Led Zeppelin

Why release another Led Zeppelin best-of compilation? Well, one could argue that, far from losing its relevance, the seminal heavy metal band is more au courant than the army of acts they've inspired, despite only just now making its tunes available digitally. With songs about levees breaking, Kashmir, and Lord of the Rings co-mingling on two discs, Zep's prescience, coincidental or not, is on display. The 24 tracks included were selected by the surviving members, and span all eight studio albums. While there are inevitably some favorites missing, such as "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" or "Misty Mountain Hop," one feels both happily wrung out by the journey from "Good Times, Bad Times" to "All My Love" and desirous of more.

Many who buy Mothership will recognize bits of these song—if they didn't know them already—from P. Diddy's samples, the third Shrek movie, and Chevrolet commercials, but now they'll finally be able to turn the volume up and let the songs sprawl out in all their ridiculous, epic glory. After all, it's great to know the guitar bit from "Stairway to Heaven," but the song itself trumps that lovely little melody as it builds slowly from faeries to rock-church chiming to wild, thumping glory. The whole is better than the highlights here, and while that may seem strange praise for an album that consists only of highlights, the purpose of Mothership is to inspire and send you out in search of the original records it draws on. In short, it works.

—Hillary Brown
11.15.07

Led Zeppelin's reunion for an Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert in November 2007 (pushed back a couple of weeks due to a finger injury Jimmy Page sustained during rehearsals) seemed like a spur of the moment thing -- but how spontaneous could it have been if it just happened to coincide with the release of an expanded The Song Remains the Same on both CD and DVD, the debut of their catalog as digital downloads, and the new two-disc compilation Mothership as a sampler of the whole shebang? Considering this full-scale, multi-prong assault -- which also included a new album by Robert Plant, after all -- it was probably not all that spontaneous. Such a precise attack suits this most mythic of classic rock groups, who always benefited from an enormous sense of scale. Weighing in at two discs and 24 tracks, Mothership has a sense of scale that the previous round of compilations -- the two-part Early Days & Latter Days, delivered in 1999 and 2000 respectively -- lacked, not just because it pushes these two phases together but because it is heavy on the heavy epics, emphasizing Zeppelin's sheer sonic ballast over either their lighter or more idiosyncratic moments. This effects the second disc more than the first, as the band started out heavy and expanded outward, and while it would have been nice if "Fool in the Rain" represented In Through the Out Door instead of "In the Evening," this is a minor quibble as Mothership hits the obvious high points without seeming perfunctory. And that, along with Page's new remastering, is the real selling point behind Mothership: as a compilation it is both gripping listening and a good introduction to this very album-oriented band, which is what makes it a welcome addition to their catalog. [The deluxe edition of Mothership contains a DVD with highlights from their eponymous live DVD -- it's a nice bonus but really, you'd be better off getting the full set.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide