Underrated Album: In Through the Out Door by Led Zeppelin

In the prime of my Zephead days (high school, natch), I acquired all of their albums through Physical Graffiti, having gleaned from various sources, now obscured in the mists of the past, that the latter albums weren't worth owning. So, the only real exposure I had to this week's underrated album, In Through the Out Door, were the tunes that inevitably crop up on classic rock stations, "Fool in the Rain" and "All My Love." I'd hear them and say "I love this song - why don't I own it?" but whenever I was in a record store, I'd skip right by the Zep CDs, thinking "I own all the Zep I need."

Enter my wife, making a mix CD for her cousin, comprising old favorites they listened to as teenagers, including "All My Love." In an attempt to download the song from emusic, I found that I had to download the whole album, and thought, "what the hell." Turns out it's pretty amazing - when the dust settles, I can see it falling pretty comforably into third place behind IV and Houses of the Holy - definitely above II, Physical Graffiti, I, Presence, and Coda.

Alright, enough with my own underrating of the album - what did the critics make of it, and why did I never listen to it in the first place? It seems that while it was never hated, it was pretty universally seen as a middling record from the very beginning. I found the original Rolling Stone review, which stated:

"Side two consists of three of the least effective songs the band has ever recorded. 'Carouselambra,' the opener, is built on an extremely lame keyboard riff and clocks in at an absurd 10:28. Repetition to weave a hypnotic effect has always been part of the Zeppelin sound, but what they are repeating here is not worth the effort. 'All My Love' and 'I'm Gonna Crawl,' both slow and incorporating synthesized violins, let the record peter out instead of climax. Side one qualifies as occasionally interesting — particularly the heavy-metal square dance, 'Hot Dog,' and Bonham driving a locomotive through the mariachi (I think) beat in the middle of 'Fool in the Rain'—but the only cut I'll return to with any enthusiasm is 'In the Evening.'"

That's the same Rolling Stone that 2 years earlier had said of Presence: "Led Zeppelin's seventh album confirms this quartet's status as heavy-metal champions of the known universe." In the more scholarly quarters of the Pazz and Jop Poll, Zeppelin was never a huge critical favorite, but IV made number 30 and Physical Graffiti made number 25 in the days of P&J's top 30 album poll (there was no poll in 1973, the year of Houses of the Holy), while In Through the Out Door didn't even place in the expanded-to-40 poll of 1979.

Flash forward to the present: Rolling Stone issued updated grades for Zep's albums in 2010, giving In Through the Out Door 3/5 stars; Allmusic rates it 3.5/5, in a mildly positive, but by no means rave review; Q magazine gave it 3/5 back in 2000.

All in all, a pretty poor showing for an album by a band conosidered by many to be one of the all time greats. Is this a case of critics needing to find a weak link in an otherwise stellar catalog? I don't think so.

In some of my other posts, I've argued that bands get derided for straying too far from their perceived roots or strengths (cf Their Satanic Majesties, Liz Phair, Two Virgins). While it would be possible to make that claim with this album, I think there's something a bit more subtle going on: I think it may be a more general confusion about what Zeppelin stood for as a band.

Since its earliest days, Zeppelin was held up as the kings of the newly formed "heavy metal" genre, with fans quick to point out the overwhelming power of songs like "Dazed and Confused," "Whole Lotta Love," and "Black Dog." But what sometimes gets forgotten is Zep's devotion to traditional British folk music, American country, and straight ahead pop. Going back to those two songs that get played on classic rock stations, you can draw a pretty direct line from "Fool in the Rain" and "All My Love" back through "Houses of the Holy," "Dancing Days," "Rock and Roll," "Out on the Tiles," "Living Loving Maid," and "Good Times Bad Times." In terms of the electrified country of "Hot Dog," the antecedents are legion: "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" and "Black Country Woman" to name just the most obvious.

I hear the Zep purists out there arguing that the songs I mentioned may well represent a certain side of Zeppelin, but In Through the Out Door abandons the old heavy side we loved so well. So rather than dwelling on how In Through the Out Door recapitulates old Zeppelin tropes, I want to look at how it advances their genius. What I think is going on with In Through the Out Door is that Zeppelin in finally synthesizing their disparate influences into a unified approach. Where on past albums, the country, folk, pop, and metal tunes were (relatively) separate entities, here, each song contains elements of all their ideas. As an example, throughout the record, Page spins out hooks and solos that are at once catchy, hard hitting, tricky, and electrifying: the countrified solo on "Hot Dog" in particular is a marvel.

So too with Bonham, who demonstrates that the album represents the culmination of Zeppelin's discovery (seemingly between IV and Houses of the Holy) that Black music did not end with Muddy Waters. Put another way, In Through the Out Door has the funk, and not just a "Trampled Under Foot" here, a "D'yer Maker" there: it's a full out rhythmic masterpiece from a band not necessarily known for same. Just check out the drum breakdown on "Fool in the Rain" and compare it to "Moby Dick": it's the difference between an undeniably talented drummer showing off his might, and a genius who no longer needs to.

Obviously, Zeppelin did not intend for this album to be their last (barring the outtakes-only Coda), but in some ways, they couldn't have picked a better way to go out.