Ozone Baby - Remaster

Recorded in 1978 at a studio in Sweden owned by Abba, this was intended for the Led Zeppelin album In Through the Out Door, but it didn't make the cut. It was released on Coda, an album of unreleased tracks put out after John Bonham's death.

The entire band's instrumentals come in right at the opening with Robert Plant's vocals starting in soon after. This was Zeppelin's typical style, a straightforward "get it done" 12-bar-blues attitude without very much pretension. It shows something of their character that they were consistent in doing this on one of the last songs done by the classic lineup. Another telling sign of Zeppelin's character: How many drummers do most bands go through? Next to the bass, the drummer is usually the most-rotated spot. Not Zeppelin! Lose the drummer, and that's it, the band calls it quits - but to be fair, growing tensions within the band could have broken them up anyway.

A bit of rock history trivia: Led Zeppelin today is remembered as practically having walked on water. One easily forgets that back when these albums were coming out, while they had a huge fan base, rock critics panned them almost unanimously. Rolling Stone raspberried every single Zep album.