Loaded article (FZC) Led Zeppelin IV

[jacqueb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi all,

LOADED magazine December 1997

Led Zeppelin IV, Atlantic 

The greatest, most successful and most influential rock band of all time 
have had their memory stomped on throughout the years, but at the peak
of 
their creative powers they remain untouchable. Jimmy Page, who has lived
his career in reverse by becoming a worse and worse guitarist as the
years
go by, was nevertheless in complete command of his faculties when he
bundled
the band into big old Hampshire manor house Headley Grange in 1971 to
record
their fourth album.

 
The first two albums, both from 1969, had been boisterous, heavier
affairs, 
with a more folksy third outing recorded in a Welsh cottage in 1970.
Bringing 
the two facets together provided the band with an album so successful it
stayed
in the US charts for almost five years. The reasons were simple. The
early '70s
were bloody miserable (as evidenced from the sleeve) and Zeppelin stuck
two 
fingers up at all that and lived an excessive lifestyle that hasn't been
matched
by any band since. They clung on to a bit of the hippy mysticism of the 
late '60s, but added a huge dose of testosterone. Girls fancied them,
blokes 
wanted to be them, and they were possessed of the kind of musical talent
and 
band dynamic that only comes along very rarely.

 
>From the syncopated opener, 'Black Dog', the raucous 'Rock And Roll',
through 
acoustic numbers like Going To California and 'The Battle of Evermore'
to, of
 course, every music shop assistant's nightmare and the most requested
song in 
history, 'Stairway To Heaven'. The album, and the often overlooked work
of
 Page as a producer, is genius. The drums on 'When The Levee Breaks'
were 
sampled by everyone 20 years later, because, with all their computer
gadgetry, 
they still couldn't find a better drum sound. They're still looking.
 

Without this record, you might have been spared crimes such as The Far
Corporation's working of 'Stairway' but then again at least half the
artists
of the last 20 years would probably never even have picked up a guitar. 

 
DEREK HARBINSON
 

Enjoy!
Theolyn