I’ve gotten pushback on this before, but I’d say Zeppelin’s worst album was “Presence”. To me a lot of the album sounds like they were just making it up in the studio as they went along. (“Achilles Last Stand” is awesome tho.)
Those two songs are better than the entirety of 90% of most albums out there.
Low Spark and Fantasy Factory are much worse records.
The way I rank all Led Zep studio albums is simple (I’ll rate them on a scale from 0-5, like many music magazines and websites do):
The first six albums from Led Zeppelin (I) to Physical Graffiti are all top notch stuff, five star albums, including Houses Of The Holy. In comparison to that very high standard, Presence was a disappointment, though it’s still quite good, I’d say four good songs and three fillers, so I give it 3.5 stars. In Through The Outdoor though is a total miss for me, I couldn’t listen to it more than three or four times in my life, though I’ve owned the album for more than 30 years. 2 stars for this album, including a Zep bonus.
ETA: and don’t ask me about Coda, which was simply a cash grab, though it’s still much better than ITTOD.
You say that like it’s a bad thing! 
That would be my exact feeling as well, though I do like ‘Presence’ a lot. ( I like harder rock )
It was much so much better than the muck that was ITTOD that I believed at the time it was LZs way of saying “sorry” for ITTOD and bowing out with music more typical of LZs style. Cash grab though it likely was.
I actually liked ITTOD - it wasn’t a knockout, but it has some songs that I still like.
Now, the gimmick where the inside sleeve was coated with some kind of ink powder, so that you could daub at it with a wet cloth and turn it into colors, seemed very kitschy for such a great band.
Meh - I’m totally lawnchair about Zeppelin.
Just give me their first four albums k thx bye.
While the American albums were very much an attempt to milk every last cent out of the Beatles, I think The Beatles Second Album was a pretty good one, all rock and roll and no ballads. Collecting the Beatles before the CD era was a mess for me as I had a mix of the British versions, American versions and the endless compilations
Jandek’s The Gone Wait is just a slog.
The Zep album I recall most people panning when I was in high school was Houses of the Holy
No way, Jose. Check the track listing: No Quarter, Rain Song, Over the Hills and Far Away and especially The Song Remains the Same, which is in my opinion one of the all-time great songs of hard rock.
IIRC, Presence was set back by several strokes of bad luck, with Plant singing from a wheelchair (broken leg from car accident, I think) and Page taking over the completion of the album and basically turning it into an even more guitar-driven effort. It’s very dense and “Pagey” and therefore likely to thrill some fans and turn off others, but it’s still far better than In Through the Out Door.
Don’t forget “The Ocean”, which has the greatest riff of all those great Zep riff songs.
the greatest riff of all those great Zep riff songs
(Bolding mine.) It’s a good one, of course, but I dunno about greatest… Don’t you prefer the riffs in The Lemon Song and Bring It on Home? Maybe I’m just partial to that second album.
Hey, sorry to get off topic, but what are you guys doing to quote messages?
Well, it’s definitely just my personal taste. The three greatest Led Zep riffs in my book are, in this order, The Ocean, Out On The Tiles and Black Dog. YMMV.
Highlight the text you want to quote, and a button labeled “Quote” at the top of the text block appears. Click that button, and you can compose your answer.
Aha! Thank you! Yeah, those are good ones. I love the way Page slides the chords around at the end of Out on the Tiles.
What I like about “Out On The Tiles” is that it’s either a never ending succession of riffs, or one great riff in one that dominates the whole song. I’s a tour de force. Other songs in that category are “Back In Black” and “Iron Man”, but that’s an exclusive company.
Interesting. I’m definitely one of those who was ( and is ) thrilled by its Pagey-ness and density.
Electric Light Orchestra - The Night The Light Went On In Long Beach
Sounds like the entire group was recorded with one (1) Mr. Microphone onto a portable cassette recorder; cannot hear any bass, no kick drum, no cellos. Fortunately, it was re-mastered for CD and this version is supoib. Except they tinkered with the lengths of one or two songs – what is a poor boy to do?
My public library subscribes to Hoopla, which recently added Van Halen’s entire catalog. 23 years after it was released, I have finally heard Van Halen III (AKA the one with Gary Cherone) in its entirety.
It’s worse than Balance. To confirm this, I subjected myself to Balance a second time.
Okay, I listened to Balance. Damn, when I don’t compare it to early VH, it’s great!
“Aftershock” is a classic, with a tasty intro of Edward’s guitar work, “Amsterdam” is a rockin’ tribute to Alex and Ed’s home town, and “Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do” is a great pop song, and no, not a love song…
Love how Sammy drops in a throwaway “Hey, Ray, whatcha say is true” before the last chorus of “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You”. I thought, that’s a weird line, who’s Ray? Finally realized: Ray Charles, who recorded a very different “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You”…
I guess I really missed ‘power guitar’ over the past year; this was like connecting with an old friend…
Apparently, I love Van Halen, but I love Van Hagar, too…