Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.
There are so many things to respect about Led Zeppelin’s artistry and musicianship. But the one thing that was always the most appealing aspect to me is Jimmy Page’s seemingly infinite well of guitar lines. This is the strength of the album Physical Graffiti which, in my opinion, contains the greatest collection of guitar riffs in one album, including quite a few on “The Rover” alone.
“The Rover” is one of Zeppelin’s most underrated songs. It’s never mentioned in the same breath as “Kashmir”, “Immigrant Song” or “Black Dog”, but it’s not far behind that upper echelon of the Zeppelin catalog. There are four memorable riffs that define “The Rover”: the intro, the chorus, the bridge and the epilogue, making it one of Page’s single greatest masterpieces. Bonzo’s percussion attack was nothing to sneeze at either, not to mention a sound that seemed to inform and inspire the hard rock Aussie outfit AC/DC.
“And our time is flying, see the candle burning low. Is the new world rising, from the shambles of the old.”