Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 11/23/1999
Run Time: 68:09
As legend has it,
Led Zeppelin never played the singles game. That's not entirely true --
"Whole Lotta Love" was a gold-selling, Top Five single, while
"Immigrant Song," "Black Dog," and
"D'yer Mak'er" all went Top 20. But since their reputation was built in part through
album rock radio, and since they never released
"Stairway to Heaven" as a single, the impression that they were above hits and singles grew and grew.
Zeppelin fostered it by refusing to issue compilations for years, forcing every fan to become familiar with the group on an album-by-album basis. Things began to change a bit in 1990, when
Jimmy Page assembled the four-disc
Led Zeppelin box, the group's first official compilation; it eventually opened the door for the 1999 release of
Early Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin, Vol. 1.
Early Days focuses on the first four
Zeppelin albums, taking four songs from the first, just two apiece from the second and third, and the entire first side of
IV, along with
"When the Levee Breaks." And for the diehards, a video clip of
Zeppelin performing
"Communication Breakdown" on an English TV show is thrown onto the enhanced CD portion of the disc. It's basically the album longtime
Zeppelin fans thought would never be released: a straight-up greatest-hits album. At one point, this may have been seen as sacrilege among devotees, but at this point, it's hard to imagine who would care about
Early Days one way or another. Apart from the handful of casual fans who just want the radio staples on one disc -- while not caring that other classics are absent -- there really is no audience for this, since it doesn't recontextualize the catalog like the box sets. It's still pretty entertaining, yet
Early Days feels unnecessary. Yet that cover photo is priceless.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Cart 0 items
Login
My Account
Order Status
Help
Listen
