EARLY DAYS: THE BEST OF LED ZEPPELIN VOLUME ONE

I remember when I first got into Led Zeppelin I first bought their anonymous or "IV" album. I just got amazed by it until today. And then I bought this. Well, it served me as an introduction to their early work, being all of the songs on this compilation are the most known ones and maybe the highly liked songs from Zep, but I'd prefer to buy the studio albums because some songs are missing, like "Heartbreaker", "You Shook Me" (despite it's a cover it shows the big fame of Zep covering songs from other artists, something that can be well appreciated in the compilation "BBC Sessions", my favorite compilation of the band), "Thank You", "Living Loving Made (She's Just A Woman)" and the tremendous drum of "Moby Dick", among others. From the fourth album there are songs from almost all of it, the obvious to be included masterpiece "Stairway To Heaven", the powerful "Black Dog" and "Rock And Roll", the folkish "The Battle Of Evermore" and a song I really don't understand why is here, "When The Leeve Breaks", which is not representative at all of the sound of the band on their early days. On this compilation there are also the good ol' classic ones, "Good Times, Bad Times" (which starts the album), "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", "Dazed And Confused", "Communication Breakdown", the rocker "Whole Lotta Love", "What Is And What Should Never Be", "Immigrant Song" and the amazing blues "Since I've Been Loving You", which are a good introduction to the band. Also, the booklet comes with pictures in a timeline sequence starting from their earlier days on stage to their later days.

Overall, it's a good intro to Zep, but the four first albums are so good that can't be 'reduced' into 13 songs, there are great songs that are missed, it's not essential. So, if you haven't got into Zep yet, you should buy the "IV", then the amazing compilation "BBC Sessions" to have a great idea of the sound on the early days, and then their first 3 albums.

Rating: 3/5