The Led Zeppelin Top 50 Countdown (#10-07) & This Week's Statistics

Hello, my friends! We have finally reached the top 10 in our Led Zeppelin Top 50 Countdown. How time flies. Let's see which songs are we talking about...

We will begin our countdown with two songs from the band's 1969 self-titled debut album. At #10 we find Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. It's a folk song written by Anne Bredon (then known as Anne Johannsen) in the late 1950s. Page picked up this tune from the 1962 Joan Baez record, Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1. Their cover is the kind of heavy jam on a familiar song that bands like Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge were doing – but few were drawing on American folk music, and no one was jamming as precisely and viscerally.

A sneakily weird early Zep cut, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You tears through its tense acoustics with some of the band's most unexpectedly ferocious playing - when the guitars and drums come crashing in pre-chorus, it's about as metal as anything you're likely to hear in pre-Sabbath rock, and Plant's caterwauling rarely sounded this pointed again.

This is live in Denmark, 1969:

This is the version by Joan Baez:

Miley Cyrus covered the song on her Bangerz Tour 2014:

At #9 is the song Good Times Bad Times. The first song on the first album introduces the band with a declaration of surly defiance ("I don't care what the neighbors say"), a stun-gun riff and a restless, syncopated drum pattern, which Page cited as evidence of Bonham's "amazing technique." Though the lyrics are a standard evil-woman blues complaint, the message was as immediate as a car accident: Zeppelin intended to use four-piece dynamics in exhilarating new ways.

In a reassessment of Led Zeppelin in 2016, Andy Greene of Rolling Stone praised Good Times Bad Times, writing the song begins the album with a bang: "Jimmy Page's guitar pounces from the speakers, fat with menace; John Bonham's kick drum swings with anvil force; Robert Plant rambles on about the perils of manhood. Hard rock would never be the same."

This is a cover version by Phish:

At #8 is a song from their second album in 1969, Led Zeppelin II. There is a typically searing main riff and a powerful Plant vocal for the first few verses, but Heartbreaker doesn't reach its highest gear until the key shifts unexpectedly for the song's makeshift third verse, which goes all crazy at the end ("Why'd you call me some other guy's name / When I’m tryina make LOOOOOVEEEETO YOUUUUU!!!") before cutting out completely for a solo Page showcase. His playing in that section, sans accompaniment - which inspired a young Eddie Van Halen to reimagine the possible and later create Eruption - is peerlessly electrifying, and the moment when the band kicks back in is nearly as good.

Taken in full, Heartbreaker is an insane mishmash of questionable ideas - how many other songs can you think of that end mid-word? - but the band's brilliance and sheer bravado carries it, making it one of their best and best-remembered songs, and proof that they could simply do things other bands could not.

Heartbreaker is one of the songs featured in Nick Hornby's book 31 Songs. Record producer Rick Rubin has remarked, "One of the greatest riffs in rock. It [Heartbreaker] starts, and it's like they don't really know where the "one" is. Magical in its awkwardness."

The song became a live staple during which Page would slip Bach's Bourrée in E minor and other quotes into the jam. Here they are, live at Earl's Court:

Here is an unusual live cover version by the Sybarite5:

Finally for today, at #6, is the opening song from Led Zeppelin IV (1971). Black Dog was released as a single in the United States and in Australia, peaking at Nos 15 and 10 respectively. In 2004, the song was ranked #294 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Black Dog is a song so canonical that it basically invented an entire set of rock cliches on its own. The call-and-response between Plant and the rest of the band at the song's beginning is a song construction almost too perfect to be imitated - and the groove is so sneakily arrhythmic that it's borderline impossible for a lesser band to cover - and basically everything you need to know about Plant's animalistic, early-'70s persona can be expressed in those opening 15 words.

It's arguably the most badass Led Zeppelin riff: It was cooked up by Jones, who had a Muddy Waters song stuck in his head. Page turned it into a chain-saw ballet on his Les Paul over Bonzo's stealth groove, with snarling multitracked rhythm guitar tearing up the midsection. But Plant's vocal come-on – "Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move/Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove" - brings the real alchemy. It may not be Shakespeare, but as Plant later said, songs like Black Dog "make their point."

I could only find the studio version on youtube as an upload of the complete album, but since it's the opening track, that's not much of a problem:

Here they are, live:

This is a jazz version by Victor Bailey, Lenny White, and Larry Coryell:

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; it was a less stellar week than the previous two, with a 9% drop in the number of visits. The fact that there were only two stories during the week may have contributed to that. Still, both stories were well-liked, especially the conclusion of the Bee Gees story.

As far as countries are concerned, it was a very good week for France and the United Kingdom and a good week for Italy, Canada, and Brazil. All these have increased their overall percentage. Greece and Cyprus kept it stable, while Germany and Belgium dropped only slightly. Russia fell more markedly, and the United States, despite being #1 for the week, once again lost the most.

Here are this week's Top 10 countries.

1. the United States

2. France

3. the United Kingdom

4. Greece

5. Canada

6. Italy

7. Cyprus

8. the United Arab Emirates

9. Germany

10. Brazil

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Albania, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechia, Denmark, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 37.2%

2. the United Kingdom = 9.6%

3. Greece = 8.8%

4. France = 8.7%

5. Russia = 4.8%

6. Germany = 3.2%

7. Cyprus = 1.38%

8. Italy = 1.34%

9. Canada = 0.82%

10. Belgium = 0.61%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!