Early Days: The Best Of Led Zeppelin Volume 1 CD

This is an Enhanced audio CD which contains regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Led Zeppelin: Robert Plant (vocals); Jimmy Page (guitar); John Paul Jones (keyboards, bass); John Bonham (drums).
This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Personnel: Robert Plant (vocals); Jimmy Page (guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); John Paul Jones (keyboards); John Bonham (drums).
Photographers: Robert Ellis ; Robert Knight ; Carl Dunn; Jay Good; Ulrich Handl; Thom Lukas; Jim Cummins; Ron Pownall; Barry Wentzell; Neil Zlozower.
As legend has it, Led Zeppelin never played the singles game. That's not entirely true -- "Whole Lotta Love" was a gold-selling, Top Five single, while "Immigrant Song," "Black Dog," and "D'yer Mak'er" all went Top 20. But since their reputation was built in part through album rock radio, and since they never released "Stairway to Heaven" as a single, the impression that they were above hits and singles grew and grew. Zeppelin fostered it by refusing to issue compilations for years, forcing every fan to become familiar with the group on an album-by-album basis. Things began to change a bit in 1990, when Jimmy Page assembled the four-disc Led Zeppelin box, the group's first official compilation; it eventually opened the door for the 1999 release of Early Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin, Vol. 1. Early Days focuses on the first four Zeppelin albums, taking four songs from the first, just two apiece from the second and third, and the entire first side of IV, along with "When the Levee Breaks." And for the diehards, a video clip of Zeppelin performing "Communication Breakdown" on an English TV show is thrown onto the enhanced CD portion of the disc. It's basically the album longtime Zeppelin fans thought would never be released: a straight-up greatest-hits album. At one point, this may have been seen as sacrilege among devotees, but at this point, it's hard to imagine who would care about Early Days one way or another. Apart from the handful of casual fans who just want the radio staples on one disc -- while not caring that other classics are absent -- there really is no audience for this, since it doesn't recontextualize the catalog like the box sets. It's still pretty entertaining, yet Early Days feels unnecessary. Yet that cover photo is priceless. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Considering the band's significance in rock history, it is surprising that Led Zeppelin has never had a greatest-hits record. The band has been given box set treatments, but EARLY DAYS is its first single-disc best-of compilation. EARLY DAYS, which is made up of remastered songs and includes several rare photos, is an indispensable collection.
"Good Times, Bad Times," from the band's 1969 debut, thunderously ushers in the era known as acid rock. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a fine example of the group's equally vital acoustic side. "Communication Breakdown" features a Jimmy Page riff that launched a thousand metal tunes. "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Since I've Been Loving You" represent two of Zeppelin's many fine contributions to British blues. All of Zep's FM staples are included here, alongside the Middle Eastern flavored "The Battle of Evermore" and John Bonham's trademark drum sound on "When the Levee Breaks." EARLY DAYS represents the first chapter of a truly "classic" rock band.Entertainment Weekly (12/17/99, p.86) - "...constitutes such a monumental oeuvre that [one disc seems hardly enough]...But with so many bona fide classics...on tap, why complain?" - Rating: A
Q (2/00, p.101) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...an ideal primer for those who fancy hearing what all the fuss was about....astonishingly durable songs which...remain unsullied by one too many spins on the provincial biker pub jukebox..."