Swansong (Classic Records) SS2-201
Led Zeppelin's initial popularity was based as much on their concerts as their albums, so it's strange that the group's only official live album for many years is such an uninspired, boring affair. Released in conjunction with the pseudodocumentary film of the same name, The Song Remains the Same reproduces the very things that made Zeppelin concerts legendary — lengthy solos, intertwining interplay between Page and Plant, and ridiculously long songs ("Dazed and Confused" is nearly an entire half hour) — but the group's performance is not intoxicating, it's long-winded. As scores of bootlegs prove, Led Zeppelin could produce magic with the same formula, but The Song Remains the Same is excrutiatingly dull.