Old Enough to Forget

Hailed as one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever, Led Zeppelin II would peak at number one on most charts around the world when it was released, and would go on to sell more than 12,000,000 copies in the US and just shy of a million here in Canada. My earliest memories are hearing this constantly on my cousin's record player. "Whole Lotta Love" would be a confusing song to me for years and years as I had no idea Robert Plant wasn't saying, "You need Kool-Aid." Make no mistake it was an awesome song, but it was too weird for me at the same time. It didn't help that when Houses of the Holy came out the only song I heard on the radio was "D'yer Mak'er" a song that to this day makes me throw up a little in my mouth when I hear it. The cover was cool though, and my cousin's had it tacked to their bedroom wall. My cousin's were cool. When the band released In Through the Out Door in 1979 it was a perplexing record, as "...

On his third solo effort in 1985 Robert Plant pulled out all the stops, loaded up the synthecheesisizer, threw in a kitchen sink and pressed record. It's funny how at the time Robert Plant seemed like some old dude who'd been around forever and was enjoying a career resurgence with his solo career. He was re-inventing himself as an artist who took chances and wasn't afraid to embrace new trends. His previous album The Principle of Moments from 1983 had some killer songs on the radio that I liked and found irritating at the same time. Oddly enough when the Honeydrippers EP dropped it was massive, and there was something endearing about "Sea of Love" and this seemed to earn him a lot of goodwill with me as when Shaken 'n' Stirred came out I was intrigued by the video for "Little by Little" and really enjoyed the song. My old roommate Otto and I had pretty similar tastes in music, and he bought the CD and I think I played it once and dismissed it ...