Led Zeppelin
I

An album with almost all tracks being covers of other artists.

Recorded in just 9 days (only 30 hours of recording), with an expense of just 2000 pounds, and without a record contract, "I" is a truly ordinary album, although, from the perspective of overall listening, it probably remains the best of the group. No critic at the time understood the reason for its commercial success - not huge, but still notable (14 million copies sold so far). In hindsight, the reason has been understood and it is certainly not found in the particular quality of its music, but in the energy that the four unleashed in their concerts.

The central body of "I" consists of blues. The original project of Jimmy Page (the group’s mastermind) was to take the blues and, on one hand, speed it up and distort it with rock, and on the other, psych it up - as the band's name itself suggests: music as heavy as lead ("Led", although written without the "a" to eliminate the ambiguity with the homonymous verb) and ethereal music (that lives in the air like a "Zeppelin").

But beyond these big words, the truth is much more pedestrian: when Led Zeppelin played blues - with the exception of some episodes ("Since I've Been Loving You", "No Quarter", "Tea for One") - they had nothing of the class of Cream. "You Shook Me" (written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Dixon and Muddy Waters) and "I Can't Quit You" (written by Otis Rush and also arranged by Dixon) confirm this statement.

The only great blues here is the "stained masterpiece" "Dazed and Confused" (taken from a theme by Jack Holmes). The intro is a splendid psychedelic blues that prepares Plant's excellent melody, before the gloomy interlude created by Page playing his Gibson with a violin bow. After so much beauty, Page and Bonham decidedly spoil it all with a rock acceleration via a guitar and drum assault. Result: a stained masterpiece. But as others have said, a work of art remains art even when it is stained.

The secondary body of the disc consists of folk. But here too, the results are little more than ordinary, although capable of evoking emotion: "Baby, I'm Gonna Leave You" (by Anne Brandon) and "Black Mountain Side" (by Bert Jansch, with special sitar-style tuning).

The two original tracks signed by Page ("Good Times, Bad Times" and "Your Time is Gonna Come") are two pleasant mediocrities with choruses on the brink of being cheesy.

"How Many More Times" (inspired by a track by Howling Wolf), and especially "Communication Breakdown" (by Eddie Cochran) are (civil) prophecies of the sweat and explosions of instincts on the next record, which will be a "rock-arena" rewrite of this one.

The beginning of the Zeppelin's ascent.