157. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II (October 1969)

1. Whole Lotta Love

2. What Is and What Should Never Be*

3. The Lemon Song

4. Thank You*

5. Heartbreaker

6. Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)

7. Ramble On*

8. Moby Dick

9. Bring It On Home

****1/2

I can't imagine what it must have been like for rock fans in 1969. They were probably still reeling from the first Zeppelin album when along comes "Whole Lotta Love" and blows a hole through their heads. What's really impressive is that "Whole Lotta Love" isn't even the best song on the album. Yes, it's totally awesome, and that riff is the wellspring of so much metal and hard rock - a brilliantly simple loping arpeggio that distils the hardest, most primal elements of the blues into pure rock. But I don't really think the weird psychedelic freak-out that comprises the middle of the song has aged that well.

Most of the songs on this album are firmly rooted in the blues, even if it's Zeppelin's trademark overblown, expanded, thunderous version of the blues. Sometimes this works extremely well ("Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker") and sometimes it doesn't ("The Lemon Song", which I don't much care for even though it has a cool riff). What's really interesting, though, is the move into, I guess I'll say "softer" territory, although even the ballads on this album rock pretty hard. "What Is and What Should Never Be" features a delicate flanged vocal and jazzy elements which contrast beautifully with the heavy chorus. "Thank You" is the pretty, stoned-out power ballad that every pretty, stoned-out power ballad wants to be when it grows up. And "Ramble On" is not only great musically, but introduces Tolkien into the classic rock lexicon. At first it just sounds like a cool song about someone looking for love, but then Plant starts warbling about Gollum and it starts to seem like this is actually a song from the perspective of a Ranger of Middle Earth. 

The lyrics are interesting on this album. Plant stills wails the blues, but he also shows a move towards the quasi-mystical High Fantasy prettiness that makes up a lot more of Zeppelin's catalogue than most people seem to remember. So you have something as simple and beautiful as "Thank You" contrasting with "The Lemon Song", in which Plant asks a woman to squeeze his lemon till the juice runs down his leg. Then there's "Whole Lotta Love", in which Plant promises to give the listener every inch of his love. Pretty risqué. 

I suppose I should mention the rhythm section. John Bonham cements himself here as probably the best drummer in the history of rock, while at the same time wasting everyone's time with the rather unimpressive solo that makes-up the bulk of "Moby Dick". John Paul Jones is an extremely nifty bass player, and his keyboard contribution on "Thank You" is just beautiful. Put them together and you have a rock solid foundation for Plant's vocal wanderings and Page's restless guitar work. It's kind of amazing that four people could meet and click so well musically. They haven't quite reached their peak on II, but there are several career highlights here, and the bulk of the record more than makes up for duds like "Living Loving Maid". Sometimes their experimentalism gets the better of them, for example on the largely pointless "Moby Dick", which is not the awesome song about Moby Dick which I really wish Zeppelin had written, but instead a drum solo bookended by a kind of cool riff. And it seems kind of silly to me to bury the totally rocking bulk of "Bring It On Home" between two muddy patches of faux-blues nonsense. But really, I'm not complaining about an album that features songs like "Heartbreaker" and "Ramble On". This is an incredibly fun album, and I've listened to it half a dozen times in the last few days. It's not perfect, but the risks taken here more often than not pay off in spades.