If you can listen to this and keep your pants on, I don’t even want to know what’s wrong with you.

For a song that appears to be dominated by the sexual histrionics of Robert Plant and the equally filthy guitar pump-thrusts of Page, this track is absolutely owned by John Paul Jones. While Page and Plant are flailing about, making a graphic, overblown spectacle of their cock-rock prowess, JPJ is leaning against a wall, smoking, probably eating a sandwich, while pumping away at you so hard that you can feel it in the back of your throat. He hits you sideways, flips you over, jams it in again, swirls it around like he’s mixing a goddamn martini; he intersects with you at irrational angles, then smacks you with it unexpectedly, leaving you there on the floor. He flashes that jagged, mangled British smile then moves on to the next one, while the rest of the band wonders why no one is fussing about them.

The opening sound of Page’s guitar screams that it wants to fuck you, with that brackish, distorted sludge that sounds like he’s submerged in the bilge of a sinking freighter – it’s truly nasty, a coital haze, like a fog of sweat and fluids. But it’s also too obvious, like the douchebag at the bar with the best lines; he’s good, a pro maybe, but that quiet one over there, the one with a ridge down the front of one jean leg almost to his knee – he’s the one that will leave you spent, ruined and gasping for air. I can’t even listen to this song anymore without focusing on the bass. (Thanks, B.)

Today’s Vinyl: Led Zeppelin

Back when I was in middle school in southern California, the lost, lamented KMET would play “Led Zeppelin A-Z” once a year, which is exactly what it sounds like – all the band’s songs played in alphabetical order. One summer I sat down with a cassette deck and recorded the whole thing in preparation for an arduous family road trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains, where I was to be unceremoniously dumped at a Christian summer camp and left to fend off reprobates with lighters and bug spray and girls hitting early puberty. I left there substantially better educated about the female anatomy than the word of God.

Somewhere around Fresno, though, between the Mervyn’s and the motel, it hit me: Led Zeppelin is the greatest rock band, ever. Years later, when people would ask the “Beatles or the Stones?” question, I would inevitably reply, confused, “Led Zeppelin or The Who?” I always wanted my rock big, mean, loud and bombastic. If the Beatles were a delicately-crafted confection and the Stones were a rich, saucy bit of trash, Led Zeppelin was the bloody, three-pound steak staring you down and daring you to eat it. The Beatles kissed you; the Stones licked you; Zeppelin fucked you silly and stole your goddamn chickens. This is what heavy is.

It doesn’t get much heavier than Physical Graffiti in Led Zeppelin’s discography. The first two records may have been dirtier, but they’re too deeply rooted in the blues (and Zeppelin’s dick-swinging interpretation thereof) to be considered truly heavy. Physical Graffiti is unabashedly massive, with three tracks clocking in at over eight minutes, and the eleven-minute In My Time of Dying closing out side 1, which sports only three songs! The motherlode of heavy rock is here - you’ve got the blueprint for every cock-rock song thereafter (Custard Pie); Eastern influences and clashing time signatures (Kashmir); weird spirituality (In the Light); and, in the last three minutes of In My Time of Dying, a template for nearly every guitar lick Jack White has ever played.

The jacket for the original vinyl is a stunning piece of design (the album was delayed due to the difficulty of production) with a die-cut exterior sleeve, two internal sleeves and a third printed foldover sleeve, all of which show different images through the die-cut windows of a New York City tenement. It’s a thick, heavy package for what may be the heaviest double album of all time.

Today’s Vinyl: Robert Plant

Before we dive into the vintage Zeppelin archives, it’s worth visiting some of the cheesier ephemera that I collected during my decades-long obsession with everything Zep. In this case, that obsession encompassed the solo career of vocalist Robert Plant and the odd supergroup he assembled after Zeppelin’s demise, which included Phil Collins on drums. This Japanese 7-inch was probably picked up at a Dallas record convention and features two tracks from his second solo record, The Principle of Moments, which cracked the Top 40 with the single Big Log (don’t worry, I’ve got that on Japanese vinyl as well for a future post).

The A-side here is In the Mood, a track which – much like Big Log – is so mellow and atmospheric that you almost wonder if Plant was entering an ambient phase. Whether this sound was a reaction to years of testosterone-charged cock-rock or just an aging screamer trying to figure out how to fit into the sounds and styles of the eighties is up for debate. What is undebatable is that fabulous hair - by trimming back the mythic locks of the Zeppelin of yore and splashing purple and light blue swaths of color on the album art, Plant took on the eighties with as much enthusiasm as he recently embraced the alt-country movement with Allison Krauss. While this stuff doesn’t hold up anywhere near as well as anything Zeppelin released, you’ve got to give Plant some credit for being adaptable….