Houses Of The Holy (1973)

Houses Of The Holy (1973)

Here’s where things begin to get a bit messy. Led Zeppelin’s first six albums — particularly the first four — are so revered, so firmly established as massively influential classics, that ranking them turns into some balancing act between acknowledging that influence and reach, and those inescapable things like “bias” and “personal taste.” So, if I’m being honest: If I were to throw on a Zeppelin album from beginning to end today, chances are it’d be Houses Of The Holy before any of the first four records, which might be partially rooted in the fact that I didn’t listen to this as much as those records back when I was obsessed with this band. But, also, with the far-reaching influence of Zeppelin in general, you’re talking about a danger of over-exposure of songs that, while remaining great, become increasingly difficult to hear on any terms beyond “This is a very famous Led Zeppelin song that was long since established as iconic before I ever came across the band, that I can understand from an objective standpoint is a great rock song.” It’s harder to find your own way into that kind of stuff.

There are still a lot of famous Zeppelin songs on Houses Of The Holy. But this is sort of the second tier stuff — not in terms of quality, but in terms of the order in which you’d likely explore this band. Once you get past “Whole Lotta Love” and “Black Dog” and that whole lot, there’s stuff like “Dancing Days,” which is a perfect song. (To be fair, I’ll probably say that a few times over the course of this list.) Material like “The Rain Song” or “No Quarter” is the kind of stuff I (and, I’d imagine, a lot of other kids first getting into classic rock) was tempted to skip; I now find them more evocative than a blues rock song, but they’re songs you need to let unfold, or songs you need to wade into. Zeppelin hadn’t lost their rock side, entirely, of course, considering “The Ocean” is amongst their best rock songs.

In their relatively young career, Zeppelin had already proven supernaturally adept at playing with genres, combining different strands of things to create something new, as it goes. This is, after all, a major part of why they’re credited with what they are. Houses Of The Holy marked a more distinct turn of experimentation, though, jumping from “D’Yer Mak’er” and “The Crunge” (these days, those are the songs I’m tempted to skip) to ostensibly more traditional Zeppelin stuff like “Over The Hills And Far Away” and “The Song Remains The Same,” songs that grew naturally out of what the band had already done into more complex directions. Overall, it makes for a slightly less streamlined listening experience than some of the other records. For some reason, Houses Of The Holy has always struck me a record compiled of songs that had been re-recorded after not making it onto other records, despite the fact that this isn’t true, and the fact that a lot of this did mark a stylistic shift from the first four albums. Either way, there’s obviously incredible stuff here, but Houses Of The Holy will probably forever be the sort of album recommended as a “next step” once you’ve thoroughly dug into the slightly more famous Zeppelin albums.