Talk:Physical Graffiti

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Anyone who has actually listened to this band would not describe them as 'hard rock'

you are demonstrably incorrect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 16:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

A google search comes up with 3 results for Bron Y' Raur and 2970 for Bron-Yr-Aur. In All Music Guide the song is spelled as Bron-Yr-Aur. I also believe that I saw the name of the building after which the song was named spelled like this. D.D. 23:50 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

I think that's right. It's often mispelled, but I think "Bron-Yr-Aur" is correct. Tokerboy
Yep definately "Bron-Yr-Aur", it was named after jimmy Pages' cottage in wales I believe (jeez, how do I know this stuff???) quercus robur 00:04 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry but you can't get away such blatant POV as and an ominous harbinger of the barrel-scraping yet to come or ominous dirge "Kashmir". I'm changing it.--Alun 10:46, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think I agree with you in the first case (which is POV, though the sentence left behind now makes little sense) but not the second case, which is descriptive writing and therefore not a bad thing. See if you are OK with the next edit. Jgm 17:05, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The wiktionary definitions are:
dirge: a mournful poem or piece of music composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person
ominous: 1.Harmful, having an injurious effect. 2.Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant; portentous; – formerly used both in a favorable and unfavorable sense; now chiefly in the latter; foreboding or foreshowing evil; inauspicious; as, an ominous dread.
Is Kashmir composed for a dead person? Does the song pertain to omens? I'm not sure about either of these points. If I were asked I would say neither word is relevant, but I could be wrong. Dirge is often used as a pejorative term in my experience. Likewise ominous is usually used to forshadow evil, as the definition says. I think both of these words could be interpreted as disparaging opinions about the music. Fine for a review, but not NPOV. Of course I may be showing POV myself in which case I'm wrong. What do you think?--Alun 14:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I had already taken out "dirge" and left in "ominous"; see what you think. I'm not too worried about this anyway, just having fun polishing a bit. Jgm 00:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough mate. I'm more concerned that the current wording (ominous) sounds too much like a negative opinion. I'll have a little think about it and see if I can come up with something different which we can agree on.--Alun 08:25, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I know I'm about two years late to this discussion, but I just have to say that "ominous dirge" is a wonderfully evocative description of "Kashmir", and I don't think there's any way at all either word could legitimately be interpreted as expressing "disparaging opinions about the music"—indeed, if we were to argue that such phrasing was in any way POV (and I think doing so would be pretty silly), I think we'd have to argue that it's because the description expresses too positive an opinion about the song, in that it implies praise for the songwriters and the group for achieving the effect with it that they were obviously going for. Binabik80 17:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Anybody know when the individual tracks were recorded? I'm fairly certain that Custard Pie, In My Time Of Dying, Trampled Underfoot, Kashmir, In The Light, Ten Years Gone, Wanton Song and Sick Again were from the 1974 sessions for this album, while the remaining tracks were outtakes from the III, IV and Houses of The Holy sessions. If anyone has more specific info, I think it would be a worthy addition to the article. Alcuin 21:00, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Greatest Zeppelin Album

It may just be the fan in me, but I have to take issue with this:

The album is considered by many fans to be Led Zeppelin`s greatest, showing them at the peak of their musical maturity.

I have never known there to be a majority of Zeppelin aficionados who think that PG is the greatest Zeppelin album. Actually, I don't think there's a clear majority that favors any Zeppelin album over the others: they're all that good. Historically, it's come down to a runoff among I, II and IV, with HoH getting a few maverick votes, and then maybe PG gets some consideration in the debate. I'm not accusing anyone of weaseling here, but since, by way of comparison, there is pretty much no mention of "greatest album" status on the Zoso page, we have to be careful throwing that label around. I love Physical Graffiti, by the way. Just seems like an unlikely candidate is all. --Pastricide 22:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

To a certain extent, I agree with that statement. However, pound for pound there is no doubt this album is the best Led Zeppelin has to offer. It is a double album with no filler and defines the studio peak of the group over a 3 year period. Led Zeppelin IV, as great as it is as a hard rock landmark, does not convey the mastery of the many genre's of music that PG does. Those genre's include: southern blues, hard rock, rockabilly, classical, country, and arabic influences. PG represents another landmark and dimension for Led Zeppelin, with it's mastery of musical range, creativity, and the atmospheric sound of such songs at The Rover or Kashmir. If one is unwilling to use the term "greatest album" for PG, at the very least it should be called another landmark in music history. Consider the age of the band at the time of the release of PG and the fact that this was now their 6th album, to record another landmark was a rare accomplishment. PG marks the first supersonic/atmospheric mainstream recordings that I know of and they are brilliant. Generally speaking, landmark type albums like Boston's Boston, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? (album), or Nevermind by Nirvana are freshman or sophmore efforts. PG has stood the test of time and it is cleary the double album that all double album's should be measured by. It's sales are also remarkable considering the cost of a double album in the mid-1970's.--BigMikeyBoy 22:26, 8 September 2006

The August 1995 Mojo ranked PG above any other Led Zep album, and included two quotes: "If I'm going to blow my trumpet about anything...then it would have to be that album" (Robert Plant) "It really allowed the listener to enter our world" (Jimmy Page).

BTW Bron Yr Aur is indeed correct. It's near Machynlleth, site of the Centre for Alternative Technology. Bron Yr Aur is Welsh for 'The golden breast' (as in, the breast of a hill - steady now!) It's pronounced Bron Ur Ire - that's Welsh for you! Hwyl!

Ewen 20:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

If anyone would like to discuss the merits of Physical Graffiti alongside thier other albums (or for that matter other artists) I would like to add a link to a discussion group as an external link to the Pyhsical Graffiti page... Would there be any objections to my doing this?

User: Ewanmathewson 15:10, Januray 17th (GMT)

[edit] Subjective?

This article is written from the viewpoint of a fan, not subjectivley like an Encyclopedia article should be. Please someone fix this. Not everyone thinks Zeppelin is the greatest, or that this is their best album. Example: "each member of the band is at the top of his form" this is an opinion, prove this is true! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.167.253.131 (talk) 00:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

Agreed, but there's no need to ask people to "please fix this" - feel free to dive right in. Bcarlson33 02:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LZ vs the Rolling Stones & the Who

The article states "most people polled today consider Led Zeppelin a greater rock band than either", then backs this up with a footnote citation. Only problem is that the citation has nothing to do with the assertion, but rather is providing substantiation for the previous sentence, which states that Rolling Stone said in a 1975 article that these were the three bands who could claim the title of world's greatest rock band at the moment.

Even with citation though, the weasel words with which the sentence opens make it extremely suspicious—one would expect it to begin something like, "A poll of X-representative sample conducting by Y in 200Z ...", whereas the actual wording "Most people polled today" implies that many more people are polled far more regularly on the relative merits of the three bands' 1970s outputs than I would expect to be the case, and that these people put Led Zeppelin at the head of the other two far more consistently than I would think. Since it's therefore a weak statement that is completely unsourced in the article, I'm taking it out but encourage anyone with specific poll results to insert those results in its place.

[edit] Was this ever released in CD format?

If so, then where are the Cd track listings? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.219.251.83 (talk) 03:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)