In the evening when the day is done, I'm looking for a woman

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.

16/09/79 : In Through The Out Door - Led Zeppelin

Our SIXTH visit with Led Zep (they only made nine albums) and it's been a very mixed bag, so who knows what we're going to get here...

Hmmm - it's a peculiar one. There's an argument it's not really an album because it doesn't have actual songs on it - most of the tracks are just extended riffs with a few random words thrown in for good measure, with the one obvious exception to this being "Hot Dog", which is a weird country/rock and roll thing which wasn't very Led Zep at all. However, the extended riffs are all pretty good extended riffs with some impressive musicianship on display and I particularly liked "All Of My Love". So if you're in the mood for some late 70s rock noodling (which I rarely am) this feels like it would hit the spot nicely - but you probably already know that if you're the sort of person who'd listen to it.

We're at #2 in the charts this week on its third week of a fifteen week run, with it having spent its first two weeks at #1 - what a coincidence that people liked late 70s rock in the late 70s! The rest of the top five were Gary Numan (a new entry), Cliff Richard, Electric Light Orchestra and Bob Dylan (oh good - more Bob coming up!) and the next highest new entry was Siouxsie And The Banshees (#13) - it's a shame we won't get to listen to that.

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting on the album (179 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's their eighth album - not officially their last, but there's a decent argument it's their last proper album. It was largely driven by Robert Plant and John Paul Jones because Jimmy Page and John Bonhan were somewhat distracted by heroin and alcohol respectively, so were often absence from recording sessions (JPJ was definitely the sensible one, but it's amazing how healthy JP looks these days). The title refers to struggles the band were having after the death of Robert Plant's son and being tax exiles, which meant they weren't allowed to play the UK for two years. 

It also had a ridiculously complicated album cover because "the outer sleeve was made to look like a plain brown paper bag, reminiscent of similarly packaged bootleg album sleeves with the title rubber-stamped on it, and the inner sleeve featured black and white line artwork which when wiped with a wet rag or sponge would activate an invisible ink and become permanently colored" - I've read it a few times and I'm still not sure I really understand, but Storm Thurgerson was responsible so it's probably quite cool. Critically, the reviews were mixed because the emphasis on keyboards rather than guitars wasn't generally viewed as a good thing and afterwards the band themselves didn't seem overly convinced either but commercially, it did very well, getting to #1 here, the US and the all important New Zealand market.

Before I go to discogs.com, I'm guessing if there are any untouched original album covers out there they go for an absolute bomb - and it tells us that four quid will get you a decent copy, but a mint brown paper bag version will set you back £450. Whilst I'm not going to encourage such behaviour, I can understand that what you're buying there is very rare indeed. I didn't mind this and quite liked some of the sounds on it, but I didn't really feel it was a "proper" album.

23/09/79 - Fine if you like that sort of thing