Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006 | 08:57
led zeppelin - physical graffiti
in college i was still trying to develop my taste in music, and it was only in fits and starts that i came to appreciate really good stuff. this is why i bought the 'datapanik in the year zero' box set, but didn't really listen to it until nearly five years later. this is also why i bought 'physical graffiti', decided it was boring, and sold it off. at least, i'm pretty sure that's what happened. i swear i owned it briefly, but then i didn't. i know i had 'coda' then sold it, but my memory of 'physical graffiti' is fuzzy.
i had 'coda' my sophomore year of college, so i assume i had 'physical graffiti' then too. i can't be sure why i got rid of it, but my recollection is that i was buying madonna and meat beat manifesto at the time, and probably loads of other stuff through bmg. i got 'erotica' because i was a desperately horny college kid, and 'subliminal sandwich' because i'd decided to branch out into this electronica thing that people said was cool. i probably had the chemical brothers by then, but i didn't know anything about mbm at the time. i also got depeche mode's 'violator' so clearly i was on an 80's and 90's kick, something led zeppelin really didn't fit. i don't know that i was into punk yet, but clearly this bloated rock ran counter to what was exciting me at the time. i just wasn't in the right headspace to appreciate led zeppelin. in fact, other than the beatles and hendrix, i don't think i liked much of anything before the 80's, and most of what i had was nirvana and pearl jam. clearly i had some growth to do.
hearing it now, six months after i bought it for the second time, i am in a much better place to appreciate the music. i also have a much better appreciation for led zeppelin in general, and the band's importance in rock history. i have a much better feel for how led zeppelin laid the groundwork for the bands i like, especially the seattle grunge of the early 90's. at the time, in the 90's, i couldn't fit zeppelin into my pantheon of pink floyd, r.e.m., nine inch nails, bjork, and tori amos (i wasn't even into bowie yet--i had then sold off 'lodger' in that time period as well). the links are obvious now, but at the time i didn't get it. at the time i was also buying music to annoy (not piss off, which is a different effect entirely) my neighbors, so my motives weren't necessarily in line with good taste.
let's face it, though. 'physical graffiti' is a bloated, pompous, self-indulgent album mixing pounding riffs with either nonsensical lyrics or preposterous metaphors for love/sex. led zeppelin is the basis for all the hard rock and metal to come up in the 70's and 80's, all those songs of demons and dragons and whatever other fantasy rock crap bands churned out. they helped pave the way (along with black sabbath) for both iron maiden and yes, and their legacy is somewhat disgusting in that respect. this album in particular, a double album of overblown monsters and empty ballads, is laughable in both scope and content. it's silly and pretentious, as only hugely popular british arena rock could be. this album is disgusting.
or it would be if it weren't led zeppelin. these songs, in any other band's hands, would be atrocious, and the album would be sickeningly overwrought. at the same time, no other band could write these songs, making this possibly the quintessential led zeppelin album. everything that makes people love and hate them is here, and it's here in spades. so why isn't this album reviled by rock fans and critics alike? put simply, led zeppelin is the greatest rock band that ever played. that's the only explanation for why these songs work, and work together, and work over two discs, and work 30 years later. the key, what makes this band so impossibly great, is their ability to write primal riffs and pounding drumlines that sound simple but in reality are quite complex. the interplay between the instruments is perfect, never yes-style ornate and rarely punk basic. the timing of the parts and the way each band member drops accents into them is genuinely impressive.
in short, 'physical graffiti' is one of the best rock albums ever.
