In Through the Out Door

The album was named by the group to describe its struggles after the death of Robert Plant's son Karac in 1977, and after their tax exile from the UK, during which they were unable to tour Britain for more than two years, after which they described their attempt to recapture the British public's attention as being as difficult as "trying to get in through the 'out' door." The group began rehearsing material in September 1978. After six weeks, they travelled to Polar Studios in Stockholm to begin recording. In contrast to previous Led Zeppelin albums, In Through the Out Door features much greater influence from bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones and vocalist Robert Plant, and less influence from guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer John Bonham, both of whom failed to attend rehearsals as a consequence of their respective heroin and alcohol abuse. Jones later said, "there were two distinct camps by then, and we [Plant and I] were in the relatively clean one." Many of the songs were consequently arranged by Jones and Plant before Page and Bonham joined their rehearsals at night. Page maintained that they recorded in the studio as a full band, like on their previous albums, rather than separately. After the recording sessions at Polar, the album was mixed at Page's personal studio at his home in Plumpton. "Wearing and Tearing", "Ozone Baby" and "Darlene" (which was a boogie-woogie influenced song that credited to all four members) were recorded during sessions for this album, but were omitted from the release because of time constraints and were released only later on the album Coda. ==Songs==

For In Through the Out Door, John Paul Jones is a co-writer on six of the seven songs, more than on any other Led Zeppelin album. The album's "South Bound Saurez" and "All My Love" are the only two original Led Zeppelin songs to the composition of which Page did not contribute. In Through the Out Door is also their only studio album to the composition of which Bonham did not contribute. After the guitar-heavy Presence, Page intended to write uncharacteristic guitar parts for In Through the Out Door, such as the solos on "In the Evening" and "Fool in the Rain". He said that "The thing with In Through the Out Door is that there's nothing like an 'Achilles...' or a 'Kashmir' on there." Side one "In the Evening" was planned as the opening track for the album as "a full-blown epic", in order to show that Led Zeppelin could still make good heavy rock music. In an interview, Page explained that he used a violin bow and a Gizmotron effect on his guitar to create the droning sound in the opening section of the song. The track features a contrast between the powerful riffs in the main part of the track, against its relatively quiet middle section. "South Bound Saurez" starts with a "rollicking piano intro" played by Jones; author Dave Lewis calls it a "track that conjures up the New Orleans bar room feel of the sleeve." It is credited to Jones and Plant, and is one of only three officially released original Led Zeppelin songs to the composition of which Page did not contribute. The other two are "All My Love", from the same album, that is credited to only Jones and Plant, and "Bonzo's Montreux" from Coda, that is credited only to John Bonham. "Fool in the Rain" was an attempt to combine a samba rhythm with a basic rock tune, resulting in a polyrhythm partway through the song. The idea was inspired by Plant explaining that the group must explore new musical territory in order to remain current. The basic drum pattern is a Purdie shuffle played by Bonham. "Hot Dog" grew out of the band's pre-production rehearsals, where they warmed up by playing a series of old Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson covers. Dave Lewis calls it a "rockabilly country hoe-down" that "owes much to the state of Texas and to the state of a particular female in Texas." Side two "Carouselambra" is a ten-minute track, dominated by Jones' keyboards and covering a variety of musical styles. Page played his Gibson EDS-1275 double neck guitar, which was normally only used for live performances. The group had intended to play the song live for a planned North American tour, which was cancelled after Bonham's death. "All My Love" is an unconventional love song composed by Plant and Jones when they were the first to arrive at the studio. It was written in honour of Plant's son Karac, who died while Led Zeppelin were on their 1977 North American Tour. Jones played a classically inspired synthesiser solo in the middle of the track. "I'm Gonna Crawl" is a relaxed blues track. Plant arranged the track to be in the style of mid-1960s soul music such as that of Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Jones contributed a string synthesiser arrangement. ==Packaging and artwork==

The original album featured an unusual gimmick: The outer sleeve was made to look like a plain brown paper bag, reminiscent of similarly packaged bootleg album sleeves with the title rubber-stamped on it, and the inner sleeve featured black and white line artwork which when wiped with a wet rag or sponge would activate an invisible ink and become permanently colored. There were also six different cover sleeve variants (A - F), featuring a different pair of photos for the front and back, and the external brown paper sleeve meant that it was impossible for record buyers to tell which sleeve they were getting. The corresponding letter was printed on the spine to indicate which cover variant it was, and this was sometimes exposed while the record was still sealed. The pictures all depict the same scene of a man sitting at a bar burning a Dear John letter along with six onlookers including the bartender, a piano player, a man holding his coat and three female patrons, all taken from a different point of view with slightly different poses. The photo session was taken in a London studio and was meant to re-create the Old Absinthe House in New Orleans, Louisiana. The album artwork was designed by Hipgnosis' Storm Thorgerson. In 1980, Hipgnosis was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Album Package for In Through the Out Door. == Release and promotion ==

The album was intended to be released before the band's twin concerts at Knebworth in 1979, but production delays meant that it was released shortly after their performances at this event, on 4 and 11 August 1979. Plant jokingly referred to the delays at times during the performance on 4 August 1979. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in its second week on the album chart, reportedly selling 1.7 million copies within weeks of release. Subsequently, Led Zeppelin's entire catalogue appeared in the Billboard 200 between the weeks of 23 October and 3 November 1979, an unprecedented feat, topping their own record in 1975, when all their albums up to Physical Graffiti were on the chart. The album remained on the US top spot for seven weeks and sold three million copies by the end of September 1979. It was credited with helping to revive the US record industry, which had begun to struggle. In January 1980, "Fool in the Rain" was released as a single to further promote the album, but it narrowly missed the top 20 of the singles chart. It was the band's final studio release to reach the top of the charts in the United States. In Through the Out Door is the Led Zeppelin album that has spent the most weeks on the top of the charts (tied with Led Zeppelin II). To date, the album has sold six million copies in the US. ==Critical reception==

In Through the Out Door divided contemporary critics and Led Zeppelin fans; some found its synthesiser-influenced music forward-thinking while others felt the band had forsaken their heavy, fast sound. According to Jimmy Page biographer Martin Power, "predictably, in the wake of punk, In Through the Out Door received a rough ride from some critics, with Zep's veteran status in the music business now used as a stick with which to beat them." Reviewing the album in Rolling Stone, Charles M. Young said Page's diminishing creativity resulted in little good material to work with for Plant, whose lyrics Young found inane, and Bonham, whose drumming was viewed as heavy handed. This brought to the forefront the keyboard playing of Jones, who Young said "functions best behind Page, not in front of him". Chris Bohn from Melody Maker said "the impressionable first play" of the record "had everyone in the office rolling around laughing", while accusing the band of being "totally out of touch" and "displaying the first intimations of mortality". By contrast, NME journalist Nick Kent argued that the album was "no epitaph", believing its "potential points of departure" deserved further listening. Following the album's release, Plant, Page and Bonham all expressed reservations about the record. Plant later said that he enjoyed the variation in styles from previous albums, though he appreciated the album was "a bit sanitised". Page said in 2004, "we wanted, after In Through the Out Door, to make something hard-hitting and riff-based again. Of course, we never got to make that album." He is also quoted as saying, "It wasn't the most comfortable album. I think it was very transitional ... a springboard for what could have been." In Through the Out Door was Led Zeppelin's final album to be released while all the original members were still living. Drummer John Bonham died the next year on 25 September 1980. In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Gaylord Fields said the album was "maligned upon its release a retreat from heaviness" but "now stands as an art-rock oddity with some alluring tangents". Colin Larkin appraised it in his Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2006) as "lacking the definition" of the band's previous records, yet "a strong collection on which John Paul Jones emerged as the unifying factor". ==2015 reissue==

A remastered version of In Through the Out Door, along with Presence and Coda were reissued on 31 July 2015. The reissue comes in six formats: a standard CD edition, a deluxe two-CD edition, a standard LP version, a deluxe two-LP version, a super deluxe two-CD plus two-LP version with a hardback book, and as high resolution 24-bit/96k digital downloads. The deluxe and super deluxe editions feature bonus material containing alternative takes and alternatively titled tracks, "Southbound Piano", "The Epic", "The Hook", and "Blot". The reissue was released with a black and white version of the original album's artwork as its bonus disc's cover. A replica of the brown bag and the colourable line drawing are included in this edition. The reissue was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 73, based on eight reviews. ==Track listing==

Original release The details are taken from the original US Swan Song album (UK edition does not list running times). All tracks written by John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, except where noted. John Bonham received no writing credits on the album. Deluxe edition (2015) ==Personnel==

• Robert Plantvocals • Jimmy Pageguitars, Gizmotron, production • John Paul Jonesbass guitar, keyboards • John Bonhamdrums, percussion ;Production • John Davis – remastering (2015 reissues) • Barry Diament – mastering (original 1988 Compact Disc release) • Peter Grant – executive producer • Hipgnosis – record sleeve • George Marino – remastering (1994 reissues) • Leif Mases – engineering • Jeff Ocheltree – drum tech for John Bonham • Lennart Östlund – assistant engineering ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==