FEATURE:
Forty-Five Years Gone
Celebrating Led Zeppelin’s 1975 Masterpiece, Physical Graffiti
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HOW many bands around…
IN THIS PHOTO: Led Zeppelin at Earls Court in 1975
start so strongly and then barely drop a step until very late in their career?! In a way, Physical Graffiti was the final album in that golden run. Presence arrived in 1976 and, with it, an album that did not resonate as hard as previous works in the Zeppelin cannon. I am not saying that album is bad, but it had a lot to live up to after Physical Graffiti was unleashed into the world on 24th February, 1975! I look back at Zeppelin’s output prior to 1975 and the quality boggles the mind! Although Physical Graffiti, now, is seen as one of their greatest works, there were some at the time who could get behind their sprawling double album. Released through Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records, it had its detractors in 1975. The band composed and recorded eight new songs for the album in early-1974 at Headley Grange. The idyllic setting provided few distractions, so they were free to experiment more and write in a different way. They found, soon enough, that their efforts would take up three sides of an L.P., so this would be a double album. Alongside these new tracks were unreleased songs from the majestic Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, and Houses of the Holy. The fact Zeppelin were dusting off tracks not included in previous albums might suggest weaker material was coming onto Physical Graffiti. Sure, there are some less-than-biblical songs on the double album, but there is plenty of gold.
Look at a double album Like The Beatles’ eponymous album of 1968, and there are cuts on there that are not their finest – yet the album is heralded as a work of genius by many! What is startling about Physical Graffiti – among many other things – is the width of sound and ambition on the record. Whilst the band were never stingy regarding scope previously, they really dug deep and offered up a feast for the senses on Physical Graffiti – covering Hard Rock, Folk, and so many other styles. The origins of Physical Graffiti’s recording go back to 1973, where John Bonham (drums) and Jimmy Page (guitar and production) were stationed at Headley Grange – this is where they recorded their untitled fourth album (or ‘Led Zeppelin IV’). There was some motion and productivity, but the studio facility was turned over to Bad Company so they could record their debut album. There were tensions around the time, and John Paul Jones (bass and keys) became dissatisfied with touring and considered leaving the band. The band reconvened and set to work in January and February 1974 and, sojourned at Headley Grange, they recorded eight tracks for their new album – the improvisational nature of the sessions was new for Led Zeppelin, and they were given freedom to re-record tracks and spend longer on them. John Bonham especially was pivotal during the sessions; offering up suggestions and making a big impact throughout. Although I love the songs on Physical Graffiti, it is the iconic sleeve – designed by Peter Corriston (themed around a tenement block in Manhattan, New York) – that really wowed me as a child.
I think Physical Graffiti is still in my parents’ record drawer and, every time I look at it, I am intrigued by what is on the vinyl and whether any of the songs would represent different tales from that apartment block – like there is a song dedicated to each resident. Led Zeppelin’s sixth album contains some of their best material, and I think each of the four sides contains a nice blend of belters and songs that take a while to embed. Consider the first side, which, actually, is all gold! Custard Pie, The Rover, and In My Time of Dying is twenty-one minutes of brilliance that ranges from the tighter first two numbers and the epic side-closer! Side two, too, is a right classic – the first two sides are stronger than the second two. Houses of the Holy, Trampled Underfoot, and Kashmir are three of Led Zeppelin’s best works. All four members of the band agreed Kashmir is one of Led Zeppelin’s best compositions. it was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant (with contributions from John Bonham) over a period of three years - with lyrics dating to 1973. Although the final two sides contain fewer classics, we still have In the Light, Ten Years Gone, and The Wanton Song sitting alongside underrated gems like Night Flight, and Black Country Woman. There were, as I said earlier, some fans and critics who were a little tepid towards Led Zeppelin’s new release in 1975. Maybe it was the scale of the album, or the fact it was less tight than their previous work; more genres playing out.
Retrospective reviews have been even more positive than contemporary reviews; perhaps the passing of time and the influence of Physical Graffiti has led to this fresh wave of affection. Here is what AllMusic wrote in their review:
“Led Zeppelin returned from a nearly two-year hiatus in 1975 with the double-album Physical Graffiti, their most sprawling and ambitious work. Where Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy integrated influences on each song, the majority of the tracks on Physical Graffiti are individual stylistic workouts. The highlights are when Zeppelin incorporate influences and stretch out into new stylistic territory, most notably on the tense, Eastern-influenced "Kashmir." "Trampled Underfoot," with John Paul Jones' galloping keyboard, is their best funk-metal workout, while "Houses of the Holy" is their best attempt at pop, and "Down by the Seaside" is the closest they've come to country. Even the heavier blues -- the 11-minute "In My Time of Dying," the tightly wound "Custard Pie," and the monstrous epic "The Rover" -- are louder and more extended and textured than their previous work. Also, all of the heavy songs are on the first record, leaving the rest of the album to explore more adventurous territory, whether it's acoustic tracks or grandiose but quiet epics like the affecting "Ten Years Gone." The second half of Physical Graffiti feels like the group is cleaning the vaults out, issuing every little scrap of music they set to tape in the past few years.
That means that the album is filled with songs that aren't quite filler, but don't quite match the peaks of the album, either. Still, even these songs have their merits -- "Sick Again" is the meanest, most decadent rocker they ever recorded, and the folky acoustic rock & roll of "Boogie with Stu" and "Black Country Woman" may be tossed off, but they have a relaxed, off-hand charm that Zeppelin never matched. It takes a while to sort out all of the music on the album, but Physical Graffiti captures the whole experience of Led Zeppelin at the top of their game better than any of their other albums”.
When Physical Graffiti was remastered to mark its fortieth anniversary in 2015, there was a batch of new appreciation and reviews. In their spotlighting, The Guardian examined, perhaps, Led Zeppelin’s finest moment:
“Not many of those copies went straight to secondhand stores, because Physical Graffiti turned out to be a masterpiece. It’s not without its oddities: the second side of its vinyl iteration (and its pacing really does work much better across four sides of vinyl) might be the most monumental 20 minutes or so in rock. The heavy, riffy southern R&B of Houses of the Holy moves into the extraordinary, Stevie Wonder-inspired Trampled Under Foot, which manages to invent funk rock and – by virtue of John Bonham’s no-city-left-unrazed approach to drumming – be deeply unfunky at the same time, before concluding with Kashmir, the cod-mystic epic that defies you to laugh at it, but offers not a single dull moment across its eight minutes.
IN THIS PHOTO: Led Zeppelin in New York City, 1975/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith
This is the Led Zeppelin that shouted from the top of mountaintops, the group you might reasonably expect to be announced as your new overlords were their private jet – the Starship – to land at your local airport. So why is it side two? It feels for all the world like a side four. It’s even odder on CD, where those three tracks are preceded by the equally towering In My Time of Dying, which rather overbalances the disc.
But some of Physical Graffiti’s best moments are the less dramatic ones. In the Light would be a standout on an album less frontloaded with the kind of songs that routinely crop up high on magazine polls. Down By the Seaside, originally recorded for the fourth album, on to which it would have fitted about as well as gatefold photo of Ken Dodd instead of that picture of the old hermit, is delicious. Though everyone who has ever listened to Led Zeppelin knows they were about far more than stürm und drang, they stürmed and dranged so persuasively that it’s easy to forget they could be nostalgic and wistful and utterly unpompous when the mood took them. Page’s mastery extended not just to studio techniques and soloing and making up riffs: he was fantastic at creating and changing atmospheres, and for all the musical themes that crop up again and again across the group’s catalogue, he rarely repeats himself”.
I really like all of the songs on Physical Graffiti and, through the years, journalists have ranked the songs; to be fair, it is hard to beat anything as majestic as Kashmir! In this interview, Jimmy Page reflected on the recording of Physical Graffiti:
“The essence of Physical Graffiti is the fact that we go back to this house, this residential house in the countryside called Headley Grange, where we recorded the fourth album. It's in a residential house and it's the equivalent of the sitting room, the lounge, the main formal room where you'd have your Christmases, in a large house. And there was a fire in there, you could put logs on the fire and it was all really, really nice. And you had a multitrack recording studio so you could actually get to work on this stuff without having to necessarily go into a studio and comply by other peoples' hours. With this you could just wake up in the morning, have your breakfast, get into the music. Have an evening meal. (I can't remember now what we used to have for lunch.) But I really, I just remember the sort of whole work ethic of this, and it was just so productive.
It was always a fascinating prospect going in to record, to be honest with you, because it was always gonna be a sort of summing up of where we were at any given point in time and where we were trying to push ourselves collectively. And in the process of that, because of the quality of these four musicians individually, let alone collectively, we were pushing the boundaries of music and [we were] aware of that. And on this album, I should say the double album Physical Graffiti, the whole thing is just full of character, sort of statements of music and numbers, and some are really, really groundbreaking. You get things which may be very sensitive and caressing. You get other things which are really hard and coming at you.
I always consider Led Zeppelin to be a perfect group, in so much as you have four supreme artists together that have few equals. From the impassioned and remarkable vocals of Robert Plant to Jimmy Page’s guitar wizardry; John Bonham’s immense drumming and John Paul Jones’ eclectic musicianship – not to mention Page’s role as producer and Jones’ compositional brilliance -, here is this staggering band who, in 1975, were at the peak of their powers. Led Zeppelin announced their split in December 1980 (two months after the death of John Bonham) and, although Physical Graffiti was not their final studio album as a four-piece (that would be In Through the Out Door of 1979), I don’t think they ever matched the genius of their sixth studio album. If you have not got this album in your vinyl collection, rectify that, and witness a musical banquet…
LIKE no other.