Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin (1975)

This came up on the randomizer and I almost skipped it. With all due respect, there are plenty of (presumably) middle-aged (presumably) men writing about the pillars of classic rock on Substack. It’s great, but it’s not really what I’m trying to do here.

I say this knowing that I’m about to launch into a full week of Bob Dylan albums, a couple of which definitely count as pillars of classic rock. But Dylan is a difference of kind rather than degree for me. As I’ve said before, Bob Dylan counts as “classic rock” the way the Bible counts as a “book.”

So here we have a case of the biggest band in the world writing their own ticket, releasing the first record on their own label, with basically no one to tell them “no.” This is a well-documented recipe for disaster, but Zeppelin did themselves credit.

The album sprawls, but only about half the tracks are new inventions. The band, who were always prolific with new material and who usually recorded on their own dime to maximize how much tape rolled, used high quality outtakes from as far back as 1970’s third album to pad out the double record. The fact that there isn’t a noticeable difference in quality is a credit to the band, and also adds some nuance to keep the record from sounding too similar.

Look, there’s not much to say about a record that’s already on a lot of “1000 records that you’re a horrible human and a total waste of space if you haven’t heard” lists or whatever (I hate the formulation about what I “must” listen to, as I’ll be writing about sometime). But it’s on those lists because it’s a solid slab of well-played rock n roll.