Led Zeppelin
ZoSo

Much has been said. What is certain is that "ZoSo" - this is the name by which the album went down in history - is a "masterpiece of balance": no exaggeration in folk like "III" and no exaggeration in rock like "II". "III" had been a commercial flop. Logic dictated a return to the sweat and success of "II". The four, however, wanted to reaffirm - very courageously, it must be admitted - their folk soul and their slow blues soul.

Folk soul with the overlapping guitars in the plaintive "Going to California" and the ethereal overlapping voices (Robert Plant and Sandy Denny) in "The Battle of Evermore" (born almost by chance, while Page was trying out Jones's mandolin).

Slow-blues soul in "When the Levee Breaks", Led's rewrite of a '29 blues, but with electric guitar and mouth harp giving the piece a sweet psychedelic flavor, in what remains one of the greatest achievements in their history, aided by Bonham's "long wave" drum, placed at the base of a staircase with microphones placed on the railings so that the sound would not immediately be lost on the walls.

Rock soul in the mediocre "4 Sticks" and "Misty Mountain Hop", "Rock and Roll" (hard-rock rewrite of the classic '50s rock & roll, born as a jam session while the group was trying to complete "4 Sticks") and in the celebrated "Black Dog" (an unlistenable rhythmic stroke of genius with the guitar arguing with the drums in dictating the rhythm, "so that the piece was impossible to dance to", as Jones, the author of the piece, wanted).

And finally "Stairway to Heaven", the suite that synthesizes all the souls of the group: acoustic folk in the first 2:20; psychedelic electric folk for another two minutes; the entrance of the drums in a slightly jazzy soft-rock, before the celebrated rock-blues solo that opens the door to the hard-rock finale with Plant's voice taken to a paroxysm. "The essence of the band. Everything is in there" - in the words of the wizard.

Let's avoid any comment on the lyrics and the subliminal message it hides, because this would take us too far away from the music.

A poor position: a mandatory "summa" conclusion of the album.

They never made it a single - giving up a probable absolute sales record. They settled for the album's sales: 36 million copies sold so far.

In less than three years (1968 - 1971) the Zeppelin had reached the sun. But as the myth of Icarus teaches...