This category is devoted to the discussion of different vinyl pressings of a single title and for offering my opinions and advice on which pressings I feel are worth acquiring and which ones to avoid. See this category in the right hand side bar below for posts on vinyl pressings.

 

Led Zeppelin III and the Search for a Great Pressing

There used to be a wonderful record store in Mill Valley, California called Village Music. It closed a number of years ago as rents in downtown Mill Valley got higher, much to the chagrin of collectors in the area. It was great record store in the old school model of having as many records and as wide a selection as possible. One of the bins near the cash register there was marked “Sometimes a Cover is All You Need.” You can imagine some of the records you might find in there!

I never saw it in that bin but Led Zeppelin III has one of those covers that never fails to disappoint, and luckily the music never does either. The Zacron designed cover and rotating wheel make it an very engaging album, even if it never makes it to the turntable (which it has for me quite a bit lately). And I love the lettering Zacron designed for the front cover! Fantastic!

For some reason it took me years, no, decades to pick up a copy of this record and I’m not really sure why. Perhaps I was long ago influenced by the reputation this album got when it came out and failed to impress a lot of fans of Led Zeppelin’s first 2 records. Perhaps early impressions of hearing the album were not strong enough to overshadow the more immediate appeal and intensity of it’s predecessor Led Zeppelin II which I’ve had a copy of since I was a teenager. Whatever the case, I decided about a year ago to seek out a good pressing of the album and it has taken me on a journey that has given me a great appreciation for the record and an nagging desire to find a copy that I really feel does the music justice.

Above you’ll see the pressings I currently own, but the first one I bought was a US first pressing that I’ve long since sold (at a loss I might add). I was so disappointed with that pressing that I knew I had to keep searching for something better. Since I don’t have the record to compare now, I’ll have to write about it from memory. I recall that it just seemed to lack life. It was flat and not engaging to listen to. Maybe there were just too many records pressed from the stamp and mine was done later when the stamp was worn and tired. Maybe it just wasn’t a great pressing of the album to begin with. It’s hard to say. But if this was the only pressing of the record I’d ever heard, I probably would never have developed any affection for the album. Luckily my search did not end there!

Driven by the disappointment in my US first pressing of Zep III, I went on EBay looking for a UK first press, also affectionately referred to as a UK Plum in reference to the plum color of the label used for all of the 1970 UK pressings of this album. You can see the plum label above. What you won’t see in the photo is the etching in the deadwax that says “Do what thou wilt” on side A and “So mote it be” on side B. These are two of the identifiers of this pressing, although you’ll find them on other pressings as well including the US first press. These identifiers are often used in descriptions of this record folks are selling to reassure perspective buyers that this is the pressing they want.

Anyway, I found such a pressing on auction on EBay and proceeded to bid on it. I won the bid and received the copy. It was (and is as I still have it) a complete mess. The Jacket has been damaged by water and is pretty warped. The record must have been owned by one of these jokers who puts a penny on top of his cartridge to increase the tracking force. The song “Friends” has some of the worst groove damage I’ve ever heard on a record and there is a ton of surface noise. I started the process of returning it and nearly did, but as I played it a bit more I realized something about the record. If I looked past the surface noise and avoided the passages that were wrecked, it actually sounded really good. It sounded especially good when I compared it to the US first press, even though that record was in NM condition. I ended up keeping the UK Plum and selling the US first and decided that if I couldn’t find a better version I would eventually just upgrade to a plum in better condition.

If only the prices weren’t so bloody high for the UK Plums! At this point I had already spent about $100 on this album between the 2 first pressings and I didn’t want to spend another $100 or more to get a good copy of a UK plum. I decided to look at German first pressings and found a decent copy for under $20 and bought it. It sounded better than the US first press, but I wasn’t sure it really reached the level that the UK did. I decided to leave Zep III alone for a while and revisit the album later when my mind and my senses were a bit fresher.

In the meantime, I had been reading a lot of mixed things about the latest, remastered version of Zep III released in 2014 along with new remastered versions of most of their other albums. I thought if I could find great copy at a relatively cheap price it was worth it to buy one and see how it stacked up against the other versions I’d heard. I also figured this would give me some general idea about how the 2014 release of the other Zep albums sounded and whether I might consider buying others. I found a used NM/NM copy on Discogs for $16 and bought it. Now I had a 4th version to compare and decided it was time to do a proper vinyl shootout of the 3 copies I had in my possession. I enlisted the help of my wife who has no interest collecting records but does appreciate a record that sounds good.  She also has a great ear for natural sounding presentation of instruments. I figured that if I hadn’t given myself enough time to revist this album with a clear head, given all of the irritation it had caused me thus far, she would help me keep things in perspective.

My go to song on this album is “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” The whole album is great but even if it weren’t, this song is one of those songs that would make it worth owning the album for just the one track. This song blows me away every time I hear it.  I wanted to discern which of these records blew me away the most. I decided to start with the German pressing.

Well, it didn’t, I now realized, blow me away. There just isn’t an immediacy to my copy of this pressing. All of the instruments just seemed muddled. I knew I had cleaned it well so I doubted it was a cleaning issue. The record just lacked the level of clarity necessary to give enough experssion to the instruments to make it engaging. I was disappointed and decided to move on to the 2014 reissue.

Now I was aware that this new version was digitally remastered which is not necessarily a deal braker for me as it is with many other collectors, but I have to admit I approached this record with some skepticism. Playing the record I could understand the mixed reviews of these recent reissues. This Zep III has a lot of polish and there is some added detail to this remaster that I like, but overall it only confirms my feelings more generally regarding digital remasters- they just sound digital, especially at high volume.

There is lack of naturalness to the sound of the instruments on this version. While listening to the acoustic guitars, for example, there’s a metallic quality that almost sounds as if the guitar is made of metal and not wood. The drums hit nicely, but they pop more than they thump.  There is a nice clarity to the vocals on this version that I like, but they sound a bit thin and certainly don’t save it overall from falling short of what in my opinion constitutes a great listening experience. I really wanted to love this version but I have to say I don’t and I can’t recommend it.

Speaking of great listening experiences, my UK Plum is certainly not one, in a certain sense. The conditon of my copy runs interference on so many tracks it definitely takes away from the music. But as I’m sure you have already figured out, this one is by far my favorite despite all of it’s defects. The drums and bass have this big, round and, at the risk of sounding cliche’, warm sound. On “Hats Off To Roy (Harper)” the drums have such a wonderful “thump” and the guitar so obviously sounds like a guitar and not some digital version of a guitar. On “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp” Robert Plant’s vocals have great presence and sweetness. This version just sounds right to me.

So there you have it.  If you’re looking for a good copy of this album, as much as it is annoying to pay the kinds of prices that UK Plum first presses fetch and then pay another 20 bucks to have one shipped from England, I can promise you this is a safe bet. I can’t recommend a German first press, but it’s better than the 2014 remaster.  I would suggest avoiding that version.

COMING SOON!  I’LL BE DOING A FOLLOW UP ON THIS ZEP III VINYL SHOOTOUT WITH A FORTHCOMING CANADIAN RED LABEL.  STAY TUNED!