Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin

THE REVIEW

An explosive debut, no doubt about it. I don't want to delve into the usual debate about whether Led Zeppelin invented anything or not. Maybe they didn't invent anything, but they knew how to combine blues and rock like no one had before, reinventing a genre in a creative crisis and making it devastating, visceral, and certainly more complex. It's an album almost entirely composed of covers or remakes (especially by Willie Dixon) but that doesn't matter: the result is brilliant, striking the heart, soul, and mind like a bolt from the blue.

"Good Times Bad Times", with its memorable opening riff, raises the curtain on this masterpiece, a perfect summary of what the Zeppelin sound would be from then on, at least for the next 3 albums.
"Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You": a traditional folk song characterized by moments of poignant melancholy and sudden explosions of guitar.
"You Shook Me" is the third track, a splendid blues piece by Dixon, which, thanks to Page's virtuosity and Robert Plant's incredibly sensual vocal performance, is greatly enhanced.
And we come to "Dazed and Confused", one of the most experimental and avant-garde pieces of the time: Jimmy Page plays the guitar with a violin bow, and the song would later become one of the great English guitarist's signature pieces, creating with this unique technique demonic, haunting, and evocative sounds.
"Your Time is Gonna Come", a ballad with a folk-inspired touch, is perhaps the least interesting and weakest piece on the entire album, very pleasant but nothing more.
"Black Mountain Side" is a delightful instrumental interlude, an excellent acoustic solo by Page, in my opinion, the best of all.
"Communication Breakdown": a classic with a devastating and frantic riff, accompanied by superb drumming. The shouting vocals of the blond angel Robert Plant are gritty and passionate, like a sort of male Janis Joplin.
"I Can't Quit You Babe" is once again a remarkable example of high-quality blues/rock.
The last track, "How Many More Times", with breathtaking bass and drums, is my favorite. Perhaps for its escalating and driving rhythm, its sheer hardness, for being so pleasantly obsessive.

Strongly revolutionary and innovative, this first work by the famous British band is a breath of fresh, new air, a regenerating tonic, a life-extending elixir for stagnant and repetitive rock. It unmistakably hints at the bright future of Led Zeppelin, this immense band that contributed so much to contemporary music for nearly 4 decades. It was released in '69, the same year as "In the Court of the Crimson King": a new era had begun, and the airship started to fly...