Led Zeppelin
The Song Remains The Same (Remixed & Expanded)

THE REVIEW

After 30 years of waiting, the expanded version of what was once the only existing live album of the Led Zeppelin, "The Song Remains The Same," finally comes out in November 2007. Recorded over 3 nights in July 1973 at Madison Square Garden in New York, this live album represented a piece of Zeppelin history, and more generally, of the entire rock genre. But history in 2007 has been inexorably changed... and not for the better!! In fact, with the release of this new edition, the "old" album originally released in 1976 will be discontinued. The problem is that this new edition absolutely does not have the credentials to replace the previous one.

The music is not up for debate, for heaven's sake; the performances are brilliant and energetic, the Zeppelin captured here are in splendid form. However, it is worth emphasizing that there are evident and gross errors in the mix and the editing of the tracks, which leave a non-casual listener disappointed at the end, with the realization that the original album, with all its known limitations and shortcomings, remains decidedly preferable to this new release.

But let's analyze in detail the problems encountered, track by track. It starts with "Rock And Roll", which, although edited from several nights compared to the known version, is excellent and doesn't make you miss the original too much. "Celebration Day" has its beautiful original solo replaced with one very similar but less inspired. "Black Dog" is one of the additional tracks on the album, but it's scandalously cut, missing the entire second sung part. "Over The Hills And Far Away", "Misty Mountain Hop", and "Since I've Been Lovin You" are three other tracks not present in the original, and they are definitely welcome here. The only comment on "Since..." is that in some passages, it's noticeable that the track comes from different nights, a symptom of sloppy work at the editing bench. Nothing serious, anyway, the worst is yet to come...

...and here we are at "No Quarter": it's one thing that some small parts have been replaced, and even some effects added to the voice can be overlooked, but cutting the entire first part of the solo, in the same way, it was cut in the movie, is truly unforgivable!! What anger!! Moving forward... "The Song Remains The Same" and "Rain Song" use the same versions and are essentially the same; more attentive listeners will notice very small differences, but I'm not going to describe them here. The first CD closes with an excellent version of "The Ocean"; in concert, it was performed as an encore, here it’s advanced, and it's unclear why since there would have been room to include it in the second CD without exceeding the 80 minutes of the CD, oh well...

Let's move on to the second CD, which starts with "Dazed And Confused", enriched with passages that were removed in the original album but penalized by the replacement of part of Jimmy Page's first solo, carried out with a dog's breakfast of an edit, clearly audible when the CD reaches 5 minutes and 23 seconds. Not even "Stairway To Heaven" was spared from the shears: after the solo, in the final vocal part, Robert Plant sang "Come On Baby Roll," mysteriously disappeared here. "Moby Dick" has been entirely replaced with a new version, which seems inferior to me, and is also further penalized by somewhat intrusive effects. A great version of "Heartbreaker" leads us toward the finale. Here too, however, I seem to hear bad editing during Jimmy Page's final solo. The album closes in perfect scissors-style with "Whole Lotta Love", which is stripped of the entire funky section right after the second chorus, with a horrible and insane cut clearly audible at 1 minute and 33 seconds... madness!!