My fav Zeppelin album…very little plagiarism.
Achilles Last Stand is their masterpiece.
Posted on 03/31/2025 6:05:33 PM PDT by DoodleBob
…They pushed forward, writing and recording an emotion-packed seventh album that returned the group to its hard-blues roots. This focus on urgency ran counter to the sense of experimentalism that drove their more recent albums, but there didn't seem to be any other way.
…
"Nobody else really came up with song ideas," the guitarist said in Light & Shade: Conversations With Jimmy Page. "It was really up to me to come up with all the riffs, which is probably why [the songs were] guitar-heavy. But I don't blame anybody. We were all kind of down."
…
The results arrived like an uppercut meant to knock back personal issues that surrounded the band, but also time and timelines. Led Zeppelin never again sounded this fiercely focused. Or this fierce, period.
"Presence was pure anxiety and emotion," Page told Rolling Stone in 2006. "We didn't know if we'd ever be able to play in the same way again. It might have been a very dramatic change, if the worst had happened to Robert. Presence is our best in terms of uninterrupted emotion."
Along the way, however, John Paul Jones receded into the musical background. He was moving toward a breakthrough on the Yamaha GX-1 synth, something that would define the next Zeppelin album, 1979's In Through the Out Door. But in the meantime, his quieter demeanor served to hardened the album's edges.
The three-times platinum Presence shipped gold in the U.K., and topped the U.S. chart a week later. But it seemed to have become too personal a project, and only two songs – "Achilles Last Stand" and "Nobody's Fault but Mine" – were ever performed onstage before Led Zeppelin's 1980 split.
(Excerpt) Read more at ultimateclassicrock.com ...
My fav Zeppelin album…very little plagiarism.
Achilles Last Stand is their masterpiece.
Nobody’s Fault But Mine, Blind Willie Johnson, 1927: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_o4omd8T5c
Welp…it wuz too good to be true.
Achilles is a masterpiece still.
I had no idea Plant and Page had been cranking out all these albums in the 80’s. 90’s and aughts.
I must have played Houses of the Holy over 1K times.
The last Zep album I recall getting would probably be
Physical Graffiti, from 1975. My favorite on that one being Kashmir. That one where Jimmy plays the Mellotron, that sounds like a sitar or a cello, as needed.
There was an article written about Robert Plant, saying he stayed up all night and part of the next day thinking of the lyrics in Kashmir, until the words balanced just right.
Don’t tell Robert Plant, but all I know, is I don’t recall a single word of the lyrics on that song at all. I was listening for the total musical sound , the force of a strident, unstoppable dirge. I was not listening for poetry.
Huge fan of the mighty Led Zeppelin and hands down this is the band;s most underrated album. From the incredible Achilles Last Stand until Tea for One, it is absolutely an amazing LP.
The incredible Achilles Last Stand- live!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9K-Zv_pTfk
“I had no idea Plant and Page had been cranking out all these albums in the 80’s. 90’s and aughts.”
I saw Page and Plant on the ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’ tour in the late 90s, good album btw. Plant was still in his rock god mode, tanned, shirt unbuttoned to navel, etc. A lady up front held up a sign that said ‘Jimmy Page is the sexiest man on earth’. Plant read the sign out lout to the crowd, then said, deadpan, ‘that is a rather bold statement madam’, but then he laughed and carried on.
Lol! Well, at least Rob has a sense of humor.
His quick wit and his speaking voice has always reminded me of Tom (It’s NOT Unusual!) Jones.
This must have been after Robert's car accident - 1975, IIRC
A fact: Led Zeppelin was Jimmy Page. Everyone contributed but it was Page that was behind everything.
I listened to Zeppelin - even on 8 tracks. But since I play guitar now, and went back to learn their music, I have a new appreciation I didn’t have as a teen. It’s an incredibly complete “band” with three musicians. Their live performances show how good they were with improvisation. Jimmy played three different guitars on some recordings, but was able to get that feel by himself during “live” shows.
And I thought I new a lot, but then I bought Jimmy’s book last year... “Jimmy Page” and realized I didn’t know that much. I have read it front to back a few times and referred back to it often. I recommend that.
Ann Wilson is another guitarist from that era who knocks it out of the park. I found her again. She’s one of the best rhythm guitarist easily. Go watch her live performances of Crazy On You. That is some serious skill right there. She can destroy guitar strings pretty quickly. .
Physical graffiti is probably one of the greatest double albums ever released
Presence has some magnificent tracks on it as well, Achilles last stand and tea for one being two of them.
I learned every single note Jimmy page ever played. We used to do a Led Zeppelin set. He always had better hair than me though lol…
And he also had that wasted, starving, heroin, junkie, look… but that skinny little bastard could play, good Lord, could he play…
He used the drop-D tuning for Kashmir on the guitar… it is just relentless and crushing, and completely magnificent.
Joe Bonamassa does a magnificent rendition of “Tea For One”.
>A fact: Led Zeppelin was Jimmy Page. Everyone contributed but it was Page that was behind everything.
Absolutely
If Zeppelin was Page, then they should have been able to continue following Bonham’s untimely passing.
Achilles Last Stand is easily the best song on that album, and one of their greatest. Only criticism is that it is slightly repetitive given its length. I think they needed another musical idea in there if they wanted to take it up to the ten minute mark.
Ha! Good one. That’s sort of LZ temporarily possessed by Kansas. Or...what happens when you tell JPJ to indulge himself. Interesting but never really sounded like Zep to me.
Jimmy was so out of it by then it wasn’t going to happen anyway.
It’s not that big of a deal. I was just making a statement about their music.
As far as the band’s musicality, I don’t think that JPJ’s contributions should be minimized. But yes, Page was the riff-maker in that band.
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