Led Zeppelin-Coda (1982)

Once Led Zeppelin officially disbanded following John Bonham's death, Atlantic Records demanded that the remaining members deliver a new album to fulfill their contract with the label. Therefore, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones opted to revisit various tracks that had been rejected and left off their official albums. To begin, Page chose three songs that had been left off their last album, "In Through the Out Door", ironically considered the weakest work in their entire discography. These tracks were the powerful "Ozone Baby", the dynamic "Darlene", and the frenetic "Wearing and Tearing", which are certainly every bit as good as the ones included on the original album. In fact, many fans wondered why none of these superb songs ended up on that album, as some of them are far superior to the officially released versions. There's also room for some outtakes from their first and seminal album, such as the intense cover of Otis Rush's "I Can't Quit You Baby", while "Bonzo's Montreux" is a nod to the late drummer, a showcase of John's devastating instrumental prowess with the drumsticks. The folky "Poor Tom", recorded during the "Led Zeppelin III" sessions, strikes us as the weakest and most predictable track on the entire album. The energetic "Walter's Walk", originally rejected from "Houses of the Holy", along with another cover, this time of the legendary Ben E. King's "We're Gonna Groove", are two of the highlights of an album that, for many, was simply a formality, a kind of epitaph to appease the record label's desires, more interested in new material than in an album full of scraps that, in the hands of any other band, could have amounted to a minor masterpiece.