# Deep Tracks - Led Zeppelin - "Led Zeppelin II" - Choose your favourites...



## Guest (Jul 16, 2018)

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This is one of a series of polls in which you will be asked nothing more than to choose your favourite tunes from the album in question.

The number of selections that you will be allowed to choose will vary from album to album but a higher number than that found in usual polls of this nature will be allowed so that album tracks (which form the foundation of "classic albums") will not be overshadowed by hit singles.

Please *choose up to five selections* for this particular poll.

The tunes themselves (when available) will be found below the poll itself as links rather than as embedded videos due to bandwidth issues for those who wish to reacquaint themselves with a tune that may have receded a bit too far into the past to be remembered with the clarity that came when they were first released...

Next up is - Led Zeppelin - "Led Zeppelin II" -

"Led Zeppelin II is the second studio album released on 22 October 1969 in the United States and on 31 October 1969 in the United Kingdom by Atlantic Records.

Led Zeppelin II was a commercial success, and was the band's first album to reach number one on charts in the UK and the US. Since its release, various writers and music critics have regularly cited Led Zeppelin II as one of the greatest and most influential albums of all time.

The advertising campaign was built around the slogans 'Led Zeppelin - The Only Way to Fly' and 'Led Zeppelin II Now Flying'. Commercially, Led Zeppelin II was the band's first album to hit No. 1 in the US, knocking The Beatles' Abbey Road (1969) twice from the top spot, where it remained for seven weeks. By April 1970 it had registered three million American sales, whilst in Britain it enjoyed a 138-week residence on the LP chart, climbing to the top spot in February 1970.

Led Zeppelin II has been cited by music writers as a blueprint for heavy metal bands that followed it. Blues-derived songs like "Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker", "The Lemon Song", "Moby Dick", and "Bring It On Home" have been seen as representing standards of the genre, where the guitar-based riff (rather than vocal chorus or verses) defines the song and provides the key hook. Such arrangements and emphasis were at the time atypical in popular music.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 75 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time."

Your commentary on any and every aspect of the album and especially any memories reawakened as a result of the poll is welcomed.


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2018)

"Whole Lotta Love" -






"What Is And What Should Never Be" -






"The Lemon Song" -






"Thank You" -






"Heartbreaker" -






"Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman) -






"Ramble On" -






"Moby Dick" -






"Bring It On Home" -


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I find Led Zeppelin II the weakest of the albums up to Physical Graffiti, caring for only 3 of its 9 songs. Their monster first effort emptied much of the reservoir, which refilled slowly for Zep II, but then quite filled again for the next three awesome albums. I'm certain others will have varying views . My sin as a Zeppelin aficionado, I discovered on another forum years ago, was not loving to the point of mania every one of their songs.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Great album, but _Moby Dick_ is the weak link here. However much I like Bonzo's style I still maintain there is no place for rock god drum solos on a studio album. _Moby Dick_ strikes me as being a great riff in search of a song. I like everything else but overall _LZII_ doesn't quite have the crispness of the debut album. Production on _LZII_ was really cruddy as well - had the sound been as crunchy here as it was on the debut album it probably would have blown my mind.


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## Biwa (Aug 3, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> Great album, but _Moby Dick_ is the weak link here. However much I like Bonzo's style I still maintain there is no place for rock god drum solos on a studio album. *Moby Dick strikes me as being a great riff in search of a song.* I like everything else but overall _LZII_ doesn't quite have the crispness of the debut album. Production on _LZII_ was really cruddy as well - had the sound been as crunchy here as it was on the debut album it probably would have blown my mind.


Well put! Moby Dick starts and ends very nice. LOL! :lol: No seriously, love all the other songs. I used to listen to Zeppelin quite a bit back in the day. Lots of good memories with this album. I also agree the production on this (along with ALL their albums) was a bit cruddy. The same goes for Rush's albums, btw. Anyway, Jimmy gets what Jimmy wants. I found this 2011 video of Robert. Nice to see him still Rambling On.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> I find Led Zeppelin II the weakest of the albums up to Physical Graffiti, caring for only 3 of its 9 songs. Their monster first effort emptied much of the reservoir, which refilled slowly for Zep II, but then quite filled again for the next three awesome albums. (


I agree. The weakest of the early crop.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

As a teen I would listen to this album over and over, I loved it then. I haven't listened to it in decades. Tastes change. If I listen to any Led Zeppelin now, I usually find other albums and tracks to listen to. 

Whole Lotta Love, What is...., The Lemon Song, Heartbreaker and Ramble On are the tunes I voted for. 

In the early 80s I was obsessed with Led Zeppelin, it's almost all I listened to. I now wish I had explored more music. But you can't go back and change the past. (If I could, I'd change a lot more than what I listened to). 

As previously mentioned in another thread, this autumn I will have a Led Zeppelin listening project to celebrate 50 years of Led Zeppelin. But I just don't have the same feelings for the band as I used to, my obsession is long gone.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

_The Lemon Song_'s urgent plea to have one's lemon squeezed, reappeared in a much more convincing and vital form on disk one of the 1990 6-disk compilation. There, we find it as _Travelling Riverside Blues_, credited to Jimmy Page & Robert Plant/Robert Johnson, and previously unreleased.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Thank You is a beautiful number. And it wasn't beaten to death with radio overplay. The second track is my other favorite. Love the drums and guitars.

The Lemon Song is a vulgar rendition of Howlin' Wolf's Killing Floor.


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