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ITTOD - Why is this the most disliked album of Led Zeppelin?


IzzyBlues

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I'm hoping that the forthcoming remaster clears up the vocals and turns Jimmy's guitar up a bit. When this one came out we played it over and over. As much as I love all the Zeppelin albums, until the remasters came out I mostly listened to PG, Presence, and ITtOD.

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It was laughed at the time because punks thought the paper bag was like hiding porn mags so people couldn't see what you bought.One spiky said one day when he slipped the cover out of the bag 'wheres the tits'.His band actually did a raucous version of Southbound Saurez which was pass able so they must have least have listened to the lp.

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I don't know why Coda gets rubbished so much.When it came out I had changed jobs and just waltzed in to see my old pals in the store and there's Coda in the new releases. For memory I think i got more of a buzz out that lp than ITTOD because it was a surprise,no internet,magazines and tv were full of stuff like Madonna,Simple Minds,Spandue Ballet and whatever was the latest craze in America at the time.I agree with the Dark Lord,I don't trust anyone who dislikes any Zep lp and that includes my wife lol.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I pulled out my Classic Records press of ITTOD tonight, sat down in my music room with a bottle of wine, fired up the lava lamps, and turned off the room lights. Man, that is the way to listen to this amazing album. It really is such an incredible effort, and the Classic Records press sounds like magic. Now, that's how a Tuesday night should be spent. I think of all the Deluxe Edition Remasters I am most excited about the prospect of what ITTOD and Presence may hold in store, and Coda of course, which will be the dark horse of the bunch.

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Pulled ITTOD and listened to it. It's the first time that I've listened to it in an age, and it quite simply leaves me cold. By far the weakest LedZep album. It has none of the drive of the earlier albums, and as someone else said, it just sounds like a Robert Plant solo album. There's a couple of OK songs, but that's it. And there's the awful 'Hot Dog'. i simply can't listen to that!

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Doesn't the feel of these albums depend also on where the listener is in time and space? When this came out I was very young but I liked music on the radio. I was in Des Moines Iowa USA, and in my radio market they consistently paired "All of my Love" with "Roundabout" by Yes as if "Rounabout" was also a new song. The combination worked for me as a young listener transistioning from disco to rock, and it seemed to blend with the time and place. "In the Evening" must have been too heavy for the station I listened to, but they played "Fool in the rain". I bet it was hard to tell if it was a good album or bad in it's time.. sometimes I like it, sometimes I hate it, depending on where I am, how much authenticity means to me, how much chemistry means to me.. I think this is an album with terrible Zeppelin chemistry.. plenty of individual stand out moments.. u kno em.. the P-shuffle and the deep octave guitar solo in FitR, the dirge part in Caroselambra.. etc. But the chemistry.. i don't here it except for All of My Love.. if ..Page hated this song, he sure delivered his best on guitar, and unlike the rest of the album it sounds like he had the vocal track on when he did his guitar..and maybe Jonesy did the bass after the guitar because that matches too.. best guitar solo award goes to the first few seconds of In the Evening..

South Bound Suarez is bad sex. Did Jimmy listen to the vocal (?), the end of his solo doesn't connect right to Plant's lead in "oooh"... ohhhh bad chemistry! "I'm gonna crawl".. roll the credits because you can hear the band's existential blues, the band's end of the road blues, the band's who are we and what are we doing blues.. so real.. too big for it's britches but not too big to fail.. Bonhams not listed in the songwriting credits but the burned note says Dear John.. foreshadowing the end. It's hard to say goodbye to someone you love.. This album is mired in bittersweet melancholy. I've been in the mood for it lately.

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Great album ruined by two songs, 'Hot Dog' and 'South Bound Saurez Rock' that don't fit the mold. They aren't filler, they completely disrupt any coherent concept of the entire album. It reminds me of the mess that was the Eagles final album, 'The Long Run'. Weirdo songs like 'The Greeks don't want no freaks' disrupted the reality that the album contained several hit songs.

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Couldn't agree more on the Eagles lp.Came out when i was working in the store and we had to plug it endlessly.Now I am not an Eagles fan by any stretch but 'Greeks'and the dreadful plodding 'Heartache Tonight'spoilt what could have been great lp.In many ways if i remember there was that air of anti climax with both Long Run,Tusk and ITTOD.Still we sold truckloads of those lps.I love Outdoor despite its flaws.On a separate but related matter, I cannot fathom why people rate Pages solo on Fool.I mean its good but nothing more.To us guitarists just plug in a fuzz box and octavia and go for it.'THE' solo on the album is on I'm Gonna Crawl.

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First post so be gentle. I agree with rgd1 mostly,I never like Hot Dog or Southbound Saurez.When I was 17 and the album first came out I was so excited to buy it and heard a preview on the radio the day before the Australian release date.Once the initial excitement wore off and I got bored,I made a cassette for the car and left those songs out to save me skipping through them and when I got the 1990/1993 remasters I made my own version,once again omitting HD and SS but adding the 1978 sessions from Coda. For the rest of the album the intro of In The Evening is amazing(for me) and Carouselambra is the best track,followed by Fool In The Rain then All My Love .I'm Gonna Crawl is so so.

Great album ruined by two songs, 'Hot Dog' and 'South Bound Saurez Rock' that don't fit the mold. They aren't filler, they completely disrupt any coherent concept of the entire album. It reminds me of the mess that was the Eagles final album, 'The Long Run'. Weirdo songs like 'The Greeks don't want no freaks' disrupted the reality that the album contained several hit songs.

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Bonhams not listed in the songwriting credits but the burned note says Dear John.. foreshadowing the end. It's hard to say goodbye to someone you love.. This album is mired in bittersweet melancholy. I've been in the mood for it lately.

The "Dear John letter" is a euphemism for a good-bye note from an estranged companion.

Are you sure that the one on the cover of ITTOD wasn't for John Paul Jones who joked that Page and Plant lost his phone number before they did their Unledded/No Quarter reunion? :oops:

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Here is my recollections of the music scene when ITTOD was released and why it may be held in a lesser light.Aside from those poncy disco boys and snarly old punks,hard and heavy rock had a changing of the guard.The bands of the late 60s/70s had either disbanded or lost their way.Here is a few examples-Deep Purple,went all funky,Bolin couldn't fill Blackmores shoes,disbanded.Black Sabbath-band was strung out on drugs,made two ordinary lps,sacked Ozzy.The Who-lost Moon,things were never the same.ELP-disappeared for about three years,came back with sprawling double Works vol 1 which was all over the shop with soppyy ballads,jazz and a piano concerto,not very rock n roll.And don't mention Love Beach.King Crimson broke up.Yes -did a great lp with Going For The One,went downhill with Tormato,Genesis went pop,etc.Instead,love or loathe them,we had the likes of Boston,Thin Lizzy,Kansas,Rush,Heart,UFO,Van Halen,etc stomping on Zeps turf.Of course some of these bands had been around awhile but they were just hitting there stride in Zeps absence.Working in the store at the time,there was an air that Zep were past it.I love ITTOD now,but at the time,dare I say it,it sounded a bit old with some stiff competition.Heart in particular had that folksy/rock feel of Zep3 and4,Schenker and Eddie Van Halen were the new guitar heroes,Neil Peart and Alex VH the drummers.Aerosmith released Rocks.And then we had bloody Kiss and Ted Nugent with all there over the top nonsense.I am by no means saying these bands were better or worse,just the music climate had changed.Just ask Johnny Rotten

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Before I am shot down in flames for my above diatribe ,in my defence of ITTOD it was unique,there was not another album like it and there still isn't.I think it was too different with its mix of styles and had an uneven feel to it.I remember one customer in his thirties who bought ITTOD and Discovery by ELO.Next time when he came in he said that Zep were starting to sound like ELO!!?!He said they were starting to sound too smooth and had lost there edginess.I have great recollections of those times,and yes I did get caught up in the punk thing but Zep was my band and I wore out several copies of ITTOD.

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The sad thing about ITTOD is it showed just how far the substance and alcohol abuse within the band had virtually stunted Page's ability and how tired they sounded.

Bonham was totally wrecked by then the only two still compus mentos were Plant and Jones and from all accxounts I have read Plant was not on the best terms with Page by then. Jones was really left to pull it all together with Plant. Plant has said that they were too worn out to have done ITTOD any real justice, even the Knebworth shows were pushing them to their limit. Plant again saying he felt the shows were under rehearsed. I saw them on the 11th of August and you came away with the impression they just weren't on top form that day sadly. Page looked terrible and even though he played his part he was near enough dead on his feet by the end of the show. How he stayed upright that long defies understanding.

Whether we like it or not facts have to be faced about the statew of Zeppelin by late 1979 and what had preceeded 1979.

the termination of the US "77 tour through Plant's son dying didn't do the band any favours along with the fact Plant was getting more and more disturbed by the drugs, drink and violence surfacing in the background. Plant had alluded to all this quite openly a few times and if you look at what a lot of other people have said it all adds up to a pretty murky picture.

Plant and Jones were always the fairly level headed ones in the band, Bonzo was a loose cannon and Page with his wreckless excesses were slowly bringing the band down musically and every other way it seems. One of the reasons Plant won't go near the idea of reforming the band ( apart from a lot of other reasons) is he saw the way the whole monster they created devoured Bonham and got way out of control, Plant hasn't got over any of it in quite the same way Page has.

Page was mediocre and shadow of himself on ITTOD and it made the album sound too bland in places, this wasn't all four of them firing on all cylinders it was two of them, one of which wrote most of the music based around keyboards hence the overall ambience of the album. I think if Zeppelin didn't have to coincide the album with the Knebworth shows it would have been a lot different and if Page in particular had got his head on straight. It has it's place in musical history as the swansong of Zeppelin.

I remember hearing Hot Dog at Knebworth and cringing at the appalling guitar in it ! This was a track off the new album??!! It had to get better although a lot of people I spoke to didn't

expect it to somehow with the talk of Page's heroin and drink madness. Then we got In the Evening. Looking back I think it sounded fresh and exciting at Knebworth because we'd just been treated to the Violin bow extravaganza and the phased drums from Bonzo, it hid a multitude of sins that night. We finally got the album and sat and scrutinized it listening to it.

It wasn't the Zeppelin we knew and loved, but it was Zeppelin all the same and as such we were determined to find a place in our collection for it. You wanted to defend the album even with all it's shortcomings. We're fanatics after all right! The standout track is of course Carouselambra, Jones must have been in his element with that piece, the words are very telling as well as to the state of mind within the band at the time. they were run down and worn out by then. Mind you think about it..where do you go after Presence?

I can't listen to that album a lot as it's depressing to hear this monumental band staggering through the album and almost grinding to a halt, very very depressing.

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Well said Kolibri.Living on the other side of the world we only had the British music rags to read what was going,but I remember seeing a clip of Hot Dog at Knebworth on a late music show and thinking 'this is terrible.Page all sweaty and washed out,messy guitar and dressed like he was an accountant going to a cocktail party.Bonham looked all pudgy and upon reflection Keith Moon was the same before his untimely demise.The main thing that was missing was the fire in the band and even though there are great moments on the lp there is none of the edginess of Presence mainly because Page is missing in action and despite keyboards being a vital part of Zeps sound they were a guitar driven band

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I have no big complaints about the album. But if I were Led Zeppelin I would have switched the titles of the album and the first song. So I would have called the album In The Evening and the song "In Though The Out Door". In The Evening would be fitting for the cover photos and "In Though The Out Door" would be fitting with the words of the song. Also the first words of the first song would be saying the albums' title, adding a little eeriness to the situation.

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I'll never understand how this album can be thought of as anything short of great if one understands what made Zeppelin so special. I've always felt it was their crowning achievement stylistically. There is so much wonderful variety on the album. It is often said that Page is absent on this record, for reasons I don't understand, for some of his finest moments are on this record. The explosive solo that launches the mid section of "In The Evening". The gorgeous tone of his melodic solo on "South Bound Suarez". "Hot Dog" is amazing due to his guitar licks and "I'm Gonna Crawl" features his finest and most elegant solo that he ever put on record.

Robert's finest moments as a lyricist are on this album (Fool In The Rain, All My Love, I'm Gonna Crawl).

The melancholy on this album is so sweet that it drips for longing.

I always felt that the songs flow with an emotional concept, shifting from one mood to another. You have the sheer joy of South Bound Suarez, the bittersweet love of Fool In The Rain, a moment of humor with Hot Dog (which is always essential), you have the seeds of adventure and journey with Carouselambra, sorrow and the hope of future in All My Love and the after hours blues of I'm Gonna Crawl that brings everything back home again.

So there is more to In Through The Out Door than what meets the eye. Add to all of this the aesthetic joy of the packaging and various album covers and you have Zeppelin saving their best for last.

This album sounds better and better with time. The detractors are free to dislike it but the album itself endures. As does all the work of this amazing band.

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I'll never understand how this album can be thought of as anything short of great if one understands what made Zeppelin so special. I've always felt it was their crowning achievement stylistically. There is so much wonderful variety on the album. It is often said that Page is absent on this record, for reasons I don't understand, for some of his finest moments are on this record. The explosive solo that launches the mid section of "In The Evening". The gorgeous tone of his melodic solo on "South Bound Suarez". "Hot Dog" is amazing due to his guitar licks and "I'm Gonna Crawl" features his finest and most elegant solo that he ever put on record.

Robert's finest moments as a lyricist are on this album (Fool In The Rain, All My Love, I'm Gonna Crawl).

The melancholy on this album is so sweet that it drips for longing.

I always felt that the songs flow with an emotional concept, shifting from one mood to another. You have the sheer joy of South Bound Suarez, the bittersweet love of Fool In The Rain, a moment of humor with Hot Dog (which is always essential), you have the seeds of adventure and journey with Carouselambra, sorrow and the hope of future in All My Love and the after hours blues of I'm Gonna Crawl that brings everything back home again.

So there is more to In Through The Out Door than what meets the eye. Add to all of this the aesthetic joy of the packaging and various album covers and you have Zeppelin saving their best for last.

This album sounds better and better with time. The detractors are free to dislike it but the album itself endures. As does all the work of this amazing band.

Couldn't have said it better myself!!!!

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