LED ZEPPELIN — Physical Graffiti (review)

LED ZEPPELIN — Physical Graffiti album cover Album · 1975 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
0.5/5 ·
Warthur
When recording Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin came out of the sessions with slightly more material than they required for a single album. As a result, they decided to put out a double album, with the extra space consisting of songs recorded in previous sessions but which had never made the cut for earlier albums. Usually, when a band pulls a move like this, it makes me profoundly suspicious because it raises a simple but important question: why, when this material wasn't good enough to be put out on an earlier album, is it suddenly good enough to release now?

In the case of Physical Graffiti, the answer is all too apparent: because the new material is so unimaginative, creatively bankrupt and weak that it makes the old rejects look good by comparison. If you really must listen to one of the great proto-metal bands of their day snooze their way through sub-Rolling Stones country-blues-rock then it's a goldmine, but it lacks all of the verve and vitality and life that the Stones invested the likes of Exile On Main Street with. Occasionally the Zeps break out of this creative rut to do something a little different, but this usually amounts to rehashing another song from their repertoire only making it worse. Kashmir, for example, uses the same drum-led sound as When The Levee Breaks, but adds dull, cliched, and unimaginatively applied strings to the mix and removes the aggression and power and apocalyptic dread that enthused that great album closer.

The first disc is devoted to the longer songs on the set, on which the band take a single musical idea and repeat it without any interesting variation until the listener is completely sick of it. The second disc is devoted to shorter songs, which somehow manage to take the sprawling tedium of In My Time of Dying or Trampled Under Foot and squeeze it down into 3-to-4 minute packages. Oh, and it has Boogie With Stu, which has to be the most useless and pointless song the band ever committed to vinyl. I defy anyone to argue that either disc, taken separately or together, is even remotely of the standard of any of the band's first four albums - or, hell, even Rush's Zep-worshipping first album. Or Presence. Or In Through the Out Door. Or Houses of the Holy.

Taken as a whole, Physical Graffiti is good for one thing only, and that's as an explanation for why punk had to happen: so that complacent, self-indulgent rock aristocracy like Led Zeppelin would no longer be allowed to get away with foisting such a lacklustre, slipshod, slapdash product on the paying public. After punk, dinosaur bands like Zeppelin had to work hard and produce decent products to demonstrate that they weren't extinct yet; beforehand, they could put out flabby, wheezy double albums like this and get critically acclaimed for them. I, personally, am not fooled.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
Time Signature wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I have not strong emotional connection with, or hatred towards, Led Zeppelin, but I love this review!!!
bonnek wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I used to think exactly the same about this one but I've grown milder with age. Maybe it's time to re-connect with my inner punk-being :)
UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Harsh but interesting point of view.

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Unearthly Litanies of Despair Death Metal
ENGULFED
Buy this album from MMA partners
It Beckons Us All....... Black Metal
DARKTHRONE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Death Is Not The End Doom Metal
GLOSSA
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Way Forward Sludge Metal
BLACK TUSK
Buy this album from MMA partners
Till Aska Atmospheric Sludge Metal
WALK THROUGH FIRE
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 2 days ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 3 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed