Rating My CD's: Physical Exhaustion

37. Led Zeppelin -- Physical Graffiti


When Joey Ramone died in 2001, Bill Wyman at Salon.com summed up the shift that his band had caused in the mid-70's thusly:

When the first Ramones records were released, high school friends and I would sit in one of our rooms, huddled around the stereo. (Parents would yell if we turned it up.) We tried to parse the lyrics, the sounds, the meanings. We didn't know much about pop history, but we could sense the sendups -- "You're Gonna Kill That Girl," the title a slap at the Beatles's "You're Gonna Lose That Girl"; the indolent drawl with which Johnny sang the thing a slap at the indolent Mick Jagger.
Once we figured out the Zen of it, the world looked different. Bands like the Eagles and the Who sounded weak, Pink Floyd sounded mannered, Zeppelin almost flatulent.

When I first read that, I knew exactly what he meant, even though I knew it to be a less-than-just description of Zeppelin's catalogue. But when it comes to Physical Graffiti, the word "flatulent" becomes almost apt.



By 1975, Zeppelin had been around for seven years. This was their sixth album. John Paul Jones very nearly left the band as the recording sessions began, worn out by the travails of Zep's travels. Peter Grant stepped in and just told him to take a few months off, and all was well, but that spirit of strain followed them into the studio. Despite the fact that some excellent songs perk up out of the noise, a feeling of supreme lethargy pervades throughout. This album is the sound of exhaustion.

Take "Custard Pie," the opener. Never has Page's guitar sounded more thick or burbly, never has a Zep album failed to take off so loudly. Never has their songwriting been more indolent than on "In My Time of Dying," and idea that doesn't deserve to be 11 minues long. Never before did fans have to wait six tracks to get to a great song: the hypnotic, droning "Kashmir."

Maybe it's me. I don't usually like double-albums. I find them generally undisciplined, self-absorbed affairs. Sometimes, as with The White Album, or Exile on Main Street, that lack of rigid focus is a pleasant suprise. But here, it just reflects the band's inability to control themselves.

Granted, that was part of Zeppelin's aura: the hard-partying, Aleister-Crowley-aspiring, Beasts of Men that were going to bring their mania to YOU! So in a lot of ways, it's fun to hear them all messy and decadent. But that doesn't make "Down By the Seaside" any more memorable.

So let's imagine that Physical Graffiti is to be a single album, and let's cull the 15 tracks down to a IV-appropriate 8:

1. Custard Pie  (Back to the drawing board)
2. The Rover (Almost, but not quite)
3. In My Time of Dying (Who are you, Mountain?)
4. Houses of the Holy (Even with another name, you can hear that this was earlier)
5. Trampled Under Foot (Meh)
6. Kashmir
7. In the Light (GET ON WITH IT)
8. Bron-Y-Aur (Perfect palate-cleanser after "Kashmir")
9. Down by the Seaside (Who are you, the Eagles?)
10. Ten Years Gone (Ah, the less overwrought "In My Time of Dying." You may stay)
11. Night Flight (Finally, something up-tempo AND short. Didn't know you had it in you.)
12. The Wanton Song (Very 1975, but it's got a good groove)
13. Boogie With Stu (Retro, underrated song. It makes me smile.)
14. Black Country Woman (See? You don't need to pump a song full of sonic wizardry)
15. Sick Again (It was between this and "Wanton," and I just didn't like it as a closer)

So the new set list would be:

1. Houses of the Holy
2. Kashmir
3. Bron-Y-Aur
4. Ten Years Gone
5. Night Flight
6. The Wanton Song
7. Boogie With Stu
8. Black Country Woman

That album would require no apology.

Grade: OK