LED ZEPPELIN : LED ZEPPELIN II

 

  1. Whole Lotta Love
  2. What Is and What Should Never Be
  3. The 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
    Bonus Tracks :
  10. Whole Lotta Love
  11. What Is and What Should Never Be
  12. Thank You
  13. Heartbreaker
  14. Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)
  15. Ramble On
  16. Moby Dick
  17. La La

Label : Atlantic

Release Date : October 22nd, 1969 / June 2nd, 2014 (Deluxe Edition)

Length : 74:08

Review (AllMusic) : Recorded quickly during Led Zeppelin's first American tours, Led Zeppelin II provided the blueprint for all the heavy metal bands that followed it. Since the group could only enter the studio for brief amounts of time, most of the songs that compose II are reworked blues and rock & roll standards that the band was performing on-stage at the time. Not only did the short amount of time result in a lack of original material, it made the sound more direct. Jimmy Page still provided layers of guitar overdubs, but the overall sound of the album is heavy and hard, brutal and direct. "Whole Lotta Love," "The Lemon Song," and "Bring It on Home" are all based on classic blues songs - only, the riffs are simpler and louder and each song has an extended section for instrumental solos. Of the remaining six songs, two sport light acoustic touches ("Thank You," "Ramble On"), but the other four are straight-ahead heavy rock that follows the formula of the revamped blues songs. While Led Zeppelin II doesn't have the eclecticism of the group's debut, it's arguably more influential. After all, nearly every one of the hundreds of Zeppelin imitators used this record, with its lack of dynamics and its pummeling riffs, as a blueprint.

Deluxe Edition Review (American Songwriter) : The supplementary music tacked onto Zepp ll collects some raw backing tracks, rough mixes and out takes, generally similar to what ended up on the final version. Still, any peek we can get into the making of this enduring classic is a treat and even if the one unreleased rehearsal track "La La" is more a studio jam than an actual song, there's a youthful energy and cohesiveness to the performance that shows how tough and resilient these guys were, even in the sometimes sterile environs of the studio.