Led Zeppelin | Page 20 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I’ll think about mine and I’ll post it, it’s a really exciting band for a ranking. Whenever someone ranks Zeppelin someone else always gets mad, it’s real fun.

And I’m no stranger to polarizing rankings

They are very tight, and opinions could change over time, obviously. I myself got surprised at how my ranking turned out.

8) In Through the Out Door – well yeah. it’s sort of a let down. but keep in mind the compositional powers of the band still feel present. John Paul John’s keyboards add a lot of personality to the record, the problem is, that personality can’t beat the personality the rest of the albums had. Fool in the Rain , All of My Love are quite decent, and the flow of the album would be fine if it wasn’t for Carouselambra, that feels more like a brick wall in the middle of the tracklist than an actual part of the album. kind of easy to enjoy otherwise. 6/10

7) Presence – this two will ever be down here. and the reason is there isn’t as much iconic material as one expects there to be on a Zeppelin record. Achilles Last Stand is in fact the best song on here, and honestly, being the opener, it creates expectation never met in the rest of the album. I still maintain it’s underrated, and most people would love it if they put their pre-conceptions aside, but this is the Led Zeppelin discography, Presence just can’t be ranked much higher. weak closer too. 7/10

6) Led Zeppelin – kind of a double-edge sword. the biggest reason why I rank this below the rest is because of the unoriginality this album puzzles so many people with. I myself have defended Zeppelin when it comes to plagiarism allegations, and I still do, but, being honest with myself, I feel more comfortable when I don’t even have to do that. Page and Plant were fantastic bluesmen, that could take any obscure folk song and turn it into a hard rock opera, which they in fact do very well in this album, but sometimes it is kind of obvious that they are trying to variate too much to cover whatever they stole, which is way better than if they didn’t, mind you, but sometimes they oversell it, like in the track How Many More Times. do I like this track? yes, I do, but I notice that the break in the middle is just a distraction from the original source the song was built upon. You Shook Me, Dazed and Confused and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You commit the same crime. still though, this album is a unique debut, you will hear few bands as confident and flamboyant as the guys are on their first album. since the first second of Good Times Bad Times you know this guys are gonna go big. 7/10

5) Led Zeppelin III – this is the point were you notice they started to get more serious about experimenting and covering new ground. they would do so much better on Houses of the Holy, but III has its moments. like the track Tangerine, which is a fantastic acoustic ballad from Page’s hand. there’s a lot of acoustic stuff in this album actually. it is probably their most folky record. stuff like Gallows Pole impresses me a lot, with its dubbed vocals, or Friends, with those scary string sections, really cool. I would critique the fact that if you’re gonna start with a track as powerful as Immigrant Song, which is a high bar to reach, ending off on a track as psychedelic and experimental as Hats off To (Roy) Harper is a big risk. some people dig it, I don’t. but the album overall is a nice touch of experimentation that was previously missing and it gives this album a unique personality as well. I respect that. 7/10

4) Led Zeppelin II – whatever problems the first album had, this one knocked it out of the park. you can really feel how they grow confident as songwriters and performers, if they weren’t incredible already. this is one of their better flowing albums. read the tracklist. there isn’t a single song that you don’t know the main riff to. sure, I don’t like them all equally, but I know them all. that’s gotta mean something. Heartbreaker, The Lemon Song, Whole Lotta Love, Living Loving Maid, come on. Moby Dick has one of John Bonham’s best moments, Ramble On is one of their best hooks of all time, What Is and What Should Never Be is the perfect combination of hard rock and smooth jazz and Thank You (probably my favourite track) is their first proper ballad, and it goes incredibly well. the only track I could do without is the closer, other than that is a perfectly solid record. 9/10

3) Physical Graffiti – a lot of people say its length harms it. I don’t know if I fully agree, but I get their point. I just have to say, some of the best, most epic Led Zeppelin compositions land on here. no song on the debut is as good as Kashmir, no song on III is as good as Ten Years Gone. In My Time of Dying and In the Light are songs that have such beautiful structures, they are not 8 minutes long just because. they are truly thought-out, and meticulously crafted tracks, however long they want to be. Custard Pie is one of my favourite openers. also Houses of the Holy, Down by the Seaside, this thing is loaded with 1970s rock and roll classics, polished to the very core, performed with nothing but heart, and written with nothing but strength. what makes it not a contender for their best album is Side D, which is still is solid, but it is a testament for the load the album carries. @QuarryMan said it’s like their White Album , well to me, it’s quite different. the White Album at least had fantastic tracks scattered through the album, this one has all the masterpieces on the first three blocks, and then all the leftovers on the back end. it really improves the enjoyability factor of Sides A, B & C, but it creates a dilemma when it comes to finishing the album. the closer doesn’t even feel like one. should we shame this album for it? I don’t know, the riff in In My Time of Dying alone forgives any sin there could even be at this point. how could you get angry at an album that, on shuffle, is one of the best listens of your life? 9/10

2) Led Zeppelin IV – tight tight tight. oh, how much material there is to praise on here. every song on this album is either a favourite of mine, or a favourite of the public. Black Dog is probably their best opener from any album, and the expectations are met pretty quickly with the following track Rock and Roll, another headbanger. this thing also features the two best acoustic pieces Led Zeppelin has ever put out, Going to California and The Battle of Evermore. both completely different acoustic songs with a different feel to them. Led Zeppelin III had more acoustic songs, but they all sounded more similar between each other way more than the two featured on here. and for those who like more chill rock and roll, there’s Four Sticks and Misty Mountain Hop, two perfectly hard, palpable rock tunes, that don’t affect any part of the listening experience at all, they improve on it a great deal actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if any of this two tracks are someones favourite, everything goes with this album. When the Levee Breaks is not particularly my cup of tea but damn if it isn’t a proper closer. just how hard the riff goes down. those are 7 of the 8 track I mentioned, all perfectly excellent. just with these alone the album is a masterpiece, now, do you know what track I didn’t mention? yeah, precisely. 10/10

1) Houses of the Holy – IV is more of a general pick, I’m fine with it being number one for most people, it is almost irrefutable. Houses of the Holy is more of a personal choice. The Rain Song is one of my favourite ballads of all time, the progression of that track is magnificent. The Song Remains the Same opens the album wonderfully and The Ocean is a banger of no scale measurable to close it, with multiple section to blow your head off if your it wasn’t properly blown yet. and seriously, the people who hate on The Crunge and D’yer Mak’er are just that, haters. those tracks are fine as hell. maybe it’s just me but I think they pull of reggae better than most reggae artists. I have no words to describe Over the Hills and Far Away either, is just another classic from the band. the experimentation flooding this album makes it feel more realized than IV, which is a polished version of the previous three albums. I will agree the worst tracks on this album are worst than the worst tracks on IV, but the best tracks on here, particularly No Quarter and The Rain Song, are better and more creative than most of the stuff they ever did. the listening experience of this album is different from the rest of the Led Zeppelin albums, in the best way possible. 10/10

Beatlebug said
Side one is a perfectly flowing, driving bullet from “Immigrant Song” (a freight train of a song)

Well damn me if that isn’t the best description I’ve ever heard for Immigrant Song.

QuarryMan said
My LZ hot take for today is that ‘Whole Lotta Love’ is absurdly overrated. It’s got a cool riff, and the solo after the breakdown is pretty neat, but overall there’s barely any substance to it, and the lyrics are terrible. I think that whole style of straight forward hard rock was done so much better earlier that year on ‘Communication Breakdown’ with its proto-punk riff and manic solo. WLL’s not terrible, but I cannot fathom why it consistently makes the top reaches of people’s rankings, especially when there are songs like ‘Ten Years Gone’ in their back catalog that get so much less attention. 

I personally like it in the context of the album. I like the fact that it opens Led Zeppelin II. Because the riff pumps me up, and the psychedelic breakdown in the middle is interesting. I know that song since I’ve known Led Zeppelin, so it’s hard for me to dismiss it as much as you seem to do.

That being said, it is probably one of the lesser songs on that album if I were to rank them

and I actually didn’t know people thought of it as one of their greatest songs but a couple of minutes ago I watched the WatchMojo top 10 LZ songs and I was blown away to watch it land on the 1st spot. In that case it is overrated, and widely. You make a lot of good points about the lyrics being trash and it being a pretty standard rock song, I’ve actually never thought of it and you seem to be right. I’ll back you up on your statement. But I still enjoy the fact that it is on LZII.