We come from the land of the ice and snow

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

21/03/71 : III - Led Zeppelin

The coincidences continue with our previous two albums having being Kasabian's Act III and our seventh visit with Elton John - so III is obviously our seventh visit with Led Zep. And my expectations are considerably higher than they would have been before I met all their previous albums - I've grown to almost like them over the years.

Yeah - you can hear this is them heading in the direction of IV and "Stairway To Heaven". It has one or two misteps for me, but as a whole I thought it was an interesting enough album and I suspect it would be fascinating to listen to them all in order to hear their progression. I was surprised to recognise "The Gallows Pole" from Robert Plant's later version and I also know "The Immigrant Song" from somewhere but I've no idea where (Wikipedia tells me that it was one of the few songs they released as a single - they've only ever had three songs in the singles chart, but this isn't one of them). All in all, I'd say this is interesting rather than loveable on first listen, but it feels like it would be a grower - we're on a decent run of albums here.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on their 21st week of a 22 week run with it having peaked at #1 for its first three weeks and its sixth week - it's managed five runs across '71 and a four week run in '14, giving it 44 weeks in the chart in total. The top five this week were George Harrison (finishing off an eight week run at the top, after which it dropped to #18 - maybe everyone already owned it?), Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Yes and Andy Williams with the highest new entry being Andy Williams (#8 - there's no escaping the man!).

Wikipedia has quite a lot in it (214 milliPeppers) and it surprises us all by telling us that it's their third album - who knew? There are a number of interesting facts that jump out at us - the band chose to write this at "Bron-Yr-Aur, an 18th-century cottage in Snowdonia...with no running water or electric power" which was 3 miles North of the nearest town - which sounds like a nightmare but I can imagine it was a nice change after constant touring. It was also much more of a group effort than previous albums (which Jimmy Page dominated) with everyone contributing compositions and ideas.

However, by far and away the most interesting thing I learned about it was that the release was delayed because of complications with the volvelle - a word I'd never even previously heard (and yes, I searched the blog to check it hadn't come up before). You're much wiser than me, so I'm sure you know what one is - but just in case you don't the volvelle here is a laminated card disc which sits behind the front cover such that when you rotate it, different images show up through the various holes. How cool is that?!? And also, I suspect we're going to find, expensive if you want a copy these days. It was designed by Zacron (not his real name) who Jimmy Page met at Kingston College of Art - Zacron has own Wikipedia entry which basically says "he designed the cover for Led Zeppelin's III - he did a few other things as well, but who cares about them?". 

Back to the music, the critics weren't massively impressed with the album as a whole, with some appreciating the new sound whilst finding the older, heavier stuff to be "mindless noise" - whilst others, of course, only want the older stuff and described the new stuff as "imitating the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young". Robert Page was badly affected by the criticism and didn't give press interviews for 18 months - but retrospectively everyone came to appreciate it and the '14 re-release was roundly acclaimed by all. Commercially, it did very well globally, getting to #1 in Australia, Canada, Italy and the US - and it's sold over six million copies in the US alone over the years, which is really quite some number of albums.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a re-released version for three quid, but we're obviously going to want one with a volvelle and I'm surprised to see you can pick them up for as little as £20 - however you can spent up to £550 on a mint copy if you feel the need. But, if you really have more money than sense, you can look abroad to pick up super rare copies including a mispress which plays CSNY's Deja Vu on the A side for €1,500, a Japanese test pressing for $3,000 (which doesn't even have a volvelle) or a Lebanese colour-splatter vinyl (which looks absolutely amazing) for, wait for it, €15,000 - wow! Overall, this was an interesting album and a definite gap in my musical knowledge so I was pleased to listen to it, but it wasn't as immediately enjoyable as a whole as it might have been. 

28/03/71 - Another quality album