The most prominent thing I dislike most about Zeppelin is how it all utterly unraveled those last five years... from flying so very, very high (those first seven incredible years and six studio albums, climaxing in the triumph of Earl's Court, an unbroken creative run still unparalleled and unequaled to this day) to sinking so very, very low (rampant substance abuse, tragedy, wanton violence, and death). They began as the best contemporary band of our lifetime... they ended like it was one of Scorsese's gangster epics; where everything turns dark and tragic (and bloody)... and you just KNOW one of the principal characters isn't going to make it out alive, and so it went, alas... Some of it was unavoidable tragedy but a lot of it was just plain self-immolation, and that's the biggest regret of all, because had Jimmy's muse not been washed away in a heroin daze and Bonzo not topped himself, there was still great music to be made... not IV or Physical Graffiti great, but they absolutely had another Houses of the Holy left in them, probably after a long hiatus from each other and a reunion in the late '80's or early '90's when Jimmy had conquered his demons and got healthy again... listen to Coverdale/Page and it's clear he still had the riffs, and with Robert's increasing foray into world music at that time and since, there was still some seriously fantastic music to be made with those four individuals... 'Most High' could have been on Physical Graffiti... there were still whole new sonic textures left to explore. But Bonzo wanted to drown his sorrows that fateful night...

This, absolutely this... Zeppelin have and always will sound better on analog-sourced vinyl; the new remasters sound genuinely great - the vinyl editions especially - but you simply cannot replicate the expansive dynamic warmth of an analog recording in digitized 1's and 0's, no matter how good the remastering or the engineer, it's a fact of nature.

With the exception of 'Darlene', there's nothing musical I don't like about Zeppelin - I love 'D'yer Maker', a lovely, sunny little number that brightens the mood whenever listened to (much like Houses of the Holy in general) - but if there's one complaint I could level against the mighty Zeppelin, an actual complaint and not a preference that something or other was different to how I would have done it, would be the standalone remastered CD editions of the recent remasters not coming in the original inner sleeves... or indeed, any inner sleeves at all, leading to quite a few folks getting scratched or scuffed discs, and that's a shame because the extra care and attention to detail on the remasters, musical and otherwise, was exemplary... I'm betting the upcoming 3-CD set of BBC Sessions will also lack any inner sleeves, alas...

Whatever happened to Jimmy Page the sonic perfectionist? The sound quality on 'Sunshine Woman' is atrocious for an official release, this is bootleg territory here, quality-wise... but I guess they needed something to hang the newly-remastered release on.

What explains those changes you lament is Jimmy and Kevin Shirley having to edit the music to fit the visual edits, of which they were legally restrained from changing... even 'Celebration Day' had to be mixed to fit the previously-edited visuals, despite it not making the final theatrical cut of the movie itself. Oh c'mon... a botch? Not even close. The only problem with the 2007 edition and HTWWW was unfortunate compression in the final mastering (and in the latter, the exclusion of three tracks)... other than that, they rocked and were both most welcome. It's possible that HTWWW might get a vinyl release, but don't hold your breath, ditto a 24/96 remastered edition of the 1976 TSRTS, but I don't think either is likely anytime soon... but then, I never thought - and indeed publicly stated as such on another forum - that BBC Sessions would get the very treatment it's receiving now, so who knows?

This. The remasters beginning in 2014 are what drew me back to Zeppelin, and thus having the option of the very best sounding editions of the albums on any format of my choice has been a blast. It's fantastic that Jimmy is remastering/expanding BBC Sessions and damn the critics; we finally get 'White Summer'/'Black Mountain Side' in a new remastered form, we finally get 'Sunshine Woman' - which I've never heard as yet - and it's all been given a new spit-and-polish by John Davis, whose work on the aforementioned remasters was nothing short of a revelation. So count me in... with both feet.

Well, we're finally getting a proper, remastered release of 'White Summer'/'Black Mountain Side'... now we know the reason for it's (seemingly) inexplicable exclusion on the expanded Coda deluxe edition last year. And the new edition has been remastered by John Davis, so I'm betting it will sound significantly better than the original 1997 release. Say what you want about Jimmy Page, but the old Magus can still surprise .

Look on the bright side, Kelly; if Jimmy absolutely has to play it in court like he did back in the day, maybe he'll come in dressed in the poppy suit - or dragon suit, it's his prerogative - wired out on coke, with the double-neck Gibson in hand and a Marshall amp all ready to go... I'd kill to be a juror in that circumstance, wouldn't you???

I agree the original mix of TSRTS is superior to it's later counterpart, but on the latter, they didn't cut anything out... on 'No Quarter' or any other song; the 2007 version was a completely new mix from scratch that for the most part was to match the onscreen visuals of the accompanying film. That being said, Jimmy Page should absolutely have transferred the original mixdown master tapes of the '76 TSRTS into 24/96 files and remastered them with Kevin Shirley when they were working on the 2007 version, and released them both as a single four-disc box set, giving people the option which version to listen to and both in immaculate sonic presentations. At least the '76 version is still available to buy... both versions have their pros and cons, buy both, listen to both, enjoy both, that's what I do.

All the new remasters are sourced from the original analogue mixdown master tapes - including Presence - and both Jimmy Page and John Davis have said there was no new remixing on any of the albums, so I'm assuming/presuming the extended 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' is the original version... in fact, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Jimmy admitted to there being a manufacturing error back in the day that cut out the original fade-in and was thus restored years later. Could be mistaken, I'm sure someone will set me straight if I am. That guy on Youtube complaining about the new remastered II in comparison to the Classic Records release is a vinyl snob; there's a sect of them out there that believes anything digitized is automatically inferior to it's initial analogue equivalent. I'll take the new remasters over any previous releases, including first presses, they sound spectacular... but that's just me.

If they'd tried to pull a legal caper like this back in the heyday of Zeppelin, it wouldn't have even got to court... aside from Steve Weiss killing it where it stood in advance, the Spirit people would likely have gotten a visit from Peter Grant and Richard Cole (maybe John Bindon too), and the case wouldn't be the only thing thrown out the window!!! Ah, them were the days .

Exactly, the plaintiff just blinked and showed his cards to his opponent, if they were confident of victory, they wouldn't be offering terms of settlement, this farce is over bar the gavel.

Not going to speak about Canadian politics or it's relationship with their (madder) southern neighbours, but what I will say is I had the privilege and delight to live in Canada for eight weeks in June-August 2007 (visiting family who was studying at seminary), just outside Winnipeg in Manitoba... wonderful country, wonderful people, and there hasn't been a day since that I wish I wasn't back there, I wouldn't have left if I didn't have to!!! I had a chance to return there again for a month in 2009 (travel expenses paid to boot!) and I foolishly declined for personal reasons, damn. Oh Canada indeed.

In my opinion, there will never be another Led Zeppelin again in our lifetimes; in terms of sheer unequaled innovation, quality, and vision... and certainly not in mystique, not in this Youtube/Twitter/Facebook-dominated social media age. Zeppelin were a perfect storm of personality, experience, influences, and era that captured something so alchemical that it simply cannot ever be repeated, it just couldn't. In terms of sheer chemistry between band members making the collective band more than the sum of their parts, the only rock band to come close to Zeppelin is the Appetite For Destruction/Lies line-up of Guns N' Roses, but they imploded in a few years, so never achieved their full potential in my opinion.

It never was an audiophile production (a lot of people thought the original release sounded muddy overall), but the new remaster sounds absolutely terrific. As far as bottom end goes, 'Kashmir', for example, never really had it to begin with...

It wasn't looking at you like you were some kind of mutant, the poor moggy was fearing for it's life... Jimmy sounds like he's strangling a cat on that number, ye gods!!!

I'm gonna be a minority of one here, go firmly against the grain, and state that the original studio version is still the definitive version for me. Jimmy can't recreate the famed 'guitar orchestra' live (for obvious reasons), and it's that just incredible wall of sound on said track that lifts it from greatness to realms stratospheric, hairs on end every time and never gets old... I pity the fool who doesn't embrace the joys of 'Achilles Last Stand'... indeed, or the album it came from.

Get the original 1976 version of TSRTS... it goes for peanuts on CD at Amazon, and it'll give you a good taster of Zeppelin live. And the versions of both 'No Quarter' and 'Dazed and Confused' on it are absolute world-beaters too...

Is that the real reason why the band seemingly went to ground after Knebworth, I've always believed that it was because Percy didn't want to leave his family, and understandably so, and it was only when he felt good and ready again in spring 1980 that they agreed to do the Over Europe tour... am I wrong in that analysis? I always felt if Percy didn't want to undergo an extensive new tour after Knebworth, at the very least, a tour of Japan in late 1979 would have been a good compromise; about a half-dozen shows, playing to their second largest marketplace, and the whole excursion wouldn't have lasted for more than ten days tops, plus it would have kept them active as both a unit and as individuals... but the ten months of inactivity between the two performances (Knebworth and Over Europe) undoubtedly contributed to both Jimmy Page, John Bonham, and Richard Cole sinking ever deeper into the quagmire of their addictions, and look at how that ended up, they lost everything soon after, a Japanese tour would have focused their minds on something other than getting zonked, alas...

Amen.

With what precisely, you think Zeppelin should have continued after Bonzo drank himself to an early grave? Whom should they have replaced him with, and more pertinently... why? They didn't just make the right decision, they made the only decision they could have made... for themselves, for the band, for their legacy, but most importantly, for Bonzo and his memory. Zeppelin without Bonzo wouldn't have been Zeppelin; it would have been the three surviving members and some new guy... just like the 2007 gig, and that concert - however honorable the reasons behind it (and Jason's poignant participation in it) - just didn't feel like Led Zeppelin to me, and still doesn't. I've said it here before and I'll say it again once more for emphasis... thank God for Robert Plant stopping any reunion tour in it's tracks.

Jimmy is right to be somewhat coy and evasive in interviews, he's there to talk about the music, not regale the masses with lurid stories about drugs, Lori Maddox, and Aleister Crowley... Stephen Davis already did that 30 years ago!

Ohhhh boy, that topic title alone is deliberately provocative and I said it wouldn't lure me in, but.... I wouldn't make a declarative statement that the companion discs are "rubbish" because from what I've read since the remasters campaign started, a lot of people have greatly enjoyed the companion material, so they're clearly not rubbish to them good folks. With hindsight, Jimmy maybe should have not worried what was on bootlegs and just released the best companion material he had, period, so the likes of 'Swan Song' and the extended 'All My Love' would have been certain for inclusion... that's just my opinion, but then again, I haven't purchased any of the deluxe editions, didn't feel neither the need nor urge to do so, the albums by themselves do just fine for me (Coda is a whole other matter however...), but I take nothing away from those who really enjoy the companion discs, horses for courses and all that. As I've stated before, the only real fault I can lay at the remasters' door is the fact that the standalone CD editions didn't come with protective inner sleeves, and thus some people got scratched and/or scuffed discs they had to return, other than that, it was a success all round. We have some very excellent official live audio material indeed, granted (and as you point out) it's from 1972-73 and nothing after that has been officially released in album form, but that's because for the most part, it's not worth releasing in album form what they have in the multi-track archives; Earl's Court 1975 is the only real and likely contender for a possible future album release, and none of the 1977 shows were multi-tracked at all, plus by 1979-80, the band had their moments but were far from at the top of their game live for reasons only too well discussed elsewhere and since, even Kevin Shirley commented on some of those later multi-track recordings he heard back in 2002, and he wasn't exactly complimentary about them either... miaow! Just enjoy what we have so far and be thankful for it, and don't worry about what we don't have, Jimmy ain't taking his dirt nap for a while yet (God willing)...

The new track is pretty good - and catchy - and certainly a lot better than I expected... but then again, I think I've been unfairly hard on Maiden in recent years; they're 1980's canon remains superb and essential, their 1990's canon can basically be ignored and you lose nothing, but since the return of Bruce and Adrian back into the fold in 1999, they have progressed musically significantly more than I have given them credit for; they're still unmistakably Maiden and certainly tend to have over-repetitive choruses or the same soft, strumming intro to songs more than they rightly should, but they are still a remarkably strong and interesting band all told that's more popular now than they ever have been in their 40-year history... and that's a hell of an achievement in itself. I always will believe they never were as musically varied and diverse a band in their material as they could or should have been, and they'll never produce anything as remotely monumental as 'Stairway to Heaven' but it's good to know a band like Maiden still exist and are still thriving, doing it old-school all the way... good luck to 'em and God bless 'em. It's been a pretty great day for old-school metal today... first a new Maiden track followed by a new W.A.S.P. track... .

I've heard it from multiple journos over the years that JP is very different when the tape recorder is off than he is when it's on; in the latter case, they get the tense, evasive, and (sometimes) overly defensive Jimmy, but when the tape recorder is turned off, he immediately lightens up and relaxes and becomes the more open and forward Jimmy, smiling and chatting away... ah, the man of mystery, hiding in shadows and peeking around corners ... YEAH BABY!!!