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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For me it does not get any better than "Dazed and Confused", 24 Sep 2003
By A Customer
It all makes such perfect sense now in retrospect. You take two of the premier sessions artists in England rising from the ashes of the Yardbirds and pair them up with a couple of unknown 19 year olds from the Band of Joy and form one of the greatest rock groups of all time. Led Zeppelin's debut album remains a classic and its showpiece "Dazed and Confused" is the song I have listened to most often in my life; my favorite part is Bonzo's cascades on the drum as Jimmy Page loses the violin bow and finishes his guitar solo (I have learned from a reputable source that the song was originally written by Jake Holmes as a folk-rock type song, but uncredited on the album). One of the great things about the new Led Zeppelin double-DVD is that there are another four versions of "Dazed and Confused" on it, although admittedly you have to look for some of them. I finally get to see Bonzo do that bit on what, by contemporary standards, is a kiddie drum kit."Communication Breakdown" is the one "single" from the album because from the very beginning Led Zeppelin's best tunes were just too long for airplay. "Dazed and Confused" is 6:27, Page's acoustic arrangement of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is 6:40 (the second best track on the album) and the final track, the under-rated "How Many More Times" is a heck of a lot longer than the "3:30" that is listed in the liner notes (go figure). The album begins with the introductory hard chords of "Good Times Bad Times" but also features the acoustic guitar and tabla drums on the folksy "Black Mountainside" as the group mixes and matches music styles. At this point Robert Plant is just handling the vocals, with Page, Jones and Bonham responsible for the new songs. For good measure they toss a pair of Willie Dixon's blues tunes, "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You Baby," to reveal the exact nature of the group's musical roots even as they were on their way to being the definitive heavy metal band. Everything that comes afterwards in the musical career of Led Zeppelin all comes back to the ground they claim on this album. Future albums will vary the calculus in terms of how much hard rock, acoustic, or blues appears on a given album, but you will find the template for the group's success laid out on this self-titled debut effort where they establish their album-oriented perspective. This is guitar rock beyond what we had heard in the distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton. Ultimately, what makes it a great debut album is that Led Zeppelin continues to build on those foundation in eight more classic heavy metal albums over the next dozen years. This is one of the few albums that I still as vinyl (object d'arte), cassette (emergency use if the CD player in the car breaks down), and CD. If I get stuck on a desert island, guess what album I want...
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raw Power, 6 Oct 2007
This is a very special album from a very special band. The music here draws on Blues, R&B and Rock 'n' Roll and develops it into what would turn out to be mainstream Rock (and eventually Metal). This album was THAT influential. The music has a raw power that excites even at first listen - but the more you listen to it, the more you begin to detect and appreciate. The musicianship is incredible given that this is a debut album. The boys are firing on all cylinders and you find yourself in awe at the drumming, then the guitar work, and those incredible vocals. But the real magic is in the combination - there is something electrical in this music, something exciting, threatening, inspiring. That would become increasingly apparent when they delivered these songs live on stage. The rest is history.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Take-off!, 12 Jan 2002
Zeppelin's début effort is a remarkable achievement. The "knock-knock" wake-up call of the surprisingly commercial opener "Good Times Bad Times" gives way to the labyrinthine acoustics of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You". This is followed by Willie Dixon's blues tune "I Can't Quit You Baby", in an arrangement which steals from and improves upon the Jeff Beck Group's rendition. This segues into the moody, hallucenogenic "Dazed and Confused", a cornerstone of Zeppelin performances for years to come. What was side two opens with "Your Time is Gonna Come", in which a guitar figure pinched from Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy" complements JP Jones' organics perfectly. This track leads straight into Page's eastern-styled acoustic piece "Black Mountain Side", which is followed by the high-speed riffage of "Communication Breakdown". Back to the Dixon songbook for "I Can't Quit You Baby", and then onto the album's finalé, the histrionic "How Many More Times", which freely borrows from Howlin' Wolf, Booker T and the MGs and a host of other sources, whilst remaining defiantly Zeppelin. Recorded in a mere thirty hours, and more than thirty years on, this sounds fresh, vital and powerful.
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