So why is Led Zeppelin II on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I was a huge nerd in high school. Here’s an example.
My friends and I would often play pickup tackle football games at a playground we’d refer to as Cedar Road in East Northport, New York. Occasionally so many people would show up that we’d split up into multiple games, but that was pretty rare. We never wore any padding or equipment, and that era ended unceremoniously after a couple of guys wound up breaking an arm or collar bone.
Anyway, I have this weird memory of a day when it was more or less the regular crowd playing, and I decided to take it upon myself to quiz guys on my team about the specific track listings and order of Led Zeppelin albums.
“Nope, ‘Thank You’ is track Number Five on Led Zeppelin II, but thank you for playing,” I’d announce, the snarky self-appointed quizmaster who no one asked for nor wanted.
I mention this Tiny Anecdote of Nerdery from my childhood to illustrate how deeply embedded Led Zeppelin was to my high school years.
Looking back at Led Zepp II from the perspective of the 2020s, there are multiple moments on the album that I think of as not only iconic stretches of music that the band produced, but some of the most iconic stretches of music that any hard rock, heavy metal, or flat-out rock band has ever produced, period.
I’ll start with “Whole Lotta Love,” the opening track (thank you for playing…), but not necessarily the kickoff of the song, which of course is ridiculously great in its own right.
After an opening salvo of heavy metal with a delightful dollop of psychedelia, we get a full minute of super-out-there art rock on British acid that would impress the likes of The Velvet Underground or Jimi Hendrix. But then around the three-minute mark, we get thunderous drums from John Bonham, Jimmy Page communing with the Norse Gods of Guitar.
And that all goes down before the moment I’m talking about, my friends.
At 3:20, we get another verse – same as the first, as the saying goes – except it’s not. Great invisible sky wizards, it’s not.
This is Hammer of the Gods stuff, Valhalla summoned by mortals impossibly blessed by The Touch. At least that’s what the teenager within my heart wants and wishes to believe even still.
The momentum culminates here into one of the most exciting sections of music I’ve heard in my life – and it carries through all the way to the song’s end, some five and a half minutes after the journey began.
Iconic stretch #2 is the magnificent guitar riff that opens “Heartbreaker” – which, I must note, I stumbled through playing on my bass guitar approximately 13,000 times in my far gone youth days – but really it’s the entire unlikely but obscenely great amalgam of “Heartbreaker” and “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman).”
For reasons that remain unclear and yet are somehow self-evident, the two songs belong together forevermore, and thankfully are sequenced together.
Side note here that this right here proves out one of the failings of “shuffle mode” and modern streaming algorithms in music streaming services and devices.
Which is to say: if you’re just starting out with your music journey kids, never do yourself the disservice of hearing one without the other.
If I can influence one young music head out there with this message, then the gargantuan amount of time and effort I’ve spent on this project will have been well worth it.
Why do the songs go together so well? “Heartbreaker” is a driving, hard rock grooving assault whereas “Living Loving Maid” is a ridiculous uptempo and exciting-as-hell romp.
It’s Led Zeppelin’s version of chocolate plus peanut butter equals crazy delicious, and I’m here for it.
It would be one thing if Led Zeppelin II was all head banging bliss, but there’s a full array of relatively gentler songs that are all phenomenal. “Ramble On,” yet another all-timer, plays in both realms, starting off with a delightful acoustic guitar jam sprinkled with the band’s English folk influences, before going full heavy metal blast on the chorus.
I’m reminded here of Beavis and Butt-Head’s take on the song during their original MTV run, with one beseeching the other to just wait… it’s gonna get cool!
“These guys have done it,” Beavis later adds, because… well, that’s B&B-H for you.
“What Is and What Should Never Be” is a gorgeous, slower-paced jangling number that’s all the more effective when it turns up the amplifier dials. And “Thank You” might be the band’s best ever pure pop number – and John Paul Jone’s use of the organ on this one is just fantastic.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the drumming prowess of John Bonham, arguably the greatest rock drummer of all time. How many instrumental numbers that feature a several minute long drum solo have you ever heard that you know the name of and feel worth mentioning?
If you’re asking me, the answer is “Moby Dick,” and I rest my case.
When I zoom back and consider Led Zeppelin II as a whole, I realize that while it’s not my absolute favorite Led Zeppelin album – please note it’s placed in the #30 slot of 1,000 albums here – it might be the most iconic of them all.
Or maybe another way to say it is that it’s probably the most Led Zeppelin album of them all, if you can dig.
Some stats & info about Led Zeppelin II
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, British Bands, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Album Rock, Arena Rock, Blues Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #123
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Led Zeppelin II released? 1969
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #30 out of 1,000
Led Zeppelin II on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Led Zeppelin II that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I’m gonna give you my love, I’m gonna give you my love.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.