Led Zeppelin
II

THE REVIEW

It is with "II" that the Led went down in history as "the fathers of hard rock".

The story of how this album was received by critics would deserve a book - boring but still a book.
In today's sad mediocrity, the current myth of the Led Zeppelin is understandable, a band that, whether they liked it or not, marked a period. But in 69 this myth did not exist, and if it did, it was certainly not as gigantic as today, so gigantic as to obscure reason. Therefore, as soon as "II" came out, the critics, not intimidated by the band's name at all, harshly criticized it. Two names above all: Jon Landau and Lester Bangs.

Landau was refined: "The sound of the Led is noisy, violent and often unhealthy. Their popularity forces us into a revival of the popularity-quality debate. When the most elegant bands were also the most successful (like the Cream, for example), the distinction didn't exist. But today the Zep force us to distinguish between mass taste and elitist taste". In simple words, the Led were not the Cream. But it's also true that the Cream didn't have Plant - whose voice was the origin of the immense commercial success of the Led. If the Cream had had him, they would have become billionaires.

Lester, on the other hand, did not lack elegance. Nor verbosity. Three words, like the famous film review by accountant Ugo: "A noisy farce". Lester was wrong. "II" isn't very noisy; just take "Promises" by the Cranberries to have more decibels than the songs here. "II" isn't even farcical; it's just mediocre: a commercial rewriting of "I". A "playful" work, written during the "I" tour, hence without the care, commitment, and gestation of the first album - which was also far from being a masterpiece.

Only the (very mediocre) acoustic tracks are listenable: "Thank You" (dedicated by Plant to his wife with a really sappy text to be the band's hardest album); and "Ramble On" (further ruined by the terrible chorus with Plant's rock scream that destroys the melodic sweetness of the verses).

Enjoyable, though too long, "Moby Dick", the most famous drum solo in rock history. But again, let's try not to lose touch with reality. "BonHam(mer)" (the good hammer) was good only at hammering the drums - with many mistakes and redundancies. Mediocre on the cymbals and ridiculous on the hi-hat, he fundamentally lacked the class and intelligence of masters like Buddy Rich, Copeland, or Pick Whiters, who were capable of making the drums sing. However, better than nothing...

We save the overrated 50-second solo of "Heartbreaker" (overdubbed by Page during editing). The rest are hammer blows, distortions, accelerations, violations of the blues (with accompanying violations of drums and guitar), splashes of organ to (pretend to) psych up the blues, sweat, wild instincts. Happy for you.

Fortunately, there is a song on which the four worked seriously: "Whole Lotta Love", the most famous three-note riff in rock history. A masterpiece - even if weighed down by a useless and fanatical feedback-lysergic interlude - with Plant's voice worth as much as the riff, especially in the splendid final scream. Even those who love melodic music can appreciate rock when it’s done right.

"II", for mediocre groups, became the album to rewrite, and, in hindsight, it can be seen as the seed that generated the degeneration of metal, true apotheosis of mediocrity. More than a noisy farce, seminal trash.

20 million copies sold so far. A greedy group would have rewritten it ad nauseam. The Led, instead, in the midst of celebrations by crazy fans and the vitriolic criticism of purists, went to hide in a hermitage without electricity, to write - courageously, it must be admitted - a completely different, more thoughtful and less clownish, page of their history. A page with which they wanted to demonstrate - courageously, it must be admitted - that they were not pigeonholeable.