“Fantastic”: the album Robert Plant calls Led Zeppelin’s phoenix
“I don’t have any favourites.” Robert Plant was blunt when asked about what Led Zeppelin album he held in the highest regard. He explained his answer, though, rather than just leaving the question in the air. It’s not that he thinks all of the albums are too good or too poor to pick the best out of the lineup; rather, he sees the band’s progression in each record and, therefore, considers each one as crucial as the other.
“Each album comes from definitely a different period in the evolution of each of us individually as creators and the role that we take in life,” he said. “The external stimuli changed… so the songs are full of lots of different meanings. Each album has a different atmosphere.”
That said, he is aware that some of the albums didn’t do as well as others, but he still doesn’t look back on their creation with regret. He knows that they had to be made for the band to progress in the way that they did. “The third album and Houses of the Holy seem to be the two albums that people didn’t get off on quite as strongly as the other ones. But I think they contain the basic ingredients for the further pursuance of what we’re doing… the turning point to relieve the tedium of repetition.”
One of the most significant turning points for the band came in the form of Presence. The album came at an important time for the band, when the future of Zeppelin was in jeopardy as Robert Plant continued to recover from a car accident he had been involved in. “Presence was our Phoenix,” he said. “When you sit in a wheelchair and sing the whole album, the very fact that you’ve sung it is fantastic.”
He continued, “We got together in such a short space of time under such odds, not knowing what the outcome was going to be – not of the album but of the future of the band.” Plant then clarified what he meant by not knowing, “The doctors could never really quite tell me, all that time, about how inactive I might have been left from the accident. So we were just kicking it from the very depths of our determination.”
When you look at Led Zeppelin’s discography, it is hard to deny that the band strived to reach new depths with every record. As a musical outfit that loved different genres and styles of music, they were always keen on trying other things with each record; however, this had to be done steadily so that they could develop as a band and reach out to the right audience.
In that instance, it makes sense that Plant can’t pick a favourite album because every album they released was just as important as the last. However, given the challenges that came with Presence, that record stands out as a big moment for the band.
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