Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now
This is another one of the very bad records Michael Fremer put on his 2009 Top LP list, while passing over one of Classic’s better titles, the first Led Zeppelin album.
(We don’t like it as much as we used to, but it is still a good record if you get a good pressing of it, something that can never be guaranteed of course. We link to our review of it below.)
Michael Fremer’s web site used to be called called musicangle (now defunct). On this site you would have been able to find a feature called “157 In-Print LPs You Should Own!”
Surprisingly it seems that the link still works. If I had made a list this misguided, it surely would have turned into a “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I was talking about” commentary. I would have felt an obligation to correct the record out of sheer embarrassment if for no other reason.
But this guy never learns. As far as he’s concerned, what worked in 1982 ain’t broke and don’t need fixing.
The List
I can’t begin to count the bad records on this list.
There are scores of them — albums that are so bad that we actually created an audiophile hall of shame section to help you avoid them.
But Michael Fremer holds just the opposite view — he thinks these are records you should own. Now I suppose we can disagree over the merits (or lack of them) of a title such as Houses of the Holy on Classic (reviewed here). It’s a free country after all.
But the reason this list does such positive harm to the record-loving audiophile public, in my opinion, is that MF passes over one of the best records Classic ever cut, Led Zeppelin’s first album, in order to put the ridiculously bright and aggressive Houses of the Holy on the list in its place.