Talk:Led Zeppelin (album)

Plagiarism

The album, as with other works of Led Zeppelin, contains songs that apparently draw heavily without attribution from other artists' material. Shouldn't this be addressed?Dogru144 (talk) 17:39, 16 February 2014 (UTC) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvLsutfI5M Dogru144 (talk) 17:47, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes. It is "missing" from the article, along with some claims, changes of writer attribution dates, settling out of court, etc. Misty MH (talk) 06:48, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Writer section

At least one of the songs on this album is now officially credited to a different writer than appeared in the original album: "Dazed and Confused" is an altered version of a song by Jake Holmes. But when I tried to change it, it was reverted because the editor claimed that the writer credit not in the official album notes (although the song is credited to "Page (inspired by Jake Holmes)" on the CD here: [1] [under images]).

Why are only official album liner notes recognized? I don't see anything in the article that indicates that this is the case. I think it should be changed to the credit that is now recognized as correct, or barring that, it should at least get a note. Squandermania (talk)

Discogs is NOT considered at all a reputable Third Party source, as it is User entered information and Not edited by reliable oversight, and is not acceptable Source material as such. Sorry, but you would need to have something Official. As I'm the person who has been editing the Info Box on the Release dates and Recording locations, as I have all of the Super Deluxe Box sets released in recent years, and I have not come across this Information. I will look again though.

Nürö G'däÿ 23:28, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I was actually talking about the image of the CD on Discogs (click on "More images"). Surely, it is reputable. Squandermania (talk) 14:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

The actual album credits and liner notes are the basis for much of the basic information contained in Wikipedia album articles such as song titles, track times, composers, personnel, etc., so obviously they are reliable published sources. You simply need to cite the original published work, not a web site. Piriczki (talk) 14:55, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

talk please see genre's notes below r.e. your reversion of recent "psychedelic rock" addition to infobox. Am adding "psychedelic folk" and an "acid rock" note -- will that be reverted too? morganj9000 05:47, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The original album credited "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" as "Traditional, arr. by Jimmy Page" and "Dazed and Confused" by Jimmy Page. Later re-issues changed the credits to "Bredon – Page – Plant" and "Page – Inspired by Jake Holmes" respectively. The article reflects the updated credits for "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" but not for "Dazed and Confused." Why? Piriczki (talk) 17:48, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Have the credits been updated since this was discussed? (It's actually one reason I came to the article page today.) :-) Misty MH (talk) 06:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Genre

I added "psychedelic rock" back to the info-box genre identification, using the same source used to ID "Dazed and Confused" as "psychedelic rock". The source is here: . . . While the word "psychedelic" appears in the LZ I wiki-article only in reference to Page's guitar, this is due in part to the more extensive song pages for "Dazed and Confused" and others, where the music is discussed in full. This article is fairly brief. It could be pointed out that in 1969 the term "heavy metal" didn't exist relative to the heavier psychedelic rock of 1969 and 1970, but obviously Led Zep I heavily influenced the first wave of British metal, so . . . to have the metal genre cart go before the horse isn't such a terrible thing in this case.

For further sourcing on the psychedelic aspects of Led Zeppelin, see Jim Derogotis' book Turn On Your Mind: Four decades of great psychedelic rock (2003). On pages 388-390, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page discuss "the psychedelic legacy" of Led Zeppelin and the Yardbirds, and synaesthesia, bowing, noise, etc.

The discussion "Is Led Zeppelin Psychedelic?" on the Led Zeppelin official forum is also worth checking out, and a fun read (if not wiki-source material). morganj9000 21:09, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

And it was reverted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piriczki on grounds that "psychedelic rock" is not mentioned in the article, though "Dazed and Confused" is a prime example of heavy British "psychedelic" or "acid" rock, and Zep I is so obviously a major entry at the end of the psychedelic rock era, and mentioned in the wiki article as such. The word "psychedelic" does appear in the article in reference to Page's guitar, and by proxy via the link to the "Dazed and Confused" song page. The word "metal", however, does not appear in the article main, yet it is mentioned in the legacy section as "turning point in the evolution of hard and heavy metal". Being a "turning point in the evolution" of something that was not fully formed as a musical style does not make it the thing. I ask that either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piriczki or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistymountain546 illuminate why this "psychedelic rock" genre point is so sticky when usage of "heavy metal" is rather loose. Is it an invitation to add "psychedelic rock" or "acid rock" reference to the article, or will that be problematic as well? "Acid Rock" is probably the better, more specific genre tag, imo.

I had hoped this "genre" topic would prevent reverts, etc, and I assume if deleted "heavy metal" from that info-box that would be reverted. In any case, there are no encyclopedic problems in adding psychedelic or acid rock content. But here are more sources identifying early Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin I as psychedelic rock or acid rock.

From Noiseaddicts.com, "Psychedelic Rock Genre: Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin"

Rock.wikia.com notes Led Zeppelin as an "acid rock" band.

ConsequenceofSound.net reviews Led Zep I and finds "wheezing psychedelic melancholy in 'Dazed and Confused’'s tumbling riffs, every majestic shift further erects this rock epic as an obelisk of the era."

Rolling Stone magazine, in its June 3, 2014 review of the reissue of Led Zeppelin I, II and III describes "Zeppelin's rapid progression out of British R&B and psychedelia into a crushing-riff rock of unprecedented dynamic range"

The BBC's take was similar to Rolling Stone's, but positions Led Zeppelin as the transitional band, a product of the late 1960s and flower power "but their bombastic style signposted a new decade" of rock. "It wasn't heavy metal" the reviewer adds, "but it sure was heavy."

Time Magazine reused the Consequence of Sound article. morganj9000 05:41, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britannica Only says they were influenced by psychedelic rock. It would be an appropriate title for Page's previous band The Yardbirds, but sources I've found seem to be hesitant to label Zeppelin as psychedelic rock. In addition, the Wikipedia page for psychedelic rock lists Zeppelin as a successor to the genre. Would blues rock be more appropriate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waterco4 (talk • contribs) 14:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

For sure. In reference to the album Led Zeppelin I, blues rock, hard rock, acid rock/psychedelic rock seem appropriate -- and more appropriate than heavy metal -- which is why I'm wondering what's up with the reverts. It does not say in this LZ I wiki article that Zep I was metal, yet there "heavy metal" is in the info-box. Led Zeppelin can be tough to label, but Rolling Stone Mag has no problem labeling Zep psychedelic when Zep is being psychedelic. Here's a review of "Dazed and Confused" in RS that refers to the song as "psychedelic blues". I think both acid rock and blues rock are appropriate for LZ I, and there are plenty of sources that would support both genre labels. morganj9000 18:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Do we agree that "blues rock" and "hard rock" apply to this album?

I agree with the consensus that seems to have formed, i.e., that hard rock and blues rock apply to Led Zeppelin I. Do y'all agree that there's consensus on these two points?   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 07:25, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Both genres appear on the album. "Black Mountain Side" is straight blues - little or no rock involved. William Harris • (talk) • 11:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

What about "acid rock"? Yea or Nay?

Acid rock seems to apply to the album, for the reasons articulated by morganj9000. "Dazed and Confused" makes the case for me--I mean, that is a trippy sound when Page applies bow to guitar, not to mention the other three band members' contributions to the blues-based, hard-acid rock classic. The fact that--way back in the day--I loved to listen to the album and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds at the same time has nothing to do with my opinion on the matter.

What do you all think? Acid rock Yea or Nay?   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 07:26, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Heavy metal?

I prefer the term traditional heavy metal for Led Zeppelin I. But is "traditional heavy metal" an accepted subgenre? We (Wikipedia) say "yes" while we're saying "no".

YES - In the heavy metal genres article, one finds a section titled, traditional heavy metal.

But NO - However, the first three sentences of the traditional heavy metal section read as follows:

Traditional heavy metal, also known as classic metal or often simply heavy metal, is the group of bands and artists who play a metal music style similar to the style heard before the genre evolved and splintered into many different styles and subgenres. It is characterized by mid-to-fast-tempo riffs, by thumping basslines, crunchy riffs, extended lead guitar solos, and clean, often high-pitched vocals and anthemic choruses. It is not generally categorized as a subgenre of metal, but the main genre of it. Examples include Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Dio." (citation superscript numbers [footnote numbers] omitted; emphasis added)

  - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 07:27, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I thought one of the main components of heavy metal (i.e. the "Birmingham sound") - or simply metal -was guitar distortion at the amp. Some amps still have an adjustment for "metal". Clearly so for Black Sabbath, Deep Purple etc. Not so clear with Zeppelin? William Harris • (talk) • 11:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

The talk page is full of genre arguments like this. Meanwhile I (with the help of a few others) just improved the article to GA status. Why can't we do more of the latter and less of the former? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

A credit to you. However a question was asked, and I simply responded (perhaps a little late.) William Harris • (talk) • 11:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Lewis 1990 p.48 does say that "Whole Lotta Love" was retrospectively considered "heavy metal", though the band hated the term, and I think the only possible "metal" song on the LP is "Communication Breakdown" (and even then "garage punk" would be a better description). My advice would be this - get FlightTime, Binksternet and Dan56 together. (None of them will want to do this, you'll have to force them at .... wait, I've heard this before) If two out of three say "heavy metal" can go in, it does. If none of them do, it doesn't. If one out of three does, it's decided by rock, paper, scissors. I think Floquenbeam taught me this consensus solving trick ;-) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:54, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Too many sources hold back on calling the album heavy metal for us to state without reservation that it's heavy metal. AllMusic says it was a turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal. Rolling Stone says that heavy metal lives under the shadow of this album. The consensus of sources is that the album is a more extreme development of hard rock, one that was later seen as proto-metal – an album leading to heavy metal in the future. But in this album the future has not yet arrived. Binksternet (talk) 12:23, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

The prose in the article covering the music (critical views, for instance) needs work first before dealing with how the infobox should reflect said prose--there is nothing verifying "hard rock", at least no more than "metal", in the body. A quick search for this album (and "hard rock"/"metal") found me these quotes, which I will add to the article:

• "Zep could never claim first heavy metal album, but they could arguably claim first metal song, a stronger argument to be made for first metal song by a band widely (though very superficially) called heavy metal. Communication Breakdown, with its no-nonsense machine gun between the numbers riff, is that song." (Martin Popoff)
• Its orchestration delves adventurously through hard rock and heavy metal with bluesy undertones that often cause the chords to weep poignantly as if struck with malice ... it is the first hard rock domino that lays the groundwork for everything the band would accomplish. (Sheldon Pearce, Consequence of Sound)
• "...Led Zeppelin's first album announced the emergence of a loud and raw new musical genre, heavy metal..." (Michael Fallon, arts and culture scholar) Dan56 (talk) 12:26, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Guitars

According to Page, "Mickie Most had kindly lent me his Gibson J-200 for the first album. That was a magnificent-sounding guitar, absolutely incredible". He notes that many early songs were arranged on a Harmony Sovereign acoustic guitar [both in Tolinski's Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page]. However, there is no mention of a classical or nylon string guitar for "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" or other songs. The sentence "Page played a variety of guitars on the track" should be rewritten (apparently he just used the J-200 and Telecaster). —Ojorojo (talk) 15:46, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

According to Dave Lewis (which is what is cited in the article), "Jimmy rearranged this traditional folk tune to fit both acoustic and electric modes .... with some superbly picked Spanish guitar". So I make that one of these, one of these and one of these. Now it's possible for Dave Lewis to be wrong, and it's just a fingerpicked J-200 in the middle, and not an actual arch-top (would be slightly easier to play close range fingerstyle, or at least I think so), so if we've got a book source confirming it was just that, I think we can leave out the classical guitar bit. As for the J-200 itself, Lewis mentions it was borrowed, but doesn't say who from, I assumed the other source (which I didn't add) was offline and used to cite the Big Jim Sullivan Claim (which I didn't add) so I WP:AGFed it was correct. On second examination, it turns out that's not mentioned at all in the source, so I've removed it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Maybe Lewis is referring to the picking style rather than the actual guitar. One writer describes Baez' version "Each verse is accompanied by solo acoustic guitar arpeggiating chords in Spanish and folk styles".[Hermann, Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies p. 344] Popoff notes "Spanish-style flourishes by Page" (and adds the J-200 was owned by Sullivan?) [Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs, Expanded Edition, p. 19]. Several Google searches have not turned up another guitar (classical or otherwise) for the song. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:18, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I'll have a listen and get back to you! The main rhythm that is on the left channel and carries on throughout the track (presumably this was done live with the rest of the band) is definitely the J-200, and that's the only acoustic used on any other track on the album. So it seems likely that it's all J-200 here; if nothing else it meant you could set the mics up once and that was it - time was short. So I've trimmed the article to suit. As for who owned it, well now we've got conflicting sources, who knows? Now for homework, Robert Plant on bass.... Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:23, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Critical reception

Hey guys! New here. I wanted to add a quote to the section on Critical reception as follows: Rolling Stone originally panned the album saying:"...[Jimmy Page] is also a very limited producer and a writer of weak, unimaginative songs, and the Zeppelin album suffers from his having both produced it and written most of it (alone or in combination with his accomplices in the group)." Is this acceptable? Thanks. Onthewingsofmaybe (talk) 06:24, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

@Onthewingsofmaybe: There's nothing wrong with what you did - you followed the core principal of being bold and "just doing it". So yes, it's perfectly acceptable. You correctly added the reference to Rolling Stone, so your edit should not have been reverted out of hand, but improved upon. As the lead says, "Although the album was not critically well-received when first released...." it's important to have this information to back that fact up. I have trimmed down the quotation and formatted the reference slightly. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:16, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Drum recording

The Production subsection of the Recording section credits the album's innovative drum recording technique to Page. However, in his autobiography Sound Man the record's engineer, Glyn Johns, attributes it to an error he himself made (page 117 in my paperback edition). I don't think his claim is self-serving - he admits discovering the technique resulted from an error he made and adds that he might not have noticed it without Bonham's exceptional sound, and elsewhere in his book Johns seems quick to give credit where it is due. (For example, on page 203 he writes that the phasing effect on one section of The Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" is often attributed to him, but that he was shown the technique by his then assistant George Chkiantz shortly before the recording session began.)

So how solid is the claim that Page was responsible for the drum recording technique? JezGrove (talk) 22:21, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

It's basically Page's word against Johns. However, since nobody's ever challenged Page's producer credit, he gets far more annoyed when people dismiss his production skills as opposed to his guitar playing, and all sources agree he had the ultimate decision about what got recorded and how, I think the three sources presented in the article that talk about his "distance equals depth" are probably correct. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:55, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

RIAA certification

2601:152:4401:B4D0:3410:E20D:B1D5:34AE: RIAA shows two certifications:[2]

• "Led Zeppelin earned RIAA 10X Diamond Award for LED ZEPPELIN"

Title: LED ZEPPELIN

Certification Date: March 2, 2001

Label: ATLANTIC

Format: ALBUM

• "Led Zeppelin earned RIAA 8X Multi-platinum for LED ZEPPELIN I"

Title: LED ZEPPELIN I

Certification Date: May 3, 1999

Label: ATLANTIC

Format: ALBUM

The "More details" doesn't work on my setup.

—Ojorojo (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Release date

I question the release date. January 12, 1969 was a Sunday, and it's highly unusual for a record to be released on a Sunday. Friday was the standard new release day in the US at that time; I suspect the actual date was the 17th. Cortexo Modesto (talk) 18:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)