“Had enough of the whole thing”: Why Robert Plant wanted nothing to do with ‘Coda’
Putting out an album isn’t always the artist’s choice. The biggest names in music still have higher-ups they have to answer to, and even if they aren’t at their creative best, they might still have to go into the studio kicking and screaming to fulfil their record contract. While Led Zeppelin had reached a point where they could hardly be touched by anybody, Robert Plant felt that some of the releases that their record company put out were completely pointless.
When the band first started, though, there was no reason to put out anything that didn’t have Jimmy Page’s seal of approval first. While the band themselves operated as a democracy half the time, Page was the one steering the ship half the time, so hearing him put out their material as an album first without singles is half the reason why a lot of their best songs held up so well.
That’s not to say that there weren’t greatest moments that didn’t work in chunks. ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is still one of the finest ballads in rock history, and ‘Immigrant Song’ is the best example of a precursor to heavy metal, but if they aren’t taken in with the rest of their respective albums, fans are leaving a lot of great deep cuts on the table, whether that’s ‘Tangerine’ or ‘When the Levee Breaks’.
Right as the band started branching out into new territory, no one could have predicted that John Bonham would pass away. Despite being known as one of the most indestructible men in rock and roll, Bonzo sadly died in tragic circumstances. They could have continued if they wanted to, but who else was going to have that kind of animalistic sound behind them?
So, while stopping might have been the best policy at the time, the record label had other ideas. Even if there wasn’t much new material to speak of, Coda was put together as a posthumous release by the group, even having a nice tribute to their late drummer by showcasing his soloing on ‘Bonzo’s Montreux’ and including a handful of leftovers from their albums.
Outside of a few decent tracks, though, Plant thought that putting out this kind of record was entirely pointless, saying, “I didn’t have anything to do with it. When Coda was discussed, I really had—I don’t know, I’d just kind of had enough of the whole thing. If you start playing for something other than just kudos and money, then that should be part of the motive all the way through. And when Bonzo died, it’s the only reason to start staying actively involved with Led Zeppelin.”
Admittedly, it’s not like anyone expected the long-awaited masterpiece to come from beyond the grave. Everyone wanted the opportunity to hear a new version of Led Zeppelin, but given how little meat is on this record and its inclusion of another version of ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’, the whole record feels more like an extended bootleg that happens to have the record company’s seal of approval.
While it might have been a fine way of ushering Zeppelin into the age of CDs in the 1980s, Coda is still the last place someone should go if they’re looking for the pure Zeppelin experience. It still has its fair share of surprises like every Zeppelin album, but it’s hard to judge a song like ‘Ozone Baby’ on the same level that everyone looked at ‘Rock and Roll’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’.
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