Led Zeppelin memorabilia on display, at auction and for public consumption

Parallel to the business of selling music is the longstanding and lucrative business of merchandising a band's name in myriad ways. Led Zeppelin's history is rich with savvy marketing gimmicks such as The Object, a mysterious promotional figurine whose original manufacture supporting Presence's release in 1976 was limited to 1,000 until cheap knock-offs hit the market for a quick buck, and the series of six album covers for the group's last studio set.

Several extensive magazine articles and Web sites are dedicated to tally the quantity and second-hand price range of rare foreign pressings of Led Zeppelin's music and of items that were pulled from shelves for one reason or another.

Collectors should be aware that their universe is about to expand. A new officially sanctioned Led Zeppelin collectible is being made available to the public, but this ultra-rare pressing of the soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same on white vinyl will be about 200 times harder to get than tickets to the band's one-off reunion concert were last year.

Talk about a limited pressing! There are to be only 200 of these white vinyl sets produced, and only half are being immediately offered up for public consumption. They are to be randomly given to customers of Led Zeppelin's official Web site who purchase the no-less-enticing black vinyl pressings of the soundtrack album. This four-LP soundtrack pressing on 180-gram vinyl is to be available July 29. It is to contain the same expanded track listing as was on last November's re-release of the 1976 set on CD. The remixing, mastering, artwork and liner notes will also resemble last year's edition. A set could be yours for only $54.99 if you pre-order soon, and if you're lucky, you will receive the extremely limited white vinyl edition.

Also coming soon to a four-LP vinyl set, for the same price, is last year's Mothership anthology. This audiophile-quality vinyl release is scheduled for Aug. 26. Further information on both new vinyl releases from Led Zeppelin is available here.

Auctioneers are also testing the staying power of Led Zeppelin's name when it comes to the resale of unique items once owned by the band members. A drum kit pounded on by John Bonham in his later days is soon to be sold at auction, possibly fetching an amount comparable to the sum recently paid out for a bass guitar and equipment John Paul Jones used in Led Zeppelin's earliest days.

The acoustic bass and accompanying bass stack sold for $27,115 at a Christie's auction in London on July 10, demonstrating the value of the group's moniker.

Bonham's Ludwig Vistalite drum kit, thought to be the only kit of his not possessed by his estate, is to be auctioned Sept. 4 in London. The drums left Bonham's possession when he gave them as a gift to Chris Welch, who later went on to co-author the biography "John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums." Letters of authenticity signed by Welch and Todd Trent of Ludwig's artists relations are listed as part of the lot.

Speaking of Led Zeppelin memorabilia, a fan of the group named Annie Hollinshead has labored intently over the past year to fulfill her vision of having collectors donate some of their memorabilia for a large display to be held at the historically significant Knebworth Field House, commemorating the formation of the band 40 years ago next month. The exhibit, which intends to raise money for the Jimmy Page-supported ABC Trust charity, is set to run daily between Aug. 1 and Sept. 3. For more information, visit http://memoriesinmusic.com.

History repeats itself; Led Zeppelin album, merchandise sales on top

Who would have guessed last January that Led Zeppelin would be capable of releasing a top-selling album by year's end?

That's precisely the scenario that has developed, according to Uncut. HMV, a U.K.-based music retailer, said sales of last month's greatest-hits collection, Mothership, have risen since the Dec. 10 reunion concert to become this week's biggest mover, the publication reports.

It quotes HMV spokesman Genarro Castaldo as saying, "Sales of their album have had a massive, massive boost by the concert. It was our best-selling album today, up from number eight last week. Led Zeppelin t-shirts have also been our most popular since the concert."

Castaldo also confirms in the Uncut piece that "sales of the band's entire back catalogue are also up by 500 per cent since the concert took place."

Keen observers of Led Zeppelin's history will note that the releases of 1975's Physical Graffiti and 1979's In Through the Out Door in 1979 had a similar effect on sales of the group's previous albums. Higher record sales at those times, in the United States, resulted in multiple Billboard chart rankings for the group.

In addition, the Led Zeppelin record sales of 1979 is often credited with rescuing the dwindling record industry at the time.

Led Zeppelin makes top 10 Billboard debut

Mothership, Led Zeppelin's two-disc best-of set released Nov. 13, debuted at No. 7 in the Billboard 200 chart.

The same Dec. 1 chart listing also ranks Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" at No. 14 Billboard's among hot ringtones. The 1971 track also peaked at No. 30 among hot digital songs.

The new album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss is hanging on to Billboard's top 25 in its fourth week since release. Now at No. 25, Raising Sand was an unexpected hit right away, peaking at No. 2 in its first week.

Next week's chart listings are expected to contain Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same soundtrack. The double-disc release was reissued on Nov. 20 along with a new 2-DVD adaptation of the band's 1976 movie of the same name.

Mothership prompts revisiting of Led Zeppelin studio catalog

The release of Led Zeppelin's Mothership compilation earlier this week gave the public a new opportunity to revisit the studio work of Led Zeppelin.

This is certainly happening in at least one new way, the world of online downloads. Led Zeppelin made its entire catalog available from online retailers this week. As a result, Gigwise reports that "Stairway to Heaven" stands to make the U.K. singles chart this weekend after downloads are tabulated.

While Mothership is certainly not the first compilation of Led Zeppelin's material, it is a sampler issued with purpose. In a radio special by Wildfire Media for Rhino Entertainment, Jimmy Page explains that he felt the box sets issued during the 1990s had become somewhat obsolete.

Led Zeppelin's 10-CD Complete Studio Recordings was released in 1993, and a two-disc set released at the same time complemented the 1990 self-titled box set that featured the first remastering of the band's catalog.

"The box set was [about] 15 years ago," Page said. Referring to the "Best Of" compilations released in 1999 and 2000, he continued, "Along the way, we had a piece of product that was going to be in two sections -- one called Early Days, and Latter Days. And then of course in true sort of marketing spirit, they were sort of shunted together as Early Days & Latter Days, two CDs, now. And personally, I felt that there was quite deterioration with the quality -- not the music, of course -- but with the quality of the packaging, I just thought that it felt worse and worse and worse. When you compared it to any of the other Led Zeppelin product, it just didn't have that stamp of authority about it, you know?

"There'd been a sort of proposal on the cards for ages about putting one out, you know? A collection, we'll call it. You could also call it a sampler because it's an access route through to the albums, you know? The biggest question is how do you actually choose the numbers for, you know, a 'Best Of'? It's impossible, and that's the answer."

"It's really difficult," added John Paul Jones, to Page's agreement.

The topic of selecting the tracks to include came up again as Jones was interviewed Nov. 14 on BBC Radio 2 by Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie. Describing the process in more detail, Jones said, "We had lists of everything, and it was extremely difficult actually." Asked what criteria were used to select songs, he replied, "Well, we wanted the song list to run chronologically, and we wanted something from every album. Really, it's more like a sampler than anything else. The whole idea was to introduce people to every album, and so the difficulty was not so much what to put on but what to leave off. ... We simply couldn't fit [other selections] on. It was just -- it would have been a 10-CD set."

The interviewer joked that fans might expect a second volume of Mothership containing another handful of tracks in a different mood. "Oh, don't say that yet," said Jones, laughing. In the answer to that particular suggestion, he sounded as if he was growing tired of all the interviews and publicity surrounding the new album releases and the upcoming reunion concert.

And well he might be exhausted. After all, he and the other members of Led Zeppelin have been hitting the media circuit rather hard. Life for Page, Jones and Robert Plant has been rife with photography sessions for magazine covers -- including the December 2007 issue of Mojo, whose cover features an image of all three members together, with Page in the middle. The lettering of the headline "Led Zeppelin: The Mother of All Comebacks" apes Mothership's red-and-black motif.

The cover also promises an exclusive from all three members "on the past, present and their future!" It is a hint toward that there may be a future beyond this concert. Rumblings of a 2008 concert tour abound, and the press began reporting talks of a Led Zeppelin appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in June. (The latest report says festival organizer Michael Eavis couldn't afford to hire the band – which would indicate a price had been given and turned down. But theoretically speaking, everything has a price.)

As for any official word, the band members insist nothing has been decided. It has been months since the last denial of a more permanent reunion.

Plant's most direct answer to the question was given Oct. 23 in an interview on the New York public radio station WNYC, during a sit-down accompanied by Alison Krauss to promote that day's release of their album Raising Sand. Once he was asked the near-inevitable question, Plant couldn't help but toy with host John Schaefer. The 59-year-old singer started coughing and self-mockingly exhibiting other typical signs of old age -- "Can I get a blanket please?" -- before he launched into an unprovoked interpretation of the opening of "Nobody but You," a 1962 B-side by a Baltimore-based R&B group called the Lafayettes.

If it seemed obscure and random, perhaps that's precisely the point Plant was trying to drive home. "I just want to have fun," he then said, once again speaking seriously. "And if it's fun, it's fun. This is fun; this is a big day today, one of the biggest days. And having fun in England is having fun, you know. I just hope we all have fun. Let's face it, so many people want to go to the thing. How 'bout -- how 'bout if it's fantastic? And how 'bout if it's, like -- it's been quiet for so long. ... [The] anticipation is incredibly overwhelming for me. I'm carrying it around like some kind of kryptonite, you know? And all I wanna do is have some fun."

Hmmm, sounds like a line he could have gotten from Sheryl Crow a year after Led Zeppelin's last box sets came out.

Page and Jones have more than once diverted attention away from the question of a more permanent reunion. "Basically, we are concentrating on this show," Jones said in an interview for Sun Media. "That's where all the energy is going. I mean, who knows, but one step at a time."

In a separate interview for the same news outlet, Page said the one-off reunion concert in London "is what we're working toward ... That's what we have on our horizon at this point. I know you want to hear other answers, but I'm afraid that's all I can give you."

Page and Jones were similarly evasive when recording alongside each other for the Mothership radio special. "What we need to do, just do the gig," said Page. "Listen, if we hadn't wanted to play, we wouldn't have got into that room for the first time [in June 2007]."

To this, Jones added a single word: "Right."

Those holding out hope for future Zeppelin activity may find a more encouraging quotation from Page when they open up the pages of the December issue of Mojo -- the one bearing images of all three members of Led Zeppelin on the cover with mention of "their future" and a "comeback."

Asked whether the band might perform again, Page tells the magazine, "It's a bit silly not to because there is such massive demand. It's a bit selfish to do just one show. If that's it, we probably shouldn't have taken the genie out of the bottle."

All will be revealed: Led Zeppelin releases Mothership

When the four symbols representing Led Zeppelin appeared on the front page of Led Zeppelin's Web site earlier this year accompanied by what appeared to be a date, some folks wondered what Nov. 13 would hold in store.

Well, it did involve stores.

These people were suffering from a temporary case of amnesia. There was speculation that the band was going to announce a reunion concert on that date! The anticipation built throughout August and September. What was going to happen?

All along, Nov. 13 turned out to be the scheduled release date for the two-CD compilation Mothership in the United States. It was also the date eventually picked for the group's first download availability on iTunes.

That date is now here, and The Mothership Has Landed on schedule. Now in the hands of fans is the fulfillment of the first phase of that promise -- with cellophane bearing a sticker that reads, "The Very Best of Led Zeppelin Remastered on 2 CDs."

Phase two, a reissue of The Song Remains the Same on DVD and its soundtrack on CD, is only one week away.

For now, let's enjoy this Mothership release. The compilation provides a few new things to pick at.

One piece of this are liner notes written by David Fricke, an editor at Rolling Stone magazine. Odd choice, you might think, given the history of bad blood between that magazine and Led Zeppelin. Well, Fricke's tenure with the magazine has been mostly during the years that the group was reconsidered to be a major contribution to the group and "The Heaviest Band of All Time" if you believe their 2006 cover, shown at right. Fricke admits briefly in his liner notes, with regard to "the band's harshest critics," "there were armies of them at the time."

Though much of Fricke's commentary focuses only on the songs included in the set, he does some justice in capturing some of the band's earliest days. He also gives attention to the reason Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980. Perhaps it is fitting that his writing ends nearly as abruptly after this revelation as did the existence of Led Zeppelin after John Bonham's unexpected death.

The remastering of the songs was recently performed by John Davis at Alchemy Mastering in London. I'm already detecting a few rare moments I had never heard before.

• In "Dazed and Confused" between 2:17 and 2:18, Plant is singing in his high vocal range faintly in the background. [Update: Wrong. This is also audible on previous releases.]


• In "Rock and Roll" between 2:51 and 2:55, there are some previously unheard piano notes from guest Ian "Stu" Stewart. [Also wrong. This, too, is also audible on previous releases.]


• In "Black Dog" between 3:49 and 4:17, Plant sings throughout Page's guitar solo. [Wrong again! I'd just always missed this.]

These are things that, unless I'm mistaken, must have been muted in previously issued mixes of these songs. [Not muted, but let's agree that they're more easily noticed in the current mix.]

I've also heard some things during the fadeouts of the two opening songs – "Good Times Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown" – that don't recall ever hearing before. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we're listening to additional seconds recorded before these recordings end. [I haven't yet checked to see if I was right about these. Feel free to comment!]

There are probably many other subtle differences between the recordinsg on this release and those issued on previous sets. All will be revealed, and I hope some people reading this will be able to comment on anything else they notice.

The art direction and design are new, by Shepard Fairey. Some fans have complained about the simplistic cover art, the prevalent red-on-black color scheme, and the recycling of that blimp motif – which even Shepard himself is employing on another concurrent project, shown on the magazine cover at right.

But it would be hard commenting on the design without mentioning the Super Jewel Box in which the two-CD set is contained. I guess I haven't bought any Robbie Williams or Gwen Stefani CDs lately, but I don't feel very embarrassed admitting that. Had I bought some of their material this year, I might have noticed the packaging, which is supposed to be a lot better than older CD jewel cases.

Mothership's deluxe edition, which contains a single DVD compiling portions of the band's double-disc video release, comes in a cardboard fold-out packaging scheme.

So forget for a moment that this isn't the first time Led Zeppelin has delivered a best-of compilation. Instead, let's revel in the band that brought you to this site in the first place: "The Heaviest Band of All Time," as Rolling Stone suggested in 2006. Or as Q magazine had proclaimed the previous year, "The Most Important Band in the World ... Today!" However you remember these guys, remember them for the recordings they delivered between 1969 and 1979, again celebrated today, on 11.13.07.

The film remains the same, but the sounds are vastly improved

The sound engineer behind the newest revisiting of Led Zeppelin’s film says next month’s re-release of The Song Remains the Same will look exactly the same as it did in 1976. What will be vastly different with this version is what you hear, says Kevin Shirley in an interview conducted over the weekend for Modern Guitars magazine.

As was the case with the DVD set released in 2003, the primary sonic output technology for this release is Dolby Digital 5.1 channel surround sound. What does that mean to a layperson? This is high-tech sound quality for the modern era.

“5.1 has made a huge difference in things. It’s like taking an 8-track and saying, ‘Does this work as modern DVD audio?’ It might have been state of the art back then, but it just doesn’t fly anymore,” explains Shirley in the interview conducted Saturday, Oct. 13, by Tom Watson, content director for Modern Guitars.

The film, whose theatrical debut was 31 years ago this month, captures the band at one height of its brilliant career. It concentrates mainly on a three-night tour-closing stand at New York’s Madison Square Garden in July 1973 and also embraces scenes of the band and its entourage at home, work and play.

The original project endured a change in directors a year into production. The end result is a hodgepodge of segments filmed either at those concerts or in the ensuing months. All of that footage will be included on the new release without any alteration. “It would have been a whole can of worms with directors, and legal hassles, and whatnot, if you started editing the movie,” Shirley explains.

So, the new project was essentially matching the 16-track audio recordings from each of the three Madison Square Garden concerts to fit the visuals included in the movie. “We started from scratch,” says Shirley. “Everything was reassembled from the ground up.”

Of course, this was done for the film’s original release, but some concert portions occasionally were not exactly synchronized to the audio. “If you look at the end of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the original movie, the visual’s from a completely different take than the audio,” Shirley notes.

Often, this was due to the original audio containing a “mistake” – assumedly things like a guitar note that is out of tune or a crack in Robert Plant’s voice. Such things would render a live recording unusable in the 1970s, but modern editing technology has made it possible for such occurrences to be manipulated and corrected. Given this technology, Shirley says, “I could fix the mistake and we could put the original audio back on there,” thus making the audio match the video.

The music that will be available on the CD soundtrack will closely match the audio presented on the DVD. Historically, the soundtrack has contained its own cuts unlike those in the movie. “What you hear on the new soundtrack CDs is what’s in the movie,” Shirley reveals. “They’re not two different things now.” One persisting difference is that the revisited soundtrack almost completely restores the original sets played in 1973 from start to finish. The movie, however, follows the running order of songs that was approved for theatrical release, and songs not included in the movie are presented separately as bonus features.

As Shirley is aware, the revisited soundtrack will surely be analyzed once it is released worldwide. For one example, “The Garden Tapes” is a site run by Eddie Edwards, an enthusiastic fan who has scrutinized every detail of the audio on every Led Zeppelin live release. (Edwards wrote me in September, saying, “Yes, I think I will be quite busy in a couple of months' time.”)

Shirley says he isn’t interested in that level of painstaking examination. To show this, he gave this sole interview to Modern Guitars magazine before heading off to Peru for a charity bicycle event. He’ll be biking for 11 days, and he doesn’t seem interested in any others at this time. Shirley says of the new releases:

"I hope people dig it, I really do. I'm not going to do a lot of interviews about it because these Internet days are very tough with some people analyzing things to death and obsessing over minute detail. It's really just for people to go and enjoy. The detailed analysis isn't really welcome - who cares if somebody says, 'You needed more cymbal in "Black Dog," or something like that. Enjoy the experience. Don't over analyze it. It's the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band playing a very good set of shows."

Music journalist Lisa Robinson, writing for Vanity Fair, has the following to say about Led Zeppelin’s new releases: “A great band is a great band. Frankly, it doesn't matter how many times these guys re-release this stuff; it always sounds better, still sounds modern, and still combines hard rock with blues, acoustic songs, and Eastern influences.”

Apparently, even Robert Plant had his doubts about the merits of the project going into it.

"What was very cool was Robert [Plant] would come to the studio and he's not a big fan of the original movie, I'd say he was probably a catalyst to the thing being re-done, and when he first came by he said, 'Oh my God, I don't want to hear this,' and he sat down and listened to it with his hands over his eyes. Then, he starts nodding his head and rocking with it and turns around with a big grin on his face and goes, 'It rocks, doesn't it?' Then he looks at the video and goes, 'We weren't half bad, were we.' It was great to experience that chrysalis, to see the butterfly coming out."

Plant ended up telling Cameron Crowe, who quotes him in the liner notes, that the project's end result captures "the warmth and the feel of the room and it sounded good." The room to which he is referring is Madison Square Garden. Watson asked Shirley where the audio point of view is for somebody watching the DVD in 5.1 Surround Sound. Shirley laughed as he answered, "You're sitting three rows back, in the center, just behind the gorgeous girl with blonde hair." Asked what the rear speakers will produce in the proper surround sound environment, Shirley answered:

"There are all sorts of things coming from the rear speakers. Audience, delays, and there are some elements coming back from the rears like in 'Dazed and Confused' - the violin bow thing goes all over the place when Jimmy's climbing up the mountain - some of the drum solos, and in the fantasy sequences the audio travels between the front and the back. So, you're sitting in the middle of this very interesting experience."

And it’s not just during the concert portions either. He continues:

"There are also the sound effects. There's the subway train that comes in the middle of the movie right before 'No Quarter' - the train comes from right behind you and through the middle of your head, which is pretty cool, actually. It's a surround experience, no doubt. It's not a concert with just some subtle rears."

The concerts depict Led Zeppelin at its best.

"They are explosive, they really are explosive. They're just so much on the edge the whole time, everyone's on the edge - Robert's performing, John Paul Jones is such a solid foundation, and Bonzo, John Bonham, what can you say? He's the rock. …

"Actually, there are a couple of things on the DVD menu, like where I've taken 30-second samples and they'll cycle around, and you could make a song just from those samples of them jamming. There's Soundgarden in there, and countless others. What makes Zeppelin so unique is that it wasn't just about one thing taken further, it was about so many things done in so many different ways."

Led Zeppelin going digital next month

Led Zeppelin is further being presented to the masses next month.

Already announced were the band's first reunion concert since the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1995 as well as the releases of a two-disc anthology and expanded live reissues.

Now a date has been set for the band's debut in the world of online digital media.

The band's songs, published by Warner/Chappell Music, are going online for sale on digital media sites on Nov. 13. The date coincides with the U.S. release of Mothership, a heavily promoted career-spanning CD set.

Another component of the group's entrance into the world of digital media is the availability of authorized cellphone ringtones using full Led Zeppelin songs.

"We are pleased that the complete Led Zeppelin catalogue will now be available digitally," Jimmy Page said in a statement. "The addition of the digital option will better enable fans to obtain our music in whichever manner that they prefer."

Latest Led Zeppelin repackaging unnecessary for most fans

The Mothership is coming! But who cares?

There has long been a trend among corporate giants to release countless duplicative compilations of musical artists' best work. Be it the result of capitalism or something else, it happens a lot. I don't particularly understand the market. Why would there be a demand for another rehashing of the same material that's previously available? If they're selling, that's fine.

Whether or not to buy a newly released Led Zeppelin compilation was for many years something consumers never had to contemplate. But now, the band's creative handiwork will soon re-enter stores with the new name of Mothership. It is described in a promotional statement as "a 24-track, two-CD comprehensive collection that spans their illustrious career." However, this aim has already been achieved -- not once but twice in Led Zeppelin's past. As a result, fans must examine this third two-CD collection of essential material and judge for themselves whether the new release itself ought to become an indispensable addition to their collection.

The Original Compilations (1990–1998)

Two-thirds of the band's studio output easily fit onto four compact discs when first attempted in 1990 on a box set simply titled Led Zeppelin. Each of the four discs loosely concentrated on a general time period in the group's studio output, although strict adherence to that rule was abandoned in favor of a flow between songs. Jimmy Page said the running order presented the old picture in a new frame and was something fans would come to appreciate.

Another strong point of this original repackaging was that the selected tracks were drawn not only from the original eight studio albums but also the only posthumous release out by that time, Coda. The image of a mesmerizing and mysterious crop circle emblazoned the LP-sized cover. Also, its liner notes incorporated a history of the band including the accounts of journalists who supported the group throughout its career. All in all, the four-CD Led Zeppelin was for many reasons the most vital assortment of the group's studio work released to date.

Quickly following its release was Remasters, the first two-disc examination of the band's most essential studio work. Its 26 songs drew mainly from the same pool of songs as was included on the four-CD set, with the notable exception that Remasters altogether ignored that posthumous release, Coda.

The supplement to the original Led Zeppelin box set was released in 1993 with the name Box Set 2. Contained in a small package with art based on the same crop circles concept, it was comprised exclusively of only those studio tracks that were excluded from the four-CD box. Some people have chosen to nickname this tiny collection "the rest of the best," which presupposes that Led Zeppelin's entire catalog is all "the best."

If that is the case, then the definitive collection of the group's studio output can be only Complete Studio Recordings, the exhaustive 10-CD box set also issued in 1993. It contained all nine studio albums, including Coda, in their entirety with their original running orders intact. The set's Coda disc was also expanded to include the few tracks that had been previously unavailable on CD prior to the box sets. Even with its high pricetag, Complete Studio Recordings was a critical grab for many ardent Led Zeppelin fans.

For nearly the rest of the decade, these four collections were the only sets consumers had to mull over purchasing. Of them, the only one that attempted to package only two discs' worth of the very most fundamental work was Remasters.

This period also saw the release of the two-CD BBC Sessions. None of the material on this set has been reissued since.

A Presence in the 21st Century (1999–2006)

In 1999, Led Zeppelin released the first half of a two-volume set of CDs officially released as a best-of compilation. This first installation was called Early Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin Volume One, and its follow-up the following year was Latter Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin Volume Two. These presented a near-identical repeat of the tracks found on Remasters (more on this later), although the sets took advantage of new technology available when they arrived in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Each included enhanced content that paired previously unseen live footage of the group performing a Led Zeppelin song with the audio of its standard studio rendition.

The familiar track listing was not the only point of contention among fans. Many viewed the cover art of each as abominable. They feature the band members sporting astronaut uniforms. However, the booklets accompanying Early Days and Latter Days were showered with newly prepared liner notes as well as rare and previously unseen photographs. All things considered, the strong points of these releases made them palatable overall, and the powers that be were excused for releasing sets that were practically carbon copies of the two CDs in Remasters.

The Early Days and Latter Days sets were combined in 2002 as a single two-CD purchase, making them more attractive as one-stop shopping for casual fans.

Likewise, Remasters was repackaged in 2003 to fit into a standard-size CD jewel case, thus making it an even more attractive purchase than it already had been.

This period also saw the releases of Led Zeppelin's DVD and the three-CD live release How the West Was Won, both in 2003.

Mothership: Not Much of a New Frame

Only a few years after these commercial releases, the band is already at it again. This November, Led Zeppelin will saturate the market with a third two-disc set repetitively containing virtually the same predictable track listing. Mothership will boast of new liner notes from rock music journalist David Fricke, but that is about all its standard release has to offer that is both new and positive. For example, its new cover art is a downright deplorable cartoon rendition of a blimp (or is it a spaceship?) with two-dimensional lettering. As far as capturing the mystique of the group as did the crop circles, this putrid image misses the boat entirely. (This eyesore of an album cover is included on this page for educational purposes only and not because it brings beauty to the words.)

Only the collectors' editions seem especially appealing as they are said to contain shirts and reproductions of rare memorabilia. In addition, a limited collectors' edition of Mothership will incorporate a single-DVD summary of the same footage used on Led Zeppelin's 2003 DVD. However, these expensive limited editions are not intended for the same type of widespread consumption as the attractively repackaged Early Days & Latter Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin Volumes One and Two and Remasters. The cost associated with the memorabilia-enhanced limited editions of Mothership will surely keep casual fans away.

The Song Remains Repetitive: Find the Differences

Taken for the music only, each of the three similar two-disc collections -- Remasters, Early Days & Latter Days, and Mothership -- sorts the band's studio output into one of two categories: release dates that are pre-1972 and post-1972, or material from the first four and the last four studio albums. The overlap between Remasters and Early Days & Latter Days, between it and Mothership, and in fact between Remasters and Mothership, is significant.

Overall, Remasters contained the largest selection of Led Zeppelin's material. No less than 15 tracks culled from the first four albums appeared on its first disc, whereas both Early Days and Mothership have just 13 each. The treatment of the group's final four studio albums was the lightest on Latter Days, with only 10 audio tracks compared to the 11 on both Remasters and Mothership.

These sheer numbers do not convey the actual duplicity as much as does a thorough rundown of the precise song selections. Nineteen standouts from the band's catalog have remained constant top choices throughout each reappraisal of the material. Yes, that's correct: Remasters, Early Days & Latter Days and Mothership all have 19 tracks in common! That means 82.6 percent of the last two compilations match each other and Remasters! For instance, "Stairway to Heaven" has always ended the collections spanning the band's pre-1972 output, and "The Song Remains the Same" has kicked off every post-1972 disc. There's little variation anywhere except when it comes to the treatment of Led Zeppelin's fifth album, the 1973 Houses of the Holy.

The only selections from the debut Led Zeppelin album to make any of these collections are "Good Times Bad Times," "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," "Dazed and Confused" and "Communication Breakdown," and the same four have appeared on all three collections. They were presented in a different order each time, and Early Days was the only one to present them in the same sequence as on Led Zeppelin's debut.

"Whole Lotta Love" is the only Led Zeppelin II track to have been included on all three, coincidentally the fifth track of each. "Heartbreaker" and "Ramble On" were chosen for both Remasters and Mothership, whereas Early Days preferred only one track from Led Zeppelin II -- "What Is and What Should Never Be," which was seen on neither of the other two collections.

From Led Zeppelin III, the two most recent collections have embraced only "Immigrant Song" and "Since I've Been Loving You." Remasters opted to sandwich another Led Zeppelin III track between those two, "Celebration Day."

Five songs from the band's untitled fourth album were selected to close out the running order on the first disc of Remasters. Of these, the triumvirate of "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll" and "Stairway to Heaven" has made it to the all three collections. "The Battle of Evermore" made the transition from Remasters to Early Days but not to Mothership. "Misty Mountain Hop" was dropped from both two-CD collections following Remasters, exchanged instead for "When the Levee Breaks."

The post-1972 discs vary less, mostly because the band seems to have agreed over the years that only two songs from each of its last two albums are worthwhile inclusions. These are "Nobody's Fault but Mine" and "Achilles Last Stand" from Presence, and "All My Love" and "In the Evening" from In Through the Out Door. Likewise, only three songs from the double album Physical Graffiti showed up on all three compilations: "Houses of the Holy," "Kashmir" and "Trampled Underfoot." Another Physical Graffiti track, "Ten Years Gone," was chosen for Latter Days, but the album's remaining 11 songs were not chosen for any of the three compilations.

As previously stated, the album whose representation varies the most, by a hair, on these sets is Houses of the Holy. In addition to the ever-present "The Song Remains the Same" at track one, "No Quarter" has made the final cut for all three releases. Whereas this pair of Houses of the Holy songs was deemed a sufficient showing for Latter Days, the band also selected "D'yer Mak'er" as track three on both Remasters and Mothership. Wildcard songs from this album were additionally included on those two collections: "The Rain Song" on Remasters and "Over the Hills and Far Away" on Mothership.

Early Days and Latter Days were the only of these compilations' standard editions to contain live footage of the group, albeit mimed to the studio releases. (Sticklers point out that while the visuals of "Kashmir" being performed at Earl's Court in 1975 is synched to the audio from the studio version, the audio does not fade out as it does on the studio version; that is because the ending from the live performance was introduced seamlessly into the audio.)

Conclusion

What's the point in reissuing the same music over and over again with little exclusive goodies to offer? Tell you what: You write the conclusion! Let's get this comments section buzzing! Go ahead and take the devil's advocate and defend this Mothership release as vital to any music collection. If you can explain how it presents anything new, then you are a great persuader.

How feasible is Nov. 26?

What's the feasibility of a Led Zeppelin reunion concert in London on Monday, Nov. 26?

Robert Plant is pretty busy, but he doesn't have any shows scheduled at the moment. Jimmy Page hasn't played a concert in a while, and John Paul Jones seems to have a pretty open calendar when he's not working on his own album or another side project.

Also mentioned in this reunion rumor is Jason Bonham, son of the late John Bonham, now playing drums with Foreigner. According to their tour schedule, the band will just be ending a tour of South Africa with a show in Cape Town on Nov. 24. So that could put him up in England for a day of rehearsal on the 25th.

Now you may be thinking that's cutting it short. But of course, the few Led Zeppelin reunion gigs in the past have pretty much all happened on little or no rehearsal at all, so this wouldn't be unprecedented.

As far as a marketing standpoint for their new releases, the date would be excellent. Mothership is due Nov. 12 in the UK, with The Song Remains the Same soundtrack and DVD release exactly one week later, and that alleged concert exactly one week later. Three Mondays in a row of huge Led Zeppelin events? Genius.

Sources hail their advance glimpses of Led Zeppelin DVD

This news originally appeared in an edition of the newsletter "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History."

Led Zeppelin's upcoming 2-DVD set is receiving plenty of attention. I'd like to call your attention in particular to this April 14 article at RollingStone.com with interview quotes from all three surviving members of Led Zeppelin.

In the meantime, I'd like to thank readers for sharing information about their previews of the DVD! Descriptions and summaries have come in from two sources: Dave Lewis, author of the long-running fanzine Tight But Loose, and Gary Moore, host of "Whole Lotta Led" weekdays at 4 p.m. on Los Angeles' 95.5 KLOS.

From Dave Lewis:

My new issue of the Tight But Loose magazine is out now (issue 16). If you read Steve's excellent daily updates, then I'm sure you'll find much to enjoy in the new TBL. It's another mini book packed with features rare visuals, etc. Cost is £8 U.K. sterling. Visit www.tblweb.com for full subscription and ordering details.

About the forthcoming DVD: Forty days to go! Having been lucky enough to have seen a preview, let me tell you it exceeds all expectations. The integrity and sheer detail that Jimmy Page and director Dick Carruthers have brought to the project is just stunning.

For me, personally, this has been a long wait. I was lucky enough to see firsthand the extent of the Zep visual archive as far back as 1981 when I was invited to view the Earls Court, Seattle and Knebworth video masters at the London Swan Song office.

Now, finally, we are all going to see and hear in absolute full splendour the sheer magic of Led Zeppelin live. Excited? We certainly should be! And the waiting is nearly over...

Dave Lewis
April 16, 2003

From Gary Moore:

I got a sampler in over the weekend featuring three cuts on the upcoming DVD. They are as follows:

1.) What is and What Should Never Be / Royal Albert Hall, January 1970 (even though it says 1969, it's the '70 show). A very nice, tight performance of this song with everyone in great form. You notice two things right off. First, it's still a darkly shot show, but there's some welcome lightening of the show. Second, the sound quality is fantastic, especially in Dolby Digital 5.1 channel surround sound. In fact, the sound quality on all the tracks is stellar -- absolutely tremendous.

2.) In My Time of Dying / Earl's Court, May 1975. If the rest of the show is this good, toss out all of your eighth-generation bootlegs because they'll pale in comparison. No contest. This may be the best overall live performance I've seen or heard of the song. There are some slight filtering special effects on a few moments, but overall it's a mesmerizing performance. You see the band's confidence like never before with this upgrading: Jimmy in complete musical domination, Robert selling the message with unbridled fury, John Paul and Bonzo's thrifty, seamless rhythm. Such a high point in their career!

3.) Rock and Roll / Knebworth, August 1979. Beaten down the press, the punkish times and their own personal trials, this is a revitalizing concert showing that they still had it, they never lost it, and they were so set for the 1980s and beyond. Again, terrific sound and video transfer onto DVD.

If the Zeppelin DVD won't persuade Ledheads to get 5.1 sound for their living rooms (and prices are way down now), then it's hopeless. Because this WILL be the next best thing to seeing Led Zeppelin in concert, I guaran-damn-tee you. In fact, for those of us who did see them live, it's almost better because of the proximity and crystal-clear sound.

In short, what I've seen is a joy to watch -- but bittersweet at the same time. You give thanks for what they gave us but feel sadness over how much farther they might've taken us.

Gary Moore
April 14, 2003

Well, what more is there to say than -- Led Zeppelin rocks!

Led Zeppelin set to show 'How The West Was Won'

This news originally appeared in an edition of the newsletter "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History."

A Led Zeppelin live album has been tentatively scheduled for U.S. release on May 27. The rock band's new three-CD set, titled How The West Was Won, combines songs from two performances from June 1972.

These shows include a June 25 set at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, and a concert two nights later at the Long Beach Arena, also in California. The Forum concert included an extended rendition of the song "Dazed and Confused." While the band members jammed to the song, they ventured into two other pieces from the Led Zeppelin catalog: a then-unnamed instrumental piece now known as "Walter's Walk," and the soul/funk-influenced track "The Crunge."

How The West Was Won, which will retail for $26.98 in the United States, is part of a monstrous undertaking on behalf of guitarist Jimmy Page, who for more than 25 years has spoken about releasing a chronological live album of his former band. Page spent several months in a London studio in 2002 preparing this audio set as well as a two-disc DVD collection also expected to be released in the coming months. Led Zeppelin releases are also overseen and approved by Plant, bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones, and representatives on behalf of the estate of the group's late drummer John Bonham.

Led Zeppelin performed hundreds of shows between 1968 and 1980, but until this year the number of concerts available on commercial live albums could be counted on one hand. The only live releases in the past have been the soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same, released in 1976, and BBC Sessions, released in 1997. The soundtrack contained songs from three Led Zeppelin performances at New York's Madison Square Garden, July 27-29, 1973. The other culled various radio performances for the British Broadcasting Corporation, including two live shows in London on June 27, 1969, and April 1, 1971.

A Led-Zeppelin.com report in 1998 said that a video and two-CD set from another London concert could be released by the end of the year. Neither was released, however, that concert -- a performance at the Royal Albert Hall on Jan. 9, 1970 -- is reported to be the centerpiece of the upcoming two-DVD set to be released this year. Additionally, two songs from that same 1970 show had been released in 1982 on the Led Zeppelin album Coda. That album, the first released after the breakup of the band two years earlier, combined the two live tracks with six previously unreleased studio outtakes.

Rumors circulate that additional Led Zeppelin CDs could follow in the coming years, including a new album of unreleased material.

Some fans of Led Zeppelin are familiar with live work by the band not available on commercial CDs but on bootlegs. According to various reports, Led Zeppelin has the distinction of being the most bootlegged band of all time.

The band is perhaps most famous for "Stairway to Heaven," a seven-minute track from its groundbreaking untitled fourth album. That 1971 album also included "Rock and Roll," which is now enjoying new life as a major part of a highly successful Cadillac advertising campaign.

Currently on the U.K. album charts is Early Days and Latter Days, a two-CD best-of compilation issued only in the United Kingdom on Feb. 24. It features these two songs, as well as the band's biggest hit, "Whole Lotta Love," as well as radio staples like "The Song Remains the Same" and "All My Love." Enhanced portions of the CDs include videos of the songs "Communication Breakdown" and "Kashmir."