re: Most underrated Zeppelin tune

quote:

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I wasn´t around when the album came out, so I don´t know how it was marketed/promoted.

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At that point, Zeppelin was a monster. Because they refused to allow Stairway as a single, Runes/ZOSO/IV was purchased like a single (made tham all rich) - Physical Graffitti was a double album - an early example of one that was a hybrid of new material, previously unreleased, etc. In addition to confusing people with "Houses of the Holy" (the ditched title track from the previous album), it also ran over 80 minutes.

And they only released 1 single from the record in 1975 - Trampled Under Foot (b/w Black Country Woman) which barely cracked the Top 40 in the U.S.

Yet it was still #1 album,almost everywhere. AOR loved Zeppelin, despite the somewhat longer run times for some of the songs (Stairway, famously long, as well as Kashmir running over 8 1/2 minutes.)

AOR was almost created for Zeppelin and Pink Floyd of that era - not constricted by the pure "singles" format, they could play a broader range of these tracks, or better yet, whole albums. A lot of the bands in their wake, Heart, Boston, even the NWOBHM acts all trace a good bit of their business model back to this mid-70s - with Floyd's DSOM, WYWH and Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti. One or both of these acts are almost always listed as influences by bands who came behind them.

"Rejecting" the singles model these bands, for good or bad, begged you to listen to the entire album.