Getting into the Beatles...

The quality of animation of those cartoons made Hanna-Barbera look like the creators of Fantasia.

 

And the voices were impersonated (though the music was real). The guy who did the voice of John also did Boris Badenov on "Rocky and Bullwinkle."

 

Give me Hanna-Barbera over Fantasia eight days a week. (See what I did there? )

 

There's a lot of shit going on in this thread. I love the Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin. The Stones most of all, but the others are in the pantheon.

A few things ...

-- Led Zeppelin did not write Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. Pretty sure Joan Baez did. However, Zep's live version of Babe I'm Gonna Leave You from Danish TV is one of the best live recordings there is ...

-- I take issue with the notion that Led Zeppelin "fell off" late in their run. I think its better to say that they were uneven throughout their run. Led Zeppelin III isn't that great, Presence flat-out sucks, and even Physical Graffiti -- which at its peak is amazing -- is mediocre with its filler, but I think In Through The Out Door is one of their better ones. It gets a bad wrap from Zep fans who want to hear Whole Lotta Love (their worst popular song by far) over and over again because there's synth on it.

Carouselambra is one of my favorite album tracks by an "elite" group. I'm Gonna Crawl is really choice too. There's not a bad/mediocre track on that album, something that probably is hard to say even for their beloved iconic albums -- Four Sticks from IV is a shitty song, for example.

-- I'm as big a Rolling Stones' fan as there is, but I think even Stones fans are good at admitting that their decline began before Some Girls.

Because Keith was ass-up in drugs, etc., during/after Exile, the "Exile" sound was abandoned and Mick asserted himself more as the creative force. Nothing wrong with that, he had to, but because he has such disparate musical tastes, the band meandered. Add in that Mick Taylor and Ron Wood were totally different stylistically guitar-wise, and the Stones from that period sound unfocused. (And Keith should have done a better job to get on with Taylor, by far the best guitar player the Stones have had.)

Goats Head Soup -- which I like a lot, is admittedly uneven and nothing close to the brilliance of Exile On Main Street. It's Only Rock 'n Roll and Black And Blue have their moments, but aren't by any means classic must-have albums.

Part of the reason Some Girls is hailed as it is its because it was a comeback album and it is sort of overrated as a result. Tattoo You, an album of 70s outtakes, was their last creative gasp.

-- I think the Beatles get overlooked for individual (as opposed to collective) musicianship, especially Paul McCartney. He is very underrated as a bass player. Some of his Beatles and solo bass lines are pretty fucking good.

 

OK, end the Internet. That's the dumbest thing that's ever been said. Shut it down!

 

Weak tracks on III: Immigrant Song (second to Whole Lotta Love in the overrated "popular" Zep song canon), Friends, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp and Hats Off To (Roy) Harper. That's 40 percent of the album. I could even include That's The Way, but its merely average, not bad.

And of the other six tracks, none of them touch the peaks of I, II, IV, Houses Of The Holy, Physical Graffiti or In Through The Out Door.

Though I do love Celebration Day and Out On The Tiles for pure kickassery.

 

Accounting for Immigrant Song being the worst song they ever did, III is still my favorite album. No love for Tangerine? It's certainly different from anything else they did, and it's right in my wheelhouse. Physical Graffiti is right up there, though, and In Through the Out Door is awesome as well.

 

SIBLY is on Zeppelin III, and that is one of the most amazing songs by any artist ever. That song on How the West Was Won is orgasmic.

 

Not saying LZ III is better than IV, but I like it better, because they took more chances on that record than maybe any other. I love Gallows Pole, and, as you say, Since I've Been Loving You is stupendous.

Of course, in my opinion, LZ never made a better album than their first one. Kicks ass from start to finish and all points in between.

 

I've got nothing against Tangerine, Gallows Pole, Celebration Day or Out On The Tiles.

Since I've Been Loving You? I think they did better slow blues. Plant's vocals in that song grate on me. Not a bad song by any stretch, just not one of my Zeppelin faves.

I'm Gonna Crawl is better slow blues. You could make a case for Tea For One, one of the few listenable tracks on Presence, also being better.

 

Now that it's been out a couple years, one thing that can definitely be said about the Beatles' box set remasters is that probably the most noticeable improvement was in instrumental separation, with Paul's bass simply leaping out of most of the songs.

In the earlier muddier mixes, a lot of time the bass just churned along in the middle of a dense "curtain" (if not "wall") of sound, but in the remix versions of many songs, the bass just pops out.

I've heard some Macca bashers saying this was all a scheme on his part to boost his own standing as the main mover in the band's musical legacy, but the remixes help everyone -- John's rhythm guitar also comes into much sharper focus on many songs, as well as George's fills.

And, of course, the background/harmony vocals, an area in which the Beatles had absolutely no peer except possibly the Beach Boys, are considerably cleaned up too.

 

Joe Bonamassa does a better Tea for One than Zeppelin.