10 Disappointing Albums By Legendary Bands

From the beginning of the '70s onward, Led Zeppelin looked like they were on the verge of signaling a new regime of rock and roll. While Jimmy Page may have grown up in the same blues traditions that gave us bands like the Yardbirds, making riffs of his own turned into some of the biggest songs that hard rock would ever see, like the main line in Black Dog or the epic scope of something like Kashmir. As much as they may have defined the '70s, the decade they gave birth to isn't one they would survive intact either.

As the sessions for Presence came to a halt due to Robert Plant's recent car accident that ended with him in a wheelchair, In Through the Out Door sounds like the band playing catch up for the first time in their career, chasing after the new sound while not necessarily understanding what that new sound should be. For all of the people that like to heave insults at songs like Hot Dog off of this record, there are a fair share of highlights to be found here, from the lovely ballad All My Love to Bonzo laying down one of the best grooves of his career on Fool in the Rain.

Although this may have been looked at as a transitional record at the time, we'll never know what that new version of Zeppelin would look like, with John Bonham passing away before the tour for the album started, with the rest of the band breaking up around him. All we're left with is a few decent songs and a peek at what an '80s version of Led Zeppelin may have looked like.