there are no weak songs on this album. A classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The lesser songs merely support the greater in the diversity of their scope. There is no greater example of Led Zeppelin demonstrating what they could express musically than this album. This is their equivalent of the Beatles "White Album". A musical journey that never disappoints. Desert Island Disk? I want a copy of this album folded under my arms in my coffin!.

The two Led Zeppelins. 7/10
Led Zeppelin get classed in the "classic rock" category as far as bands go, and I can't say that I can see why, based on having recenltyish heard all their albums, up to Presence.
I'm giving this double cd 7/10 and I'm breaking it down like this: the first cd gets 3/5 and the second cd gets 4/5. Occasionally, they will come up with an iconic song worthy of the kind of classic rock that gets played on Australian commercial radio, but usually it is surrounded on the album by less commercial songs. The first cd of Physical Graffiti is ample demonstration of that. "Kashmir" is the band's crowning glory, in my view, but the rest of the songs on that cd, whilst often harder than anything they've done until that album, don't really have the quality which makes them unforgettable, like "Kashmir" and the (usually) one great song of their first three albums (though I don't think their debut had one such song in any case. Led Zeppelin IV is the album where they actually nail what it is to be a Classic Rock band. . . an immortal album).

The second cd cements my conviction that Led Zeppelin aren't really a rock band. . . they're sub-rock. . . folk rock, if you will. They nailed that genre, in my view, on Led Zeppelin III. That is my second favourite Zep album after IV. So, whilst I'm not convinced that the band has much in the way of classic rock credentials, apart from a few classics (too few, in my view, for a band of such enormous stature), they do do an interesting line in folk rock, which the third cd illustrates well.

Here's my thoughts on the cds:

CD 1:

Their greatest ever song:

Kashmir - an epic song at 8:28 minutes length. It's the kind of song that whilst long, would not suffer for being doubled in length, like, say, The Velvet Underground's best song "Murder mystery". This song has a cool beat and a classic, immortal guitar riff. Also features violins and brass instruments. When the violins get an Arabesque feel to them, it makes the song even more of a classic than it already is. Has one of the great lyrics in song history too "Leaves no trace like thoughts inside a dream". Just a brilliant turn of phrase. The sound on this song seemed more stereo than hi-fi to me though, which is a niggle.

On second listen some songs which sounded more interesting:

The rover - a hard rock song with grinding guitars. Sort of reminded me of Foreigner's later song "Urgent". A bassy track with a riff. Good, melodic lead guitar. Spanking drums. Track sounded staticky to me though. Features the lyric "The sandmen". Which brought to mind Metallica's later song "Enter Sandman", which is a classic.

In my time of dying - notable for the drumming. A slide guitar is used throughout and the intro has a country flavour to it. The rest is bluesy, with booming bass drums and just generally the drums being thumped. Actually, the drumming reminded me a bit of later band INXS, although I think INXS made that kind of thing more interesting. . . and metal band Coldseed seemed to do similar things to INXS on occasion, drumming wise.

The rest:

Trampled under foot - synthesiser has a sort of Stevie Wonder "Superstition" ambience to them. A boogie/funky track, where lead singer Robert Plant has a cool, raspy and phlegmy quality to his singing.

Custard pie - has harmonica. Has a strange guitar sound to it, though that may in fact be the synthesiser. . . in any case, it's a signature sound for the band.

Houses of the holy - a bassy track with a guitar and bass riff.

CD 2:

The best song:

Ten years gone - on second listen I marked this one down as the best on this cd. The guitar has a nice tone to it and the bass guitar is distinct. This track has quite a nice melody going for it. It's mostly a mellow track but goes a little rock sometimes. Plant, I think, has a raspy voice in this song.

Next best songs:

In the light - has a bagpipe sounding synthesiser, I think. Later you get a harpsichord type sound. A melodic track and Plant revisits some prevous songs, vocally. 8:46 long.

Bron-yr-aur - a nice, airy track with two accoustic guitars. An instrumental with a folksy ambience to it.

Down by the seaside - amiable, country flavoured electric guitar song. A gentle song which has the organ.

On second listen, some songs which sounded more interesting:

Night flight - features the organ, and has a chugga-chugga riff to it. Reminds me of "I hear you knocking". Been a while since I've listened to this album, so I assume that I have the Dave Edmunds' song in mind.

The wanton song - a heavy sounding song with bluesy vocals.

Boogie with Stu - has an interesting drumming sound. . . synthesiser sounding. Honky tonk piano sound to it, and the vocal style is 1950s sounding, I think.

The rest:

Black country woman - has interstitial banter, like that found in the album "Trout mask replica". Drum sounds bassy and a harmonica is featured. Accoustic guitar.

Sick again - a heavy rock track as far as the riffing and drum beat goes.

Recommendations:

If you want to hear Led Zeppelin in Rock Gods mode, you can't go past Led Zeppelin IV.
If you want their more folk rocky sound, Led Zeppelin III is good.
For something which I think can grow on you, and which I rate higher than Physical Graffiti, go for Houses Of The Holy.

Try:

Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath. To me, this unique Black Sabbath record also has a folk rock kind of ambience going for it. Their greatest album is the follow up, Paranoid. Their next, Master Of Reality, is also pretty good, and if you like that, pretty much all the albums after that, up until Sabotage, are similar and of good quality. In fact, I rate Black Sabbath the more important band out of the two.

Or:

Midnight Oil: Place without a postcard. Political pop/rock band from Australia. This is also a unique album for them. Not my favourite, but it does have a folk/traditional style to it which fans of Led Zeppelin may appreciate, if they like that in Led Zeppelin.

A City Block of Sound
"Trampled Under Foot" is one of the all time greatest opening riffs, up there with Beethoven and Bach. There's Sooo much good, Great stuff here its just ridiculous. Maybe higher. The epics "In My Time of Dying" and "In The Light" are sonic symphonies thanks to Bonham's incredible beats. So much here. The novelty gem "Kashmir" and its companion "Ten Years Gone" honor Eastern motifs, and "Boogie With Stu", "Black Country Women", and "Sick Again" are nods to that American Music that got em started. "Bron-Yr-Aur" is a fine taste of Celtic folk. "Custard Pie" is just good hard rock and "The Rover" could be Black Sabbath, Paranoid era. "Night Flight" really has great tempo changes, floats and bobs along. Overall there's a feeling of reaching out and exploring, but at the same time extreme confidence. If "Kashmir" wasn't on Classic Rock Radio every 10 seconds I might still enjoy it. Ok, I still enjoy it, dammit.

Buy it on LP, make your own CD
My son bought this CD and we listened to it or tried to. If this were just a review of the music it would be 5 stars, but it's a review of the CD. I have a nice stereo, so when other people said it sounded like crap I tried to adjust the stereo. Could not make it sound good. We went to a high-end stereo shop and they told us that indeed this CD does sound bad. It was so bad that my wife would not enter the living room. I returned the CD, got store credit. We bought an old LP for $10 and used Audacity (a free download) to transfer it onto CD. We were immediately amazed at the difference in sound. The CD with a sharp annoying sound that you hated, opposed to the smooth listenable sounds of the vinyl. Now I'm not going to tell you to go out and sell your CDs and buy LPs. Do not. I have two other Led Zeppelin CDs and they are much better, but in this case save your money. This CD is the most horrendous sounding CD I have ever listened to. So 5 stars for the LP. Zero stars for the CD. Not all CDs sound great, and not all LPs sound like they should. No one here is trying to make a case for vinyl over CDs. They both have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. But in this case the vinyl did not even sound at all like the CD, and I have an expensive DVD player and a cheap turntable. Go figure!.

You can see a complete list of all Led Zeppelin discography, or go back to the Led Zeppelin tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.