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Led Zeppelin IV |  | Artist: Led Zeppelin
Label: Atlantic Records
Category: Digital Music Album
Buy New: $6.99
as of 9/9/2010 04:04 CDT details
Seller: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Rating:  1006 reviews
Sales Rank: 493
Genre: album-oriented-rock-music
Media: MP3 Download
Running Time: 2544 Minutes
ASIN: B0011Z5IVE
Release Date: November 13, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 This and Their First Album Were Their Best April 9, 2010
wbiro (Bear, Delaware United States)
They were at the top of their form on this album, nobody else could touch them at the time. I'm not 'song' oriented, I like moody and artful, so the 'Battle of Evermore" made this album for me, with its unusually creative guitar work and vocals. The short songs were solid- technically dazzling and impeccably produced.
Led Zeppelin was never really about lyrics- any end-line-rhyme fillers would do (as in most of rock), as 'Stairway to Heaven' so amply demonstrated (though that one went beyond the limit for me- they should have cut out most of the lyrics and gotten straight to Page's solo, which is why we of Led Zeppelin I vintage kept buying their albums- in hopes of Page bowing something sublime again, which he never did; and for John Bonham to do some creative drum rolls again, which he never did) (though he did get rhythmically creative on this album for those people who like to move their feet)...
This album's short party songs captured the next attention-deficit high school graduation class or two, and, since innovative music died when the FM stations dropped freeform programming just after the release of this album (greedy bastards- they saw how well this sold), it was played (along with other progressive bands from '69-'71) in safe, over-relied upon and ultimately boring and annoying station rotations until the end of the musically-sleepy decade... and from what I've seen from the one-star reviews, until the end of the century and beyond...! (the mainstream stations only stopped playing them in the 80's when they had enough decent new material, and that's when the 'Classic Rock' stations kicked in)...
As for those one-star reviews, most of those are a reaction to the reaction that the music created, or to the overplayed, uninspired, commercial rotations mentioned above, or fans of other progressive (which referred to experimentation and proficiency, by the way) bands of the period; other one-starers just prefer AM-derivative music- happy disco pop or ghetto or crooner or teen-bop or country or (for me worse, but maybe fresh and new in 80's/90's/00's minds) rock derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives (though maybe I've been around too long- I can trace everything back to Chuck Berry), but I don't think it's that- because I remember in the '90's the studio heads flat out saying they wanted 60's pop-like songs (talk about unimaginative bottom-line industry people); and that's probably why Led Zeppelin never put out another album instrumentally like their first and became song-oriented; at least this album dared to create a few artistic moments that were a cut above 'marketable'...
Reasons why this is my favorite album ever March 28, 2010
Alan Gilfoy
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
5 out of 5 stars, no question. Maybe isn't perfect, but to me it seems damn close.
To call it the "Stairway to Heaven album", as great as that song is, is to shortchange the other seven.
Zeppelin has huge stylistic range, and this album does a great job of tightly encapsulating that.
Stairway: Led Zeppelin seemed to excel at songs with an epic-length-storytelling feel, with Stairway as the prime example. We still don't know exactly what the story is here, but after 39 years, I doubt we'll ever figure it out entirely. This song seems to have everything, as so many different sonic elements come together. And even after the culminating explosion of Page's epic guitar solo, they still ain't done. No other song is so gripping.
The Battle Of Evermore has a similarly epic feel to it, and to me, it's the one that makes their Tolkien interest most obvious. The smooth integration between Plant's and Denny's vocals is handled brilliantly.
From the first Zeppelin songs I heard, I was amazed by how well they fused heaviness with sophistication, intricacy, polish, whatever you wish to call it, it's something I feel many heavy bands miss. That's on full display in "Black Dog", "Rock and Roll" and "When The Levee Breaks" in particular.
Zeppelin's blues influences can't be denied, and while they have many such songs in that vein, "Levee" stands out because it seems to be the most uniquely 'Zeppelin' take on such material.
The acidic feel of Misty Mountain Hop, itself with classic Zep instrumentation, seems to be in part a parody of hippie music, and Going to California is in part their attempt at an actual hippie song. Both succeed in that and in many other aspects.
My favorite album ever, with my favorite song ever. And for darn good reasons.
yes, it sounds better March 27, 2010
Justo A. Ruiz
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
To this ears, this SHM edition from japan sure sounds much better and less distorted than previous releases of the same remaster everywhere else.The same, although not so noticeable than in Zepp IV, goes to similar SHM editions of Zepp I, and ZeppII
One of the Greatest Albums of the Rock Era February 24, 2010
popmusicfan (northeastern Ohio)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Led Zeppelin IV (which technically isn't its title, but you can't really have an untitled album, can you?) is one of the greatest albums of the entire rock era. After just about wearing out a vinyl copy, I decided to bite when Amazon offered a download of the mp3 version of the album for $5. Rather than repeating endless words for the many reviews of the album, I will deal specifically with the digital download. The downloadable album is crystal clear -- if it is not technically CD quality, it is difficult to tell. The remastering and the Amazon version is brilliant, with the acoustic instruments of "The Battle of Evermore" sounding clear and resonant. I have never heard any CD version of this album, so it is somewhat difficult to compare the mp3 version to other digital versions; however, it is important to note that this download lacks the overly edgy quality of some of the early digital versions of recordings from the analog era. Excellent music, one of the great rock performances ever, excellent writing, and a solid digitalization with both depth and clarity -- what more could you ask for? Oh, yes, at $5 it is one of the best bargains at Amazon.com.
It's a classic album, it's in my top 10 all time, but let's face it, it is dated February 21, 2010
J. Davis (Columbia, SC USA/Tokyo, Japan)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Well, I like a lot of what people have written about the Zep IV disc. I agree with it. But I do think, due to the limited production techniques of the time, it is dated in its sound when compared to a lot of comparable rock music released today. Even when I listen to the LZ remasters--which I had hoped would have greatly improved the production sound--the IV disc will always be an artifact of its time. For the commenter that was so caustic and dismissive about the disc, it's your opinion...if this guy/gal really feels that way, then that is their business. If this person really believes that LZ IV is without merit, he should probably state from what perspective he considers the album to be such a non-starter. I will say this, when you listen to IV (or any albums of that period) the production techniques are dated when compared with comparable heavy rock music by today's standards (such as Foo Fighters, for example). And one might also consider that, although most of what Zep was doing at the time was novel and nobody had *ever* heard anything like it before, by today's musical standards, a lot of what's on the album is "old hat". There are better guitarists than Page playing today, there are better vocalists than Plant, etc. But that shouldn't detract from what it is that they accomplished AT THAT TIME. And it should be noted that most music is derivative anyway--think evolution by natural descent--everybody who is anybody in pop/rock music today will likely have been influenced by this and other Zep albums, simply because the songcraft is impeccible and it *does* stand the test of time, regardless of whether the production values on the disc are dated. This is clearly a generational thing, seems to me. I grew up listening to this, and was learning to play the songs on it in '74 when I was in high school. To me, Page was a guitar god, and still is--although I follow some of the younger guitar players who are equally as innovative (check out the DVD "It Might Get Loud" for a view of how 3 different generations of rock guitarists view this phenomenon). I suspect others feel that way about White Stripes or Good Charlotte or any other more modern act. Putting the shoe on the other foot, there are artists I hear today for whom I have equal disdain (Lady GaGa comes to mind, given that she is, IMHO, a shameless derivative of the Madonna of 25 years ago, and I really didn't like Madonna then either); and I think that many of these artists are nowhere *close* to the likes of Page, Plant and co. or other "classic rock" artists of that era. To each, his own. It does take an open mind. So, it's no reason to be ugly about it! Regardless of whether this particular reviewer was being imflammatory simply for "kicks" or whether it's a genuine opinion. As my grandmother used to tell me, "opinions are like @ssh0les, everybody's got one". Cheers. jd
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