for those about to rock

the great debate

proposed by jay and jamie here at the office: which of led zeppelin songs is mountain's "mississippi queen" better than?

general consensus from work yesterday:

MQ > '4 sticks', 'communication breakdown'
MQ < 'rock and roll', 'when the levee breaks', 'ten years gone'
MQ = 'whole lotta love'

there was a quibble when it came to 'kashmir'; jay preferred it, while i still had to go with MQ

later, with justin: MQ > all of led zeppelin 1, with the exception of dazed and confused (and, as i think justin would argue, 'how many more times' ... though i still go with MQ in this case)

the rest here is strictly the opinion of 'for those about to ... ',

off of zeppelin 2,

MQ > 'thank you', 'living loving maid', 'moby dick', 'the lemon song', 'what is and what should never be', 'ramble on'

MQ < 'heartbreaker', 'bring it on home'

off of 3

MQ > 'friends', 'since i've been loving you', 'gallows pole', 'that's the way', 'hats off to (roy) harper'

MQ < 'immigrant song', 'out on the tiles', 'celebration day' * 'brown-y-aur stomp', 'tangerine' (but 9 times out of 10, i'd rather listen to MQ in this case, though i'll concede that 'tangerine' is the better song)

off of 4

MQ > 'black dog', 'stairway to heaven', 'battle of evermore', 'going to california'

MQ < 'misty mountain hop'

off of houses (and this is where i start getting a little rusty)

MQ < the whole album, except for 'the crunge', 'the song remains the same', 'the ocean' and 'over the hills' (and it's actually on level ground with these last two)

off of physical

MQ > 'in the light', 'custard pie', 'bron-yr-aur', 'the wanton song', 'the rover', 'boogie with stu'

MQ < 'houses of the holy', 'in my time of dying'

my knowledge is even more limited on the last 3 albums, so i'll just end it here.

i encourage anyone who cares to jump on this pig pile to do so.

* only when it is preceded by 'friends', which makes 'celebration day' seem like a release into the clear from that dark and frightening song. interesting side note on the buzzing noise that connects the tracks: someone (the producer, if i remember correctly, and that would after all make the most sense) inadvertently fucked up a heavy portion of bonzo's drum track from the opening of 'celebration day'. to offset this flaw in the master tape, they added the droning dive bombing plane synth sound to act as a placeholder until the drum track faded in.

posted by jomilkman @ 1:05 PM