Happy 45th Anniversary to Led Zeppelin’s sixth studio album Physical Graffiti, originally released February 24, 1975.
Before Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, double albums were basically souvenirs of live performances; the first reportedly being Benny Goodman's landmark The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert released in 1950, which was also the first to sell over a million copies. Classical performances and operas were released in multi-disc sets throughout the '50s as well, but it was Dylan's magnum opus released in June of 1966 (which beat The Mothers of Invention's debut Freak Out! by a mere week) that started the idea of exploring and expanding the possibilities of the rock album as an extended art form.
Some were more successful than others, but by 1975, almost all of the biggest names in rock at the time had delivered sprawling statements of purpose: either highly conceptual (The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia, Yes' Tales of Topographic Oceans) or just as a way to share a fertile creative period without the constraints of an editor (everything from The Beatles' "White Album" and The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. to Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road). One major group that hadn't joined the ranks yet, however, was Led Zeppelin. That changed with the release of Physical Graffiti.
The first album in history to go platinum on advance orders alone, Physical Graffiti is quite simply the sound of the world's most powerful rock band at the height of their creative powers. Fifteen songs spread across four sides and over eighty minutes that expanded the mighty Zeppelin sound even further than before, the album was the culmination of years of work—some tracks dated back to sessions for Led Zeppelin III in 1970—and exhibited a dizzying array of references and influences.
Physical Graffiti is also Jimmy Page's greatest achievement as a producer. Working from his multitrack home studio at his countryside home in Sussex, he began building guitar pieces for what would become "Ten Years Gone," "Sick Again," "The Wanton Song," and the template for "Kashmir." He then took those ideas to the storied Headley Grange (where they had previously recorded the bulk of their untitled fourth album as well as Houses of the Holy). There, he and John Bonham worked out the basic arrangements for about a half-dozen songs, including recording the drums for "Kashmir" in the entrance hall just as they had done for "When the Levee Breaks," creating one of hard rock's most enviable drum sounds.
By early 1974, eight songs had been recorded for Physical Graffiti, but they were longer than a single LP could hold, so they decided to go back to earlier material that had been shelved to expand it into a double LP. From the sessions for the previous album, Houses of the Holy, they revived, naturally, "Houses of the Holy" in addition to "The Rover" (which as an acoustic version had originally been considered during the sessions for III) and "Black Country Woman." "Night Flight," "Down By The Seaside," and "Boogie With Stu" had been rescued from the cutting room floor during the sessions for their fourth album, while "Bron-Yr-Aur" dated back to III. (Incidentally, like "The Rover," "Seaside" had first existed in acoustic form during the sessions for III as well.)
Due to Led Zeppelin's astonishing consistency, the album stands as a complete and coherent major statement, regardless of its (in part) pieced-together origins. Physical Graffiti revealed a group that was completely confident in their ability and comfortable with their direction; so much so that they even let some of that famous Zeppelin mystique slip so we can peek behind the curtain. We hear it in the banter that follows the mighty "In My Time of Dying," or on the gleeful arrangement of "Boogie With Stu," and in Robert Plant's insistence to engineer Eddie Kramer to leave the sound of an airplane flying overhead at the beginning of "Black Country Woman" (recorded in the garden of Mick Jagger's home, Stargroves).
The blues are still mined for inspiration and, to be frank, exploitation. This time in the guise of the opening "Custard Pie" which pulls lyrics from Sleepy John Estes ("Drop Down Mama") and Blind Boy Fuller ("I Want Some of Your Pie"), among others, and the oft-covered "In My Time of Dying" (dating back at least to Blind Willie Johnson). The pillaging of the blues by Zeppelin (and, let's face it, many others) has long been hotly debated in rock and blues circles, and will undoubtedly continue to be. Nevertheless, the arrangements and musical constructions of these warhorses are pure Zeppelin.
We also get a sense that they were tuned into the music of the day as well: the clavinet that's used by John Paul Jones on "Custard Pie" and throughout "Trampled Under Foot" reveals that Zeppelin was deep diving into funk (especially Stevie Wonder's universe) more seriously than the campy way they addressed it in their severely Caucasian nod to James Brown, "The Crunge," from Houses of the Holy a couple years before.
As deep as they would dive into blues and soul however, nothing sounded more truly soulful on Physical Graffiti than the epic "Ten Years Gone." Reportedly written about a relationship from Plant's past, it's orchestra of layered guitars from Page underscore the longing, yet ultimate acceptance in Plant's performance. This and the lovely, swaying "Down By The Seaside" showed a vulnerable side of Zeppelin that had never been revealed before on record; the flipside of the riff-based hard driving rock of "The Wanton Song" and the seedy rock star trappings of "Sick Again."
Ultimately however, it's the epics for which Zeppelin is most known and loved, and in addition to "In My Time of Dying," we're treated to the bowed and synth-led drone of the mysteriously beautiful "In The Light" and the majestic centerpiece, "Kashmir." These are the tracks that set Led Zeppelin apart from all who would attempt—and fail—to replicate their elusive and mysterious vibe.
As the years have passed and we've become more cynical, skeptical, and savvy at marketing as a society, Led Zeppelin has been one of the few bands that somehow retain their mystique (possibly along with Pink Floyd). It's the sound of the hammer of the gods, and it could've only been made by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham, and it was on Physical Graffiti where that hammer swung mightier than it ever had, or ever would, again.
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