Is Zeppelin Psychedelic

[luvlz2]

A thousand trips, listening to Zeppelin ? A slight exaggeration maybe.

After so many hits I'm sure he lost count.

[Heat Lightnin']

I am surprised you would have to ask!

I would consider Led Zeppelin one of the most psychedelic bands ever, right up there with Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix.

(By psychedelic, I don't mean typical of the 60's 'psychedelic' style. I mean, Straight- on Awesome when you're ON psychedelics.)

When I was a teenager they were the band of choice to listen to while doing acid or mescaline, among me and my friends.

The wild solos and sound effects, the wild pounding rhythms, the ecstatic howling of Robert Plant, the crazy spiraling, bouncy riffs of Jimmy Page...

I am disappointed the band has never admitted how psychedelia influenced their music. It really made their music larger than life, and they could take you

for quite a ride. Their influence and vision is what inspires me to be a musician even today!

 

Yes, psychedelics are not a great idea long-term. Yet they can inspire you, make you one with the Universe, and put your mind in harmony.

There have been studies done that prove they can have positive effects. I am disappointed that they have fallen out of favor these days because they made

me feel connected to the world and the people around me, far from the selfish, addictive drugs like coke or heroin.

[Heat Lightnin']

Not ALL of their music is straight-up psychedelic, but most of it is influenced by that experience. In Through the Out Door is not very trippy except for the intro,

nor are the blues-based tunes. However, many of their songs will bend your mind!

I think the whole Led Zeppelin III is EXTREMELY trippy. Surely inspired by their stay at Bron-Yr-Aur.

Celebration Day, Out On the Tiles, Immigrant Song, and Hats Off to Roy Harper in particular.  'Hats Off' starts out with a backwards looping echo that makes you feel like you're being turned inside out. 

And those harmonics on the guitar put you right again!

Other songs that stand out to me as psychedelic are Trampled Underfoot, No Quarter, When The Levee Breaks, The Song Remains The Same, the live version of Dazed and Confused and

Whole Lotta Love, Achilles Last Stand, For Your Life,  the Wanton Song, Kashmir, and Going to California. Though I'm sure that trippiness is in the ears of the Beholder.

I'll always be grateful for the mental voyages that Led Zeppelin took us on. However, like any great exploration, the adventure must eventually come to an end.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Heat Lightnin'

[California Evermore]

I think so, for sure.  Dazed and Confused, Going to California, No Quarter, The Battle of Evermore, How Many More Times, Your Time is Gonna Come--I could probably keep going. 

[Heat Lightnin']

I wanted to point out that when we listened to Led Zeppelin on the original vinyl, it sounded much warmer and richer, and just had a huge sound overall.

The digital versions sound compressed and flat by comparison. Very two-dimensional. So if you're from a younger generation who only has access to digital,

or even worse, if you're satisfied to listen to them as an mp3 on your PHONE, you have no idea what you've missed out on!

 

 

[TheGreatOne]

Psychedelic Jazz time baby !

 

 

[pagefan]

The definition of psychedelic music is that 'it recreates the effects of hallucinogenic drugs' and 'Psychedelic bands often drew on non-Western sources such as the ragas, drones and sitars of Indian music and they used electric instruments and electronic effects–notably the lead electric guitar played with heavy distortion'.

So, despite not really representing the 60's 'psychedelic movement', led zeppelin music ticks most of the boxes. Just listen to 'whole lotta love', 'dazed and confused' or 'how many more times', or 'white summer/black mountainside'. That's almost as psychedelic as music gets before turning ridiculous in my book. Personally, I feel 'what is and what should never be' is more psychedelic than any beatles' song I've heard (especially the RAH performance). In fact, I dare say zeppelin is second only to pink floyd in the genre. I'm not sure why people don't think so, I don't understand the need to brand 'psychedelic' with 60's subculture.

Edited December 22, 2016 by pagefan

[JTM]

The question should have been "Are Zeppelin Psychedelic"  in fact it should be "Were Zeppelin Psychedelic".  "Is Zeppelin Psychedelic" is grammatically incorrect. 

[craigled]

To a degree, Yes. Because i think Led Zepp music can be described in many ways. Dance tune, Relaxing, happy, emotional etc,etc. That is what have made them my favourite.

[Balthazor]

I would say yes, they were. When you consider that the Yardbirds were one of the quintessential 60's psychedelic bands, and when Page took over he moved their performances into an even more experimental direction than Beck had, then Zeppelin was launched playing in much the same style as the Page-era Yardbirds, it would be hard to say that they weren't a psychedelic band. I think the difference is that by the time Zeppelin came around, people had started to refer to their style of psychedelia (as well as that of Cream, Hendrix, etc.) by terms like acid rock or heavy rock more than psychedelic rock. But if Zeppelin's albums had started coming out in the mid 60's they most certainly would have been regarded as psychedelic rock.

[That lil boi]

On 6/27/2013 at 9:23 AM, McSeven said:

I was just surfing around the net. Do you think that Zeppelin is Psychedelic and if so what songs would they be. One person said that only Led Zep 1 was a Psychedelic album

 

What do you think? For me. I say songs like DC/HMMT/YTIGC.

 

To me anything that is Psychedelic has to have this cosmic cloud feeling. It has to be long and jam orientated and at least 6 to 8 minutes long. Long guitar solos and various sounds. Almost like taking the guitar and bass and making them sound like organs.

I bet money the song. This Song Stays The Same is for acid from personal experience. and based on the lyrics of the song

[Tremelo]

I would say Friends/Celebration day are psychedelic. I don't think anything on the first album fits that the description. The themes are pretty straight forward.  

Edited July 5, 2017 by Tremelo

[Sathington Willoughby]

On 8/25/2016 at 9:22 PM, Heat Lightnin' said:

I would consider Led Zeppelin one of the most psychedelic bands ever, right up there with Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix.

 

On 12/22/2016 at 11:41 AM, pagefan said:

Personally, I feel 'what is and what should never be' is more psychedelic than any beatles' song I've heard 

 

[EaglesOfOneNest]

I believe they defy categorization

[TheStairwayRemainsTheSame]

42 minutes ago, EaglesOfOneNest said:

I believe they defy categorization

The legacy that knows no bounds.

[Mercurious]

Led Zep I meets just about every definition of psychedelic, and let's not forget how much work Jones and Page did in the different psych genres 1966-69, from Sunshine Superman to "Glimpses" to Her Satanic Majesties Request. Of course, the Yardbirds put the rock in psychedelic rock, and half of Led Zep I is atomic Yardbirds material (Dazed, HMMT, BMS, plus You Shook Me = New York City Blues crystallized). Of the non-Yardbirds stuff, "Your Time is Gonna Come" and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" have a haunting psych vibe, and Babe had been covered by Quicksilver Messenger Service prior to Zep doing it, so that was becoming kind of a staple on the San Fran psych scene. 

There were psychedelic moments throughout, from "What is and What Should Never Be" to the breaks in In the Evening and Carouselambra, and then the outright masterpieces -- Dazed, Friends, Levee, No Quarter and Kashmir.  Jones and Page discuss "The Pychedelic Legacy" of Led Zep in Jim Derogatis' book Turn On Your Mind: Four decades of great psychedelic rock (pp 388-390). 

"The goal was synaesthesia -- creating pictures with sound." -- Jimmy Page 

[The Pagemeister]

Dazed & Confused

No Quarter

In The Light

= psychedelic

[Zep Hed]

I think Zeppelin live through 75 the theme was psychedelia - born from the Yardbirds - with Dazed being the showpiece. Come 77 I think the band recognized a shift in audience tastes and evolved to a more progressive theme. Thus Dazed was dropped and No Quarter was further developed as the centerpiece of the show. More extensive use of keyboards showed an effort to give the live presentation more of a progressive feel.

[Brigante]

There's an old website (Thieving Magpies) that basically bashes and dismisses Zeppelin as blues thieves, but has this to say about Jimmy:
‘Jimmy Page is unacknowledged as one of the, if not the, greatest psychedelic guitar players ever. Page’s criminally underrated work with the Yardbirds and on countless sessions (take note of his hypnotic work with Donovan in particular) illustrate that he set the standard for lysergic discord par excellence.’