Hokeyboy

III
IV
Houses of the Holy
II
Presence
I
Physical Graffiti
In Through The Out Door
Coda

There's a HUGE step down between PG and ITTOD, but the first seven are almost entirely equal to me.

III is my favorite, though. The shadow and light is perfect there.

bluetoast

For some reason, III and Presence seem to blend together to me.

Edit: Not talking about reissues, just general album vibes.

cdollaz

IV
Houses
II
In Through The Out Door
III
I
Physical Graffiti
Presence
Coda

Geofferson

I'll reserve judgement until after I've listened to all the remasters in their entirety. I literally just finished listening to II and it was like hearing the album for the very first time (well, almost).

Per the results above, I am surprised at the high regard for Presence. Granted, I haven't listened to the album in its entirety in a decade or more, but I don't remember giving it much praise at the time. Maybe the reissue will change all that.

slop101

I kinda thought the same, so popped it back in, and yeah, it's a lot better than you might remember. It only has 7 songs (some quite long), but zero duds - it's pretty accurately regarded above. Amazing how Plant did all his singing from a wheelchair, while recovering from his accident.

hdnmickey

Curious... for those that have II so low on their list, what songs are bringing down the album for you? For my taste in Zeppelin, it's the only CD without a dud.

I have IV so much lower than most simply because I don't care for Misty Mountain Hop, Going to California, and much of Battle of Evermore.

stvn1974

I have II down towards the bottom but that doesn't mean I dislike any of it. All of the albums besides Coda are 5/5 for me.

hdnmickey

That makes sense. But short of putting them in chronological order there still was a reasoning behind the order, right?

slop101

I don't have II "low" on my list, and don't think it has any "duds", but one reason it's not higher is that they're still doing their whole "English white boys ripping off American Blues" thing on that album (along with the intro to "Bring it on Home" being somewhat offensive), and it's just not as original as their later work.

Though I have Houses of the Holy pretty low on my list, as I find almost half the songs on it pretty annoying, especially Dancing Days and D'yer Maker.

hdnmickey

When did they stop?

This reminds me of the people that I thought I was making it up when I said many don't think much of Zeppelin in general. Zep haters that think they never amounted to anything other than being rip off artists.

bluetoast

There's a ton of different opinions on album rankings, but do we agree that Hats Off to (Roy) Harper is their worst song by far?

hdnmickey

Hot Dog?

Harper and Bron-Y-Aur Stomp are the songs I often manually remove via the skip option.

cdollaz

I love Hot Dog. Something different.

Hokeyboy

Skipping Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is freakin' blasphemy, man...

Worst song? I could live without the ponderously uninspired "You Shook Me" rather easily.

slop101

Bronyaur Stomp is an amazing song. Seems like you don't like their acoustic stuff, which is a huge chunk of what they are.

Hokeyboy

You can't have the shadow without the light.

hdnmickey

Has nothing to do with them being acoustic songs. Love plenty of the acoustic songs/parts on the other albums. It's all about personal preference, and the songs I named in this thread just don't resonate with me like so many others do. I also think over the last few pages I've named every song of theirs I don't like. It's a pretty small number given the total body of work.

Geofferson

Agreed. A departure, but I always liked it.

Supermallet

After a long time of slagging on Zeppelin and feeling like I was over them, I began relistening to their stuff and found that I'm finding it fresh again. So here are my rankings:

Houses of the Holy
III
I
IV
II
In Through The Out Door
Presence
Physical Graffiti
Coda

I do agree about Hats Off to Roy Harper though. It's what prevents III from being at the very top of my list.

Decker

Help out a Vinyl novice here : My daughter is starting a Vinyl collection and is getting into Led Zep. I want to get her one of the Deluxe Edition reissues with the bonus disc. Looking at the releases, it seems that Led Zep I might be the best of the bunch because it includes a concert and II, III and IV just contain outtakes. Is that correct? Is Led Zep I the best one to pick up if I'm going for a Deluxe Edition on Vinyl?

rw2516

Depends.
LZ I is better because it gives you a concert. But live stuff from the same period is also on the BBC sessions and the Led Zeppelin DVD set. This is a different show of the same stuff.
Coda- this is the best one for stuff never heard before. Also gives you "Hey Hey What Can I Do" non-LP b side of 45. But still bogged down with lot of alternate and rough mixes.

If it was me, and the person didn't already have it, I'd give them Physical Graffiti. Just the regular original double album alone is the best LZ gift you could give someone IF they don't have it.

Decker

Hmmmm, maybe I'll do that then. She does love Kashmir. Thanks.

It looks like they did release a Deluxe version of this with an extra disc with Rough Mixes.

slop101

Jimmy Page said that previously unheard Led Zeppelin music and ‘all manner of surprises’ will be released for the band’s fiftieth anniversary in 2018

Think they've exhausted everything they recorded in a studio, which just leaves live recordings. So get ready for a ton of new live Zeppelin records, which could be pretty great, actually.

rw2516

Be interesting to see what develops. Page has soundboard for every show. An ultimate Song Remains The Same with all 3 complete shows intact is a possibility but not that big a deal. The best surprise would be XYZ recordings.

cdollaz

If any of it is good, it should have been included on the deluxe editions a few years ago, because most of what they did include was shit.