If you regress, reverse-chronologically through the 1970s, it’s all very trend-led until you rewind prior to the beginning of glam rock. Then you drop into a sort of crisis of direction in which a lot of the decade’s potential stars aren’t really sure where they’re going. You’ve reached the year 1970, and you’ll be hearing a lot of folk influence, as the overdriven blast of the late 1960s reaches its first “have we gone too far?” moment.
The real gems from 1970 were few. Some artists, such as Mungo Jerry, fully capitalised upon the new laid back trend to deliver wonderfully catchy pop songs. But most other artists seemed trapped in a dungeon of “So is THIS what we’re supposed to be doing now then?”
One band who clearly didn’t care a jot about what they were or were not supposed to be doing, was Led Zeppelin. Their 1970 album Led Zeppelin III might have been experimental, but it was confident and assured throughout. This was a band defining a template, rather than trying to follow one.
Whilst a lot of people allude to the increased folk elements on Led Zep III, there are other ingredients – such as funk, very early electronica, and even a few traits that would not have been out of place in goth. But perhaps the most interesting facet of the album is the contradiction of those diverse musical ingredients, set against Robert Plant’s blues/rock vocal. Even when the backing is pure folk, you can’t really describe the result as folk, because folk singers do not sound like Robert Plant. It’s a really interesting contrast.
Here’s the audio cassette version of the album, which is clearly a later reproduction rather than an actual 1970 product. The giveaway is the cassette casing, in the transparent plastic style typical of the late 1980s or early 1990s. When the original vinyl album was released, musicassettes (as they were then known) were a developing novelty, so if there was a tape version at all, it would not have been part of the frontline distribution drive.
Cassettes from 1970 routinely carried paper labels, and a lot of the pre-records of the ‘seventies had light-coloured opaque plastic casings. By the early 1980s, paper labels were still in vogue, but the trend had evolved much more predictably towards black plastic casings. You would still see off-white or beige casings used for ‘eighties pre-records, but they weren’t as popular as in the previous decade.
The songs on Led Zeppelin III show such breadth, that you have to keep reminding yourself you’re listening to the band who basically invented heavy metal. And who indeed had already basically invented heavy metal, and then moved onto new concepts. You also have to remind yourself that all this ground had been covered in a very, very short time, and it was still only 1970. This was the group’s third album, and the first had only been released the previous year.
You wonder, upon listening to this fascinating work, just how significant the band considered their definition of the heavy rock parameters to be at the time. They were phenomenally successful, so they were not in doubt about the scale of their influence. But moving away from the metal style rather than deeper into it suggested they didn’t see the style itself as of overwhelming importance. Maybe they just wanted to retain their uniqueness as other bands were becoming recognised for the heavy rock style.
Not that Led Zep III is all unique. There’s some very classic blues on there, albeit with a bit of Zeppelin personality woven in. While Jimmy Page may not be the first name to come to the fore in discussions about blues greats, his playing on Since I’ve Been Loving You is almost in the territory of religious experience. Robert Plant’s vocal performance is notably spectacular too, and the tremorous feel of the track, with Page and Plant competing for star billing, is about as unrepeatable as it gets.
But if you want bright and catchy, the choruses of Celebration Day and Gallows Pole deliver the goods on a platter. Right across the album there’s dark, light, power, restraint… It’s monumentally dynamic, without sounding like the band contrived it to be so.
The tape formulation is ferric, and there’s a loud signal hammered down onto the reddish-brown media. Not the most expensive build of pre-record, but for this music, you wouldn’t want anything else.
Tape Tardis 