Fist of Doom

In Through the Out Door: Released August 1979



Personnel:
John Bonham – drums
John Paul Jones – bass guitar, keyboards
Jimmy Page – acoustic and electric guitar, production
Robert Plant – vocals


Track listing:
In the Evening (Jones, Page, Plant)
South Bound Saurez (Jones, Plant)
Fool in the Rain (Jones, Page, Plant)
Hot Dog (Page, Plant)

Carouselambra (Jones, Page, Plant)
All My Love (Jones, Plant)
I'm Gonna Crawl (Jones, Page, Plant)


The last release before Bonzo died.

HUG-H

I always loved "Carouselambra" and "I'm Gonna Crawl" as they were the lesser-heard-on-the-radio songs once again.

Decent if not epic album. A shame it wasn't equal to Physical Graffiti in terms of content (It being the final album).

Hokeyboy

Ut-ter crap. I like the tone of Page's guitar on the "Fool In The Rain" solo, and the keyboards on "All My Love". Both are decent pop songs, at best, but that's not good enough. "In The Evening" is the most overrated Zeppelin song of all time. The rest of the album is uniformly uninteresting.

This album was the Worst Bar Mitzvah Present *EVER*!

cungar

I remember my friend and I got the 8 track tape of this in high school. We drove up to Palos Verdes, listened to it once and he threw it off a cliff. He was not happy with the new sound.

Fist of Doom

Yeah, this was Zeppelin's weakest. JPJ as the leading voice didn't work very well.

I do love the packaging, though. Not just the outer "bag" and the different covers, but also the thick inner sleeve (which has held up very well for the 20+ years I've owned this) and, of course, the Swan Song illustrated record. This is why I still love vinyl above all other music media.

Hokeyboy

Reel-to-reels from the Columbia Record Club FTW!

Supermallet

It's a step up from Presence, imo. Carouselambra is pretty crap, but the filler is better than it was on the previous album, and the best songs are Zeppelin classics.

Tscott

I always thought that 'Fool in the Rain' was one of Billy Joel's better songs.

cungar

And All My Love was one of Air Supply's best

cdollaz

Probably my 3rd or 4th favorite Zep album. Faves are Fool In The Rain, Hot Dog, and South Bound Suarez.

wishbone

Another college purchase along with LZ III, Presence, The Song Remains the Same, and Coda. A diverse album for Zeppelin:  it's not bad and it's not great -- it's just kinda there.

"Carouselambra" is a guilty pleasure though... There, I said it! Happy now?!

HUG-H

Yes, Swan Song. You know it was the 70's because I don't think anyone these days would put a naked dude with wings on their label design.

John Paul Jones as "The leading voice"? What, he was in charge of the record?

Hokeyboy

Pretty much, yeah. Page was in the midst of a full-blow smack addiction and Plant pretty much was through with band entirely, especially after the disastrous 1977 tour. In Through The Out Door was, for the most part, JPJ's creative vision.

Falc04

Their weakest album for sure, but still not am un-listenable album. All My Love, Fool In The Rain, and In The Evening were decent okay tunes. But it's obvious at this point, the band was MILES away from their epic debut album....

Rypro 525

I've always kind of wondered if had Bonzo not died, if they would have full into the new wave sound of the 80's, or would the egos have broken the band up

rw2516

As already stated, Page was a full blown heroin addict by this time. Plant had still not gotten over the death of his son during the '77 tour. These two were just "phoning it in". JPJ was the only one who still had his act together and was pretty much in control during the recording. Although Page is credited as producer. JPJ has co-writing credit on practically every song on the album. Previously it might be just one or two on an album. This is the John Paul Jones LZ album.

rw2516

My "what if" belief is that had Bonzo not died they would have put out one more album. We've heard what it most likely would have sounded like, Plant's "Pictures at Eleven". After emerging from the funk over his son's death Plant had a burst of creativity. He most likely would have become the prominent creative force in LZ and we would have gotten the one album with a very "Plant solo" sound that still had a LZ sound, which is how I consider "Pictures at Eleven". I think Plant would have wanted to move on to do the stuff he has done and LZ would have disbanded. Plant's less than entusiastic feelings about LZ reunions reinforces this.

Nick Danger

The inner sleeve is so heavy because the black ink is impregnated with watercolor paint. If you put a little water on it, you can color the pictures. I just did a little section of mine. The money is green.

HUG-H

Maybe the guy that chucked his 8-track copy off a cliff was really pissed that it didn't come with the paint-by-numbers sleeve!

B5Erik

This is the only Led Zeppelin album that I've never owned. I've listened to the whole thing a few times, but it's just so UN-Zeppelin sounding, and I'm not a fan of the styles they adopted for this one.

I'm not a big fan of Led Zep III, either, but I did buy it at one point.

In Through the Out Door just seems so bland to me. They sound tired - like they didn't really want to make the album, but were contractually obligated or something.

HUG-H

Just curious, Fist of Doom, are you also going to cover Coda, SRTS Sndtrk, BBC Sessions or How The West Was Won?

JOE29

I remember when this first was released, I was in High School and they would shove a few of the songs from this album down our throats. It was horrible.
I never liked anything from this album. The songs that they played on the radio from this album were just horrible. Well to be honest, I haven't heard all of the tunes from this album but after hearing the ones they played on the radio I never cared to hear anything from this, and i still don't.
Too bad too, cause Zeppelin is one of the greatest all-time rock bands but this album, no way.

Supermallet

I'm pretty surprised at all the hate for this album. Heaven forbid a band make changes to their sound, right?

I'm not saying it's all grade A material, but it's not nearly the horrible trainwreck people are making it out to be.

Fist of Doom

I'll finish with Coda. The others mostly have songs that are on the studio albums. I doubt they'd get many comments.

Feel free to start your own album-by-album series, though. I love these things.

mickey65

I'm actually one of the few here that like this album...