Led Zeppelin I: Remastered

In the latter half of the sixties, Jimmy Page was left without a band since his previous one, The Yardbirds, had disbanded. However, he wasn't about ready to be done rocking and rolling. He put together a new band with vocalist Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. He appropriately called this new band The New Yardbirds. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this isn't a very good band name. Fortunately, the band received inspiration from The Who drummer Keith Moon. He had an expression - "This gig is going down like a lead Zeppelin." Liking this term, they changed their name to Led Zeppelin. And in 1969, one of the great years in rock and roll history, these four young men released their self-titled debut album. How does it measure up? Read on and see.

The first two Led Zeppelin albums are considerably more bluesy than the later ones, but this is not a bad thing. Good Times Bad Times opens the album. It's a solid, classic hard rocking tune, with a slight bluesy touch. The most underrated member of Led Zeppelin is John Paul Jones, and his bass here really must be heard to be appreciated. Babe Im Gonna Leave You is a slower, mostly acoustic tune about heartbreak. Every musical artist, regardless of genre, has to do a few heartbreak tunes - and here Led Zeppelin serves up one of the finest the world has ever seen. You Shook Me is a cover song. To put it simply, this is a slower track, but it's still a hard rocker. I'm not too crazy about this one, but it's still a decent song. Dazed And Confused features the band serving up an excellent example of classic psychedelic hard rock. This is one of the most popular songs that can be found on the band's debut album - and why not? This song ROCKS! Your Time Is Gonna Come kicks off with an organ solo by Jones, which is nothing short of excellent. It's not long before we have a melodic rocker that almost certainly won't fail to please. This here is what we call an underrated masterpiece. Black Mountain Side is short but sweet acoustic instrumental. Jimmy Page is a guitar god, but the acoustic stuff he does never seems to get the proper credit for some odd reason. Communication Breakdown is straight-up classic hard rock, this one is a premonition to the heavy metal that would slowly begin to surface in the seventies. This one is arguably my favorite song on the album. I Cant Quit You Baby is another cover song. This here is a slower, bluesy rocker featuring some excellent guitar riffs by the one and only Jimmy Page. The bass is also excellent, and it really makes me wonder why John Paul Jones is the most underrated person in the band! How Many More Times is yet another cover song. To put it in the simplest terms possible, this is a slow rocker - but it's still hard rock. It's a shame this track never got the proper credit, because the band couldn't have finished the album off with a better track!

There have been numerous issues of this album released over the years, but really, they're all the same other than their packaging. Don't bother shelling out the extra cash to get one of those foreign LP-style replica packages - it's just not worth it. The domestic versions are exactly the same and cost considerably less. Or better yet, just shell out the extra bucks and get the Complete Studio Recordings box set - it may appear pricey, but in actuality, it's a great value.

Led Zeppelin's self-titled 1969 debut is one of classic rock's essential masterpieces. Even after all these years, it still stands the test of time. If this little gem is missing from your rock and roll library, I suggest you add it as soon as possible. I don't know if I can call this the band's finest album (it's tough playing favorites with these guys), but it's damn fine nonetheless - and well worth purchasing.


For me it does not get any better than "Dazed and Confused"   September 24, 2003
16 out of 17 found this review helpful

It all makes such perfect sense now in retrospect. You take two of the premier sessions artists in England rising from the ashes of the Yardbirds and pair them up with a couple of unknown 19 year olds from the Band of Joy and form one of the greatest rock groups of all time. Led Zeppelin's debut album remains a classic and its showpiece "Dazed and Confused" is the song I have listened to most often in my life; my favorite part is Bonzo's cascades on the drum as Jimmy Page loses the violin bow and finishes his guitar solo (I have learned from a reputable source that the song was originally written by Jake Holmes as a folk-rock type song, but uncredited on the album). One of the great things about the new Led Zeppelin double-DVD is that there are another four versions of "Dazed and Confused" on it, although admittedly you have to look for some of them. I finally get to see Bonzo do that bit on what, by contemporary standards, is a kiddie drum kit.

"Communication Breakdown" is the one "single" from the album because from the very beginning Led Zeppelin's best tunes were just too long for airplay. "Dazed and Confused" is 6:27, Page's acoustic arrangement of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is 6:40 (the second best track on the album) and the final track, the under-rated "How Many More Times" is a heck of a lot longer than the "3:30" that is listed in the liner notes (go figure). The album begins with the introductory hard chords of "Good Times Bad Times" but also features the acoustic guitar and tabla drums on the folksy "Black Mountainside" as the group mixes and matches music styles. At this point Robert Plant is just handling the vocals, with Page, Jones and Bonham responsible for the new songs. For good measure they toss a pair of Willie Dixon's blues tunes, "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You Baby," to reveal the exact nature of the group's musical roots even as they were on their way to being the definitive heavy metal band.

Everything that comes afterwards in the musical career of Led Zeppelin all comes back to the ground they claim on this album. Future albums will vary the calculus in terms of how much hard rock, acoustic, or blues appears on a given album, but you will find the template for the group's success laid out on this self-titled debut effort where they establish their album-oriented perspective. This is guitar rock beyond what we had heard in the distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton. Ultimately, what makes it a great debut album is that Led Zeppelin continues to build on those foundation in eight more classic heavy metal albums over the next dozen years. This is one of the few albums that I still as vinyl (object d'arte), cassette (emergency use if the CD player in the car breaks down), and CD. If I get stuck on a desert island, guess what album I want...


New Awsome attitude   January 26, 2004
J. G. McMillan (Edinburgh, Scotland)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

After falling in love with Hendrix, being turned on to British styled blues by Jethro Tull, this was the album which woke me up to how powerful rock music can be! There's only a few times when an album, on first hearing, absolutely fires your being and you have to hear it constantly - maybe just to re-assure yourself that this is real rock music, or maybe just to be sent on a sonic roller coaster ride. My two favourites tracks are "Communication Breakdown" due to Page's guitar work, and played loud, still makes the hair on my neck stand, and their major work, "Dazed and Confused", so much more feel to it than "Stairway" and more akin to "Kashmir" for it's depth,darkness and power, but still stands as one of the finest showstoppers ever!!
I heard LedZep2 before hearing LZ1, and still think it's a more powerful statement of intent.
I still think most bands' first to third albums are often their best, even though they are considered less polished, or lack production values of their later offerings, but, Led Zep 1 is, for me their mightiest, rawest, and ultimately, the most satisfying of all the Led Zep collection, considering most of their albums are the best there's been. An awsome debut from an awsome band!!!! Start at the beginning then get the lot!


Spine-tingling   November 27, 2007
J. Macdonald (York, UK)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is where it all started for me. The first long playing record I bought. There's not one duff track and it still sounds fresh and exhilarating, especially in this re-mastered format, as it did all those years ago. A mixture of some re-worked covers and original material, it's strongly rooted in the blues but with an electrifying rock slant. This is the daddy debut album of all time (see also "Marquee Moon" by Television). The bass is powerful and melodic, the drumming tight and thunderous, and, after the demise of the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page must have been straining at the leash to get these blistering guitar tracks down, sizzling with crackle and spit, the spontaneity of the solos - not too long, inventive - catch that strangled squeak at the end of the fast break just before it all comes crashing down into the final verse of Dazed & Confused and the tempo resumes its trance-like drone. And of course in the midst of it all, the soulful blues wail of Robert "Percy" Plant.

There is nothing antique about this music. In fact, it's so warm it sounds like they're playing in your front room - I believe it took them 3 days to record - in complete contrast to the bloated old dinosaur that is Physical Graffiti (six years later), which is laboured, lumpish and far too long.

The follow up album, released in the same year is almost equally as good - yawn inducing drum solo aside, de rigueur for that time - whilst the third was rather patchy, again the blues (a great performance of "Since I've Been Loving You" recorded live in the studio) but on the original second side some twee folk elements which have dated somewhat. Their fourth, much better, ruined however by the awful "Stairway to Heaven", much loved by everybody except me, guitar shop owners and the band members themselves it would seem! If we're talking ballads, I much prefer "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" from Zep I and "Thank You" from II.






Led not Lead, Blues not Metal   November 15, 2007
Crazy Bald Heid (Surrey, England)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

So Jimmy Page's New Yardbirds - are they any good? Well yes you'll hear more about them I'm sure. Eric Clapton famously left the Yardbirds as they were too poppy and not bluesy enough. Ironic then that from the ashes of the Yardbirds - LZ toured Scandanavia as the new Yardbirds as a contractural obligation - the greatest blues rock band of them all took flight, and Clapton never made abluesier record than this. The debut album must have been a punch in the guts to any first time listener in 1969.

The intensity and virtuosity of the band which went on to conquer the world are incredible when you consider they were two session musicians and two jobbing musicians from the West Midlands, but what sets them apart is the obvious chemistry from the outset. There has never been a tighter band.

Half of the first album is composed of a number of reworked Chicago blues classics courtesy Mr Willie Dixon, Otis Rush and the excellent Howlin' Wolf. Page's guitar work and Plant's primal screaming would elicit nods of approval from the old bluesmen. The rhythm section is peerless.

The balance of the album is made up of a number of great Zeppelin originals, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You with its delicate intro and verse contrasts with is vicious, raucous chorus, the building intensity of Your Time is Gonna Come. Heavy metal (although I want to strangle anyone that thinks Zep are a metal band) was invented with the aural assault that is Communication Breakdown.

The signs that LZ were not another run of the mill member of the British blues movement were apparent on the trippy Dazed and Confused, the mesmeric JPJ bass line and Page's guitar as violin. Yes it is bluesy but it is also otherworldly. Page demonstrates his virtuosity on the dextrous guitar workout of Black Mountain Side.

This genuinely music changing album closes with the pounding blues of How Many More Times.

If you know this album - the remaster is a huge improvement and more involving that previous cds. If it's new to you then prepare to be dazzled, look at what else was happening in 1969 and put yourself in the shoes of people hearing a revolution as it happened.

Blues only louder but definitely not metal.