Album
Led Zeppelin
1969 · Rock
307 collectors on Gatefold own this
Led Zeppelin is a Rock album by Led Zeppelin, originally released in 1969. On Gatefold: 875 pressings tracked, owned by 307 collectors.
About
When The Yardbirds broke up in 1968, guitarist Jimmy Page and manager Peter Grant quickly hired three musicians to play the band’s remaining concert dates. Page brought on John Paul Jones, who’d earned a sterling reputation as a session bassist and arranger, and filled out his new band with two ringers: A lithe hippie howler named Robert Plant, and his friend John Bonham—a drummer who was wild as Keith Moon, but who maintained the timing of a jazz veteran. Though the four musicians were essentially soloists, there was instant chemistry, and the quartet soon changed its name from the New Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin, and began recording the group’s eponymous debut album in a couple weeks. After Grant secured the band a legendarily lucrative contract with American label Atlantic—one that guaranteed creative freedom—the feverish and futuristic <i>Led Zeppelin</i> was released in early 1969. The album hit the Top 10 in the US, and set a standard for rock-bombast that future bands would either aspire toward...or despise. The word “fusion” isn’t often used to describe hard rock, but <i>Led Zeppelin</i>’s integration of Chicago blues, British folk, and San Francisco psychedelia—without credit to the originators—was unprecedented. Plant’s wails against lowdown, no-good women are rooted in the blues, but Page—the band’s sonic Svengali—understood the musical past not as traditions to be preserved, but as cool sounds and tunings and themes to reimagine. Combined with his gifts for mic placement and mixing, he dramatically expanded hard rock’s studio vocabulary. It starts during the first seconds of opening track “Good Times Bad Times,” as Bonham and Page swing and pound like roughneck ballet dancers. It was the funkiest British blues-rock interpretation on record, in part because Page gave Bonham and Jones’ polyrhythms so much room to breathe. And it only sprawls out from there: The lacerating “Communication Breakdown” is perfect Who-style garage rock, while Page dragging a violin bow across his E-string on “Dazed and Confused” more or less invented the sludgy B-movie dread of Black Sabbath. The album’s stunning centerpiece, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” strips Joan Baez’s live recording of Anne Bredon’s original down to the studs, then rebuilds it as a dynamic rock opera; just when it seems like the storm is over, Bonham’s drum-fills trigger another titanic swell from murmuring acoustic unease to all-out electrified panic. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” is the promise and peril of Led Zeppelin, in concentrate: All traditions remixed, all women scorned.
via Apple Music
The Clerk says
The Clerk knows this whole record — the pressing quirks, the credits, the take.
Tracklist
Side A
- A1Good Times Bad Times2:43
- A2Babe I'm Gonna Leave You6:40
- A3You Shook Me6:30
- A4Dazed And Confused6:27
Side B
- B1Your Time Is Gonna Come4:41
- B2Black Mountain Side2:06
- B3Communication Breakdown2:26
- B4I Can't Quit You Baby4:42
- B5How Many More Times8:28
Sound DNA
- Rock
- Hard Rock
- heavy
- swaggering
- bluesy
The debut studio album by the band of the same name was released on January 12, 1969.
This album was actually recorded as an album by, but released as Led Zeppelin when Chris Dreja, formerly a member of The Yardbirds, informed them that they did not have the rights to The New Yardbirds name so a new band name was confirmed late October 1968.
For the first Led Zeppelin album in the UK, there are at least nine known vinyl red/plum 6-digit Deluxe cat# versions. To help simplify Release Notes, it may be easier to add the Version Number as below (Plus any potential variants to that numbered Version):
1. Label: This Version 1 (opens in a new tab) has Turquoise sleeve lettering and Superhype Music/Jewel Music Publishing credits labels.
2. Label: This Version 2 (opens in a new tab) as Version 1, but this issue has on side one the "Superhype mis-credit label", label lists songs 1, "3", 4 as Superhype Music and then 3 again as Jewel Music.
3. Label: This Version 3 (opens in a new tab) has Orange sleeve lettering with grey stripe across the base of the front cover, uncorrected stamped matrix number and (Superhype Music/Jewel Music Publishing credits labels).
4. Label: This Version 4 (opens in a new tab) as Version 3, but with difference of the corrected stamped matrix number and again with Superhype mis-credit on label side one as Version 2).
5. Label: This Version 5 (opens in a new tab) has Orange sleeve lettering with the corrected stamped matrix number on both sides which have the second 8 scratched out and (Superhype Music/Jewel Music Publishing credits labels).
6. Label: The Version 6 (opens in a new tab) has Orange sleeve lettering with Grey stripe at bottom on front cover and without Superhype credits with instead Warner Bros/7 Arts. Publishing credit printed in one line on the labels.
7. Label: The Version 7 (opens in a new tab) as Version 6, but with Warner Bros/7 Arts. Publishing credit printed in two lines on the labels.
8. Label: The Version 8 (opens in a new tab) as Version 7, but without the Grey stripe at bottom on front sleeve.
9. Label: The Version 9 (opens in a new tab) as Version 6, but has Warner Bros/7 Arts /Jewel Music Publishing credits printed in one line on label side One and Superhype /Jewel Music on label side Two printed in two lines.
10. Label: The Version 10 (opens in a new tab) as Version 6, but has Warner Bros./7. Arts Jewel Music Publishing credits printed in one line on label side One and Warner Bros. 7. Arts Jewel Music Publishing credits printed in one line on label side Two but without the "/" in between Warner Bros. and 7. Arts.
11. Label: The Version 11 (opens in a new tab) as Version 6 with the Warner Bros./7. Arts Jewel Music Publishing credits printed on both labels but the track listing text is spread out. Sleeve: Version 1 (opens in a new tab) with Turquoise sleeve lettering with grey stripe across the base of the front cover and corrected stamped matrix number
All UK covers actually have a grey stripe at the bottom of the front, but it is not always equally visible. This depends on how the cover was folded -manufacturing anomalies- and is subject to variations.
Credits
The people behind it.
Performers
- Jimmy PageACOUSTIC GUITAR ACOUSTIC GUITAR, ELECTRIC GUITAR, BACKING VOCALS, PEDAL STEEL GUITAR ACOUSTIC GUITAR, ELECTRIC GUITAR, PEDAL STEEL GUITAR, BACKING VOCALS
- John BonhamBAND , DRUMS, TIMPANI , BACKING VOCALS DRUMS DRUMS, BACKING VOCALS
- John Paul JonesBAND , BASS, ORGAN, BACKING VOCALS BASS BASS GUITAR, ORGAN, BACKING VOCALS
- Robert PlantBAND , LEAD VOCALS , HARMONICA BASS ELECTRIC GUITAR, ACOUSTIC GUITAR, PEDAL STEEL GUITAR, BACKING VOCALS
- Viram JasaniTABLA
307 collectors on Gatefold own this · 875 pressings tracked on Gatefold
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