“Out On The Tiles”

Andrew Reilly
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

Part of what made Led Zeppelin a better and easier choice of favorite band than, say, literally any other rock band ever, was its repeated and unique adventures away from its bread and butter. If you latched on to Rush, you liked prog and whatever baggage came with that; if you cast your lot with Black Sabbath, you liked metal for better or worse; if you liked Zeppelin, your by-proxy commitments amounted to absolutely nothing*. Zeppelin was Zeppelin and you could do with that as much or as little as you cared to.

With “Out On The Tiles”, we hear the band finding a balance equal parts delicate and fascinating—a rollicking nexus of swagger, swing, and straight-up hard rock—that they were never really able, willing, or compelled to strike any time afterwards, though the elements would resurface (as they so often did): the ambient studio slop opening “Black Country Woman,” the endless coda informing most of Physical Graffiti and beyond, even the boogie-riff-turned-heavy-groove-sludge shaping “Black Dog” (right down to this track’s opening riff becoming the latter’s de facto onstage intro. That “Out On The Tiles” by itself was somewhat of a concert rarity shouldn’t be a surprise, as those stutter-stops throughout and Plant’s absolute nailing of the opening “walk” have got to be difficult to recreate, to say the least. Which is not to say plenty of others haven’t made valiant efforts, but 1) few [if any] doing it live ever could drop that kick just right and 2) even with all the studio magic in the world at their disposal, no one sings like Robert Plant. No one.)

Led Zeppelin III is often referred to as the band’s acoustic hippie folk album, but this is an incomplete way of talking about it. Yes, the gentler, strummier songs were more numerous than before but when this album rocked (which for the most part it still did), it hit as hard as anything else in the catalog. It’s hard to call anything released by one of the most famous musical entities in the history of the world and sold 8 million copies “misunderstood” with a straight face, but the fact remains that, its beligerent opener aside, the band wasn’t doing anything different here, save for all those times they were doing something that was nothing but different. Or something.

Grade: A-

(*) Note: the author enjoys a lot of prog, loves metal and Black Sabbath, and with time even became quite fond of a few Rush songs.

96-98 St. Mark’s

One man’s guide to the “complete” Led Zeppelin.

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Andrew Reilly

Written by

Chicago / andrewreilly.org

96-98 St. Mark’s

One man’s guide to the “complete” Led Zeppelin.

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