Some call this cult group Led Zeppelin the ancestor of the "heavy metal" style. Others consider her the best in blues rock. Still others are sure that this is the most successful project in the history of modern pop music.
Over the years, Led Zeppelin became known as the dinosaurs of rock. A block that wrote immortal lines in the history of rock music and laid the foundations of the "heavy music industry".
"Lead airship" can be loved, not loved. But this group deserves a respectful attitude and deep respect from those who call themselves music lovers. In sports terms, this is a super team. It occupies the highest places in the major league of the championship in rock and roll disciplines.
The Birth of a Led Zeppelin Legend
The Led Zeppelin group grew up on the ruins of the Yardbirds ensemble. Since the mid-sixties, guitarist Jimmy Page has been honing his skills in it. At first, the new project was called "New Yardbirds", which was even reflected on the first concert posters. But then came the realization of the need to rename the team.
The name Led Zeppelin is a corruption of "Lead Airship". Translated from English, it means the slang expression "to crash down, to fail with a bang." It was invented spontaneously. One of the familiar musicians jokingly predicted a failure for the newly-minted rockers, and they took it as a challenge to fate.
Page met bass player John Paul Jones during his many studio jobs. The real name of the musician is John Baldwin. In the studio environment, his ability to come up with solid orchestrations for musical compositions of various genres was greatly appreciated.
The guys heard about singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham from friends from Birmingham. There, these characters performed with one of the local blues ensembles. The manager of the future group, Peter Grant, telegrammed the candidates for telephone conversations.
After the dialogue, the metropolitan gentlemen made a trip to Birmingham. We went to a concert with Plant and Bonham. We were convinced of their downhole potential and a week later they were invited to London. First, Robert was recruited, and he persuaded him to join the Bonzo company and dragged him after him.
The first album, unpretentiously called Led Zeppelin, was released in the fall of 1968 under the label of the Atlantic recording studio. Sound engineering was handled personally by Page. A couple of songs migrated from the repertoire of the "parents" of the group - The Yard birds. One composition was borrowed from the noble blues player Willie Dixon. And another one - by Joan Bayez, the rest they composed themselves.
Critics, especially American critics, did not speak very highly of the disc, while the public purchased it with pleasure. Subsequently, the reviewers revised their assessments in a positive direction.
Led Zeppelin: Methodically and purposefully
At the end of the European and American tour, speaking on the BBC, a year after the debut, the group released their second album. They also didn’t think about the name for a long time - Led Zeppelin II - and that’s it! The recording was made at several studios in America - exactly along the route of concert promotion.
The work turned out to be motley, more spontaneous, but very lively. And today the music of the album breathes freshness. During the first days of sales, the disc received the status of "gold"! The Beatles' AbbeyRoad was removed from the top of the list. Later, the album entered all sorts of ratings of the best of the best.
A year later, Led Zeppelin III came out, with which the band made a small roll towards folk-rock, and they did it successfully. Next to acoustic, pastoral-sounding compositions, powerful hard-rock militants like Immigrant Song coexisted.
At this time, Jimmy Page acquired the mansion of the infamous occult poet and Satanist Aleister Crowley, which gave rise to a lot of rumors about the life addictions of musicians. They were accused of having links with "dark forces", of being addicted to mysticism. Subsequently, a number of tragedies that the members of the group experienced, the public considered retribution for such hobbies.
By the time one of the most successful albums of Led Zeppelin's career under the number IV was released in 1971, the image of the rockers had changed significantly. They felt like superstars, began to dress up in chic concert caftans when they went on stage, used a private plane instead of tour vans, and rested on tour not in separate hotel rooms, but ordered a whole institution for themselves.
Of course, orgies and drunken brawls could not do without ... But at the same time, the guys wrote divine music. In particular, the fourth album ended with the composition Stairway to Heaven later recognized as the "best song in the history of mankind".
The opus, as it were, consisted of two parts - the initial acoustic and the second - explosive, fatal and assertive. As a result, the "four" became the best-selling hard rock record in history.
Led Zeppelin: in the rank of celestials
With the release of their fifth album in 1972, the Zeppelins ended the practice of numbering each successive disc. This work received the original title Houses of the Holy.
It is interesting that the presence of the opus of the same name was assumed in the material, but it was not included in the final version, but miraculously surfaced in the Physical Graffiti double (what good to waste!).
The history of the covers of both releases is interesting. In the photo of the “Houses of the Saints”, naked blond teenagers climb to the top of a stone pyramid towards an unknown deity. The appearance of teenagers outraged the zealots of morality, and for this reason it was not possible to send the record for sale for a long time.
In some places, the disc was banned, but in the end, the image on the front of the envelope turned out to be in the list of the best album covers of all time.
The Physical Graffiti lookalike showed a building with windows cut out to reveal images from inside inserts.
The drawings had nothing to do with each other: a photo of actress Elizabeth Taylor and other representatives of bohemia, a horse's head, letters with the name of the disk, and much more.
Despite the voluminous content in Physical Graffiti, there are practically no passing songs. The audience also liked this work of their favorite group. In that rather successful 1975, some misfortunes fell upon the musicians: either Page pinched his finger on his hand by the train door, then Plant got into a car accident - the singer himself escaped with bruises and injuries, and his wife was seriously injured and barely survived.
At the beginning of 1976, the seventh Presence record was released - "Presence". With the release of this disc, the musicians were in a hurry (the queue for recording in the studio limited the Zeppelins in time), and therefore the result was not at all what they had hoped for. At the same time, some fans like this work, but not very much, while others like it very much.
Beginning of the end of Led Zeppelin
The musicians needed an intermission of more than two years before they wanted to prepare new songs for recording. The fact is that everyone had to wait for the moment when Robert Plant would come out of his depression. The singer suffered a personal loss: his six-year-old son Karak died of an intestinal infection.
At the start of 1979, a new LZ work called In Through the Out Door arrived in music stores. Its stylistic diversity and the presence of regular masterpieces are striking. Critics and the public ambiguously perceived this work, nevertheless, the consumer "voted" with money and brought the album to the rank of platinum.
In the spring of 80, Led Zeppelin embarked on a European tour that was destined to be their last. In September of that year, John Bonham was found dead in his hotel room...
Thus ended the history of the great rock band. Left alone, the musicians considered it wrong to continue performing under the same name.
Already after the announcement of the dissolution, in 82, the final disc of the Lead Airship appeared on the shelves of music salons.
She picked up a short but correct name - Coda. This is rather not a numbered album, but a collection of things recorded in different years of the band's existence.
