Led Zeppelin In Through The Outdoor

Not the greatest of Zep Albums, but I still like it. Love the sound. I recently picked up a Robert Plant compilation and he certainly went off in interesting directions. I bet he could have continued to be even more interesting within Zep.

 

I've never been the Led Zeppelin fanatic a lot of people are. I've always liked them just fine, but play them less and less as I get older. In Through The Out Door was the first Led Zep album I ever bought (while it was still kinda new, in 1980), and I thought it delivered the paid-for goods. All these years later, I still think it is better than Presence and maybe even (gasp) Physical Graffiti. Plant remained a pretty good vocalist through the 80's, even if his albums were spotty. If Page could have gotten his act together and Bonham had not died, I don't think they could have been summarily written off. I would have bought their next album (in 1982 or 1983 or so) to find out. Maybe it would have been awful, but there's really no way to know.

 

February 25th - standing outside the record store waiting for it to open because Graffiti is going on sale. I get it home and it was everything I could ask for.

A little over a year later Presence is coming out. Great name for an album - really looking forward to it.

But once on the turntable it turns out to be a total disappointment. Oh it starts out good - for one song - but what happened after that? It should have been called Filler. Or Demo. Because that is what it sounded like. It seemed like the songs were lacking something - like they were not quite finished. No one I knew liked it - but I was able to find a girl a few months later that had never heard it and I gave it away to her.

Outhouse has 3 songs on it that I like, In The Evening, In The Rain and South Bound - but the rest are pretty bad. I really only like Last Stand and For Nowhere on Demo, but as a whole I would say it stands up much better.

So in answer to your question - the way I see it - they started to go downhill with Presence.

 

I doubt that if "Presence" or "In through the Outdoor" had been their first two albums or their only two albums, we would talk about them today.
But I wouldn't blame them for those albums. Looking at the history of most other successful bands, you usually find a run of three unbelievable years and then they run out of steam. It's probably natural.

 

"The rushed recording sessions were in part a result of Led Zeppelin having booked the studio immediately prior to The Rolling Stones, who were shortly to record songs for their album Black and Blue. Upon their arrival, the Stones were amazed that Zeppelin's album had indeed been completed (both recorded and mixed) in a mere eighteen days. Page had simply stayed awake for two days straight to perform all of the guitar overdubs. As he later explained:
I just had to lay it down, more or less: first track... second track - you know, really fast working on that. And all the guitar overdubs on Presence were done in one night. But I didn't think I would be able to do it in one night, I thought I'd have to do it across maybe three different nights to get the individual sections. Everything sort of crystallised and you'll notice everything was just pouring out. I was very happy with the guitar playing on that whole album, you know as far as the maturity of playing goes."
~ A to Zeppelin: The Story of Led Zeppelin

I do not know about ABBA, but I would say 1976 was when Aerosmith kicked double butt, with "Rocks" being better than "Presence" and "Black And Blue" combined.

 

http://www.elusivedisc.com/Led-Zeppelin/products/2266/

 

I don't understand the hate/disdain for this album.To me it's a totally different sound somewhat from the earlier material.Like others have said Robert's first solo album is a killer(and my favorite)I can see the band adding keyboards and such into their overall sound.Kinda like Rush did.
What's not to like about this album?
You have some sinister sounding song-In The Evening
Pseudo country-Hot Dog
A Brazillian breakdown-Carousellramba(spelling?)
A heartfelt love song-All My Love

Et al.
The one song that to me signifies an end is I'm Gonna Crawl.That song just drips with world weariness and a need for a rest.

I love this album.Might not be everyone's cup of tea,but I think it holds up just fine.

 

He must be a huge ABBA fan. I'm not sure how he figures ABBA's Voulez Vous (#19 on the U.S. Billboard charts and certified Gold) was kicking butt over ITTOD (#1 US Billboard and certified multi-platinum).

 

In Through The Out Door was a comeback album of sorts. I like Presence but ITTOD had the hits and was a change of direction for LZ. Remember this was the band that inspired most other rock bands. Music was not the same after Led Zeppelin quit recording.

 

Yeah, I don't think Zeppelin was ever stressing ABBA or the Stones.

 

One song that never seems to get any love is South Bound Saurez. For me it's the one song that harkens back to the energy/goofy fun of their earlier career. The problem with ITTOD is that it's a very restrained, "mature" album. Part of the charm of Zeppelin, IMO, is the unbridled FUN, the testosterone fueled excess and self-assured grooves. I like ITTOD for what it is, but it feels very muted compared to their earlier material. It feels like an album by guys who were much older than they were in 1979. Every moment on the album seems really calculated and precise. There's no "out there" moments, and there's a certain feeling of things winding down. I don't think they would've ever been the same even if Bonham had died due to Karac's death. The day Robert Plant stopped feeling a golden god is the day the swing of Zep died.

 

Boy I disagree with this. It's one of my favorite Zep releases. It demonstrated Zep changing their sound and progressing rather than staying in the past.

 

I've tried, Good Lord, have I TRIED to get into this album. I feel as if it just lacks an identity. While I rank "In the Evening" among one of the best Zep tracks, this album just lacks something immediate like all the other albums do. It just reeks of late 70s standard AOR fare. It was the last Zeppelin album I bought on vinyl, and still don't even have it on CD (aside from my needledrop). I do agree with the theory that it was meant to be a "transitional" album, and that nothing further ever happened. I also agree with statements I've seen saying that they would have had a downhill slide in the 80s, and this album signifies it to me. I won't put the album down or flat out say it sucks, because obviously some folks enjoy it, but me, personally...

...I prefer Coda

 

I like South Bound Suarez a lot too. It's as good as any uptepo pop rock song. Which isn't a bad thing. ITTOD just lacked a couple of more good traditional rockers like In the Evening. Had they at least included Wearing and Tearing and even Ozone Baby, it would have added weight and made it more even. All they had to do was reduce the length of Carouselambra some to at least fit Wearing and Tearing.

 

It's natural for bad habits, sloth, and a lack of creativity to beset a creative artist. Still I don't think it's inevitable. The acceptance of drug abuse within their inner circle hastened their fall.

 

They needed to properly record Fire and have that as the opening to the album.

1) Fire
2) In The Evening
3) Wearing and Tearing
4) Walter's Walk (or Darlene)
5) All My Love
6) Ozone Baby
7) Fool in the Rain
8) South Bound Saurez
9) Carouselambra

That's how you get a B grade ITTOD, a proper transitional record in the way Houses of the Holy was a transition.

 

?

 

I like this album. My one issue with it is that it sounds incredibly thin. Even the new mastering doesn't help. The overall sound just lacks heft.

 

I disagree about the new mastering. To me, it's the biggest improvement of the lot and incredibly punchy and clear with sufficient low frequencies compared to every previous mastering I've heard.

 

I think meant, that they would have never been the same even if Bonham HADN'T died, due to the fact that Karac had already died. Due to Karac's death, it didn't matter if Bonham died or not. They would never be the same

 

No doubt Led Zeppelin overdid the typical Rock'n Roll cliche. And they paid the price in many ways. But running out of ideas has also happened to lots and lots of "clean" artists.

 

Very few bands don't have a dip. ITTOD came out in 79, and the world was a funny old place then. I think it's best to consider what the three remaining members did post-Zep to get a guide on why things went awry. To my tastes Plant has gone on to have an amazing career. Page didn't do anything of much note, if I didn't hear any of it again it wouldn't be a problem. Since they were the main writers, you have the issue right there. Page was burnt out - and for me he never got it back, so has lived in the past.

We can never know what might have been, but I think we shiuld be open to the idea that Zep were simply done, and with or without Bonham on this Earth, perhaps they were over anyway.

 

My wife bought the album for me and I remember when we first listened she said "That's really pretty". She loved it and so did I.

 

I'm very open to that idea, cause it's in the nature of showbusiness, that things can't last forever. Some bands/artists have one, two or three great albums in them - and that's fine. It's only a handful of artists among countless others, who manage to work on a high creativity level for two decades and more.
And yes, Plant did better after Zeppelin than Page. I saw him on his last tour with his recent band and it was so obvious, why he didn't want to do Led Zeppelin again, when having a band like that.
But also don't forget, that Page by the end of Led Zeppelin had a long career before as a studio player and also with the Yardbirds. So even if he went out of ideas for whatever reasons, his career is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

It's a weak album but I enjoy Fool In The Rain more than any other Zeppelin song.