Mothership (2007)
Disc One
1. Good Times Bad Times
2. Communication Breakdown
3. Dazed and Confused
4. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
5. Whole Lotta Love
6. Ramble On
7. Heartbreaker
8. Immigrant Song
9. Since I've Been Loving You
10. Rock and Roll
11. Black Dog
12. When the Levee Breaks
13. Stairway to Heaven
Disc Two
1. The Song Remains the Same
2. Over the Hills and Far Away
3. D'yer Maker
4. No Quarter
5. Trampled Underfoot
6. Houses of the Holy
7. Kashmir
8. Nobody's Fault But Mine
9. Achilles Last Stand
10. In the Evening
11. All My Love
On paper, assembling a definitive two-disc retrospective of Led Zeppelin’s finest moments should be the simplest task in rock curation. After all, the band released only nine studio albums, never chased singles charts with much enthusiasm, and built a legacy less on hits than on mythology. Yet Mothership, released with great fanfare as the “ultimate” Zeppelin compilation, makes a respectable—although with minor flaws—case for itself.
The selections, curated presumably with mass appeal in mind, hit most of the expected marks. Stairway to Heaven, Whole Lotta Love, Kashmir, and other cornerstones are present and accounted for. The sonic polish is clean and powerful, owing to Jimmy Page’s remastering efforts, and the running order does its best to juggle chronology with dynamics. It plays well as an introduction, and certainly pleases the casual fan.
But for the more invested listener, the omissions are curious—bordering on heretical. Chief among them: Fool in the Rain. That such an idiosyncratic gem, with its New Orleans shuffle and bonkers brilliance, was left off the set feels less like an oversight and more like a deliberate act of sabotage. For a band that prided itself on musical breadth, this absence is glaring.
Still, within the limitations of the two-disc format, one can concede that Mothership does what it set out to do. It offers a guided tour through the Zeppelin pantheon, tailored for those who want the thunder without the sprawling indulgence. For the uninitiated, it’s a fine gateway. For the faithful, it’s another reminder that definitive and complete are rarely the same thing.
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