Cliche? Maybe, but Led Zeppelin IV is a fantastic album...

I've been listening to it in its entirety lately. I was never much of a fan of Four Sticks, but when you shut your brain off from "singles" mode and listen to it in context, what leaps out is how good the band sounded with such a complex piece (for popular music that is - I mean, professional classical musicians laugh at our dissection of any popular music as particularly "complex" when it consists largely of 3 to 5 minute ditties, in 1 of 4 or 5 predictable keys, using the same time signature 90% of the time, and working from roughly a dozen chord progressions) -

But 4 sticks really has Jones and Bonham shining behind the funk. I famously hate The Crunge and think that it keeps Zeppelin from boasting of 5 consecutive "nearly perfect" albums, but I'm come to appreciate (untitled)/IV/ZoSo - whatever we're supposed to call the 4th LZ album as a whole. That's easy to do considering it contains my 2 favorite tracks by them - Stairway and When the Levee Breaks -

Black Dog

Rock and Roll

The Battle of Evermore

Stairway


Misty Mountain Hop

Four Sticks

Going to California

When the Levee Breaks


Damn - a lot of bands would kill for 2 or 3 of these tracks, and this is just 1 Led Zeppelin album.

Yeah, I know they ripped a lot of folks off, but they did it in such an entertaining way, I can look the other way. I mean, everybody rips everybody else off in music. There are only so many progressions.