Led Zeppelin
III

I remember the first time I listened to “Tangerine”; I left it on repeat for 5 straight hours: an entire afternoon.

You understand the worth of this album after just one listen - in its variety of folk, rock, and blues.

But I don't want to talk about the album, too well-known, but rather about how it was received at the time by the public and critics.

First and foremost, it was a relative commercial failure. Maybe people liked this album less because, listened to globally, it turns out slower than the first two (despite the presence of tracks like “Celebration Day”). Many songs are “full of peace and reflectiveness” - obviously influenced by the almost hermitic place in which they were composed. As my brother says, a reasonable fan of Led: “Many of us prefer faster and more direct things”.

Others, however, were disappointed perhaps because the melodic side of Led (who were always great melodists) was perhaps too highlighted in songs like “Tangerine” and “That’s the Way”; and for some rock fanatics, beautiful melody in a rock song is like salt in cream.

The reception by the critics would deserve an entire book. I don't think the story is known to everyone, and it has really ridiculous aspects. Reality can sometimes be funnier than fantasy.

When it came out, here's what many “experts” wrote: “Led Zep have betrayed rock. They have become acoustic”. Plant said: “I've never liked the definition of fathers of rock. It's a convenient definition for those who like to categorize everything. Led had three souls: rock, blues, and folk.”

Page, on the other hand, in the face of the critics' superficiality, even lost his legendary English composure: “I told myself: where do they have their ears? Did they notice that at least 5 songs from our first two albums are acoustic? Then I decided not to talk anymore with these people, and released the fourth album anonymously.” Page's press silence lasted 18 months and he was duly punished. The following year, with Led Zeppelin IV, the critics dedicated only one paragraph.

You stand petrified in front of reviews that start like this: “The acoustic album of Led”. And you wonder: are we talking about the same album? “Celebration Day”, “Immigrant Song”, “Out on the Tiles”, "Since I’ve Been Loving You" are acoustic songs?

Even “Tangerine” is beautifully “corrected” by the steel guitar, and therefore not even it can strictly be defined as acoustic.

When I read this nonsense, I started to understand what was hiding behind so many supposed experts who write in specialist magazines and get paid very well to enlighten the tastes of us ordinary mortals. People have noticed by now, and maybe that's why critics today are no longer listened to as they once were, and certainly no longer influence people’s choices - as they did until a few decades ago.

I attended a debate on this topic, and I remember that after two hours of talking and hypocrisy, an honest critic said that, in fact, many critics write for money without true passion and therefore true attention to what they review; others instead, I would add, review as a fan would. This is also why sites like Deb are born; surely I wanted to be part of it for this reason as well.

A final note for a laugh. There are even more ridiculous things than the story of “Led Zeppelin III”. One of the most famous and celebrated music critics in the world like Robert Christgau gave A (masterpiece) to “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” and A minus to “War”. It's not a joke; go to his site and you'll verify.