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List Price: $18.98 | | Label: Atlantic / Wea
Salesrank: 769
Released: June 21, 1994 |
| Our Price: $6.34 |
| Used Price: $4.98 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Led Zeppelin II Track Listing:
1. Whole Lotta Love
2. What Is and What Should Never Be
3. Lemon Song
4. Thank You
5. Heartbreaker
6. Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)
7. Ramble On
8. Moby Dick
9. Bring It on Home
Editorial Review:
2005 Japanese standard jewel case pressing of Led Zeppelin's 1969 album. Features the same tracks and mastering as the US edition but includes an OBI and Japanese/English insert. Warner. 2005.
Description of Led Zeppelin II:
Riff rock had been what Jimmy Page's former band, the Yardbirds, were all about, and on Led Zeppelin's second album, released, like its predecessor, in 1969, the inventive guitarist demonstrated that he'd indeed learned his lessons well. Witness "Whole Lotta Love," a woozy epic based on one simple, head-banging-friendly guitar riff. Or the mock-dramatic "Heartbreaker," propelled by far more intricate but similarly effective note squashing. Between Page's sonic wizardry, John Bonham beating his drums into submission ("Moby Dick"), and the juice running down Robert Plant's leg ("The Lemon Song"), Led Zeppelin here just about succeeded in raising rock & roll excess to an art form. --Billy Altman
Led Zeppelin II Reviews:
I HATE LED ZEPPELIN 
2009-12-27 - This group is the MOST OVER PLAYED FIGGIN GROUP ON THIS PLANET . I hope they never do a reunion tour!!!! Never suggest this to ME EVER. I HATE THIS FIGGIN GROUP PERIOD.
Whole Lotta Je Ne Sais Quoi 
2009-12-14 - A few weeks back a colleague of mine at work revealed that she had been a Led Zep devotee back in the day. Since I think I could fairly describe this forty-something mom as a somewhat conservative, very religious soccer mom (not that there's anything wrong with that--really), I couldn't help but kid her a bit, "What? You actually listened to those Satanists? I'm shocked, SHOCKED." Her reaction though suggested that she might not even have ever heard those accusations (since qualified and considerably downplayed by the man himself, I understand) that Jimmy Page bought into Aleister Crowley's beliefs (as oppose to just buying his house). Whatever the case, I would imagine that most fundamentalist former Zep fans would be repenting like sixty these days: not my co-worker though. It was what it was apparently, and she had no regrets.
I sometimes have regrets, though, when it comes to the band. I kinda wrote them off back in the day. If there really was a battle of the ex-Yardbird guitar whizzes, I came down squarely in the Jeff Beck camp. (I wasn't figuring Clapton into the equation, since by that time, his own Yardbird stint seemed like ancient history).
Moreover, I felt that Led Zeppelin's first two albums were the kind of post-Cream excess that was not a healthy development. Actually, I still wonder about that, since their particular heaviness, while still skillful and chop-laden, was soon followed by the sludge-and-scream bands that haunt us to this day on "classic rock," reality television and other venues.
These days, I wonder if I would have become a bigger Zep fan if I'd but had a better sound system. I remember finally hearing some of the technical trickery on "Whole Lotta Love" over at a friend's house. "Oh, that's kinda trippy, I guess." I did find Robert Plant's vocals kind of mincing--distinctive certainly, but mincing--which is odd because I became a fan of his solo work in the '80s. Unlike some critics of the era, I didn't have a problem with their exploiting blues readymades (lyrics AND riffs), since I was just getting into the genre myself. Lawsuits notwithstanding, their musical tips of the hat to the old blues masters seems respectful enough even to this day. And certainly as legit as sampling is in this day and age.
Trying to remember if I had an immediate issue with all the Hobbit stuff being thrown in. It was the 60s after all, so what could you expect? But I was moving away from all that stuff even at 17 or so. I think I read THE HOBBIT and that was the last Tolkien for me. Now quoting beat poets or something of that order: THAT would have caught my attention (and spoke to my pretensions). Oh, and I had an issue with drum solos, so "Moby Dick" didn't bowl me over, despite the literary title. But I think the real problem was that I had been hoping less riffing and more "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" trippiness. Yeah, that's probably it: the first two Zep albums inaugurated HEAVY and moved us out from and beyond trippy. Personally, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming.
But that's all water under the dam now. I can listen to this record and hear it as innovative (in many ways), exciting (much of the time) and nearly always sonically interesting. It's more fun than I remembered, and it DOES sound good on a good system.
1969. Led Zeppelin. On a CD. You like? 
2009-11-21 - The CD has the time-honored Atlantic label printed on it and the sound is great. Oh yeah, and it's Zep.
Mystifying Musical Brilliance
2009-10-29 - I've always read and heard that Led Zeppelin was often undersold throughout their 10-11 year reign by music critics. If this is true, it leaves me dumbfounded. From the first riveting note to the last, this album / cd is still as jaw-dropping and ferociouly exquisite as the day it was released. Forget Guns 'n Roses and ANY other band that claims to have picked up where Led Zep left off. My friends, it all begins and ends right here.
Mop my brow, hot mama!
2009-09-15 - I've tried five times to write this review so that it'll be published, and here I'll try again. Apparently Amazon requires 75 words, and it has to be "pertinent" to the item reviewed. All I wanted to say was this, so I'll put it in caps so it'll stand out: THE SWEATIEST ROCK ALBUM EVER. There. See, sometimes one can make an encapsulating statement that most everyone will understand. Sometimes less is more. People know this item and people know what rock music is, and they will get it. On the TV series CHEERS, someone asked a literate professor what the sweatiest movie ever made was. Without hesitation, the guy said, "Cool Hand Luke." See what I mean, Amazoids?
