Led Zeppelin
Stairway Sessions (Silver Rarities 71)

The development of "Stairway to Heaven" is amply documented on this disc with early demos and studio jams, culminating in a couple of outtakes (plus coërval songs, circa Zeppelin IV) that present the now-classic song when it was still being hammered out. Pretty cool shit, overall, though sadly, none of the supposedly legendary alternate takes are included. Surprisingly, Led Zeppelin doing "Black Dog" in its earliest stage makes them sound like any college band in any dorm practice room … there's a reason those studio albums are so enduring: they're not shitty.

Aside from "Stairway" outtakes, this disc includes other stuff from the same era, mostly in the form of Jimmy Page jamming on his acoustic guitar. This is cool for awhile, but the 17-minutes of pseudo-bluesy riffing gets genuinely irritating. So Stairway Sessions is for any diehard Zep fan, exclusively. Anyone else will be reminded of having to listen to your younger brother after a few guitar lessons.

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Review by La Fée