As it would have been impossible to compile the best of Led Zeppelin on one packed disc, owing as much to quality as to song length, Atlantic decided to split the band's nine albums between two discs. Early Days summarizes the band's meteoric rise, equally drawing from the first four albums a sampler of the biggest and (usually) best songs.

The casual fan who wants the big radio hits will be satisfied here, although – as always – the ideal way to discover Led Zeppelin is to listen to each individual album, start to finish, and absorb the essence of each journey. Still, for a quick 13-song overview of the band's big early songs, Early Days hits the mark, and taken with Latter Days , is a fine overview of a towering career.

Early forays into blues, acoustic numbers and needless solos are ignored here in favor of the heavy hitters off the first two albums: "Whole Lotta Love," "Dazed And Confused," "Communication Breakdown" and the brief "Good Times, Bad Times" are virtually synonymous with the Zeppelin name at this point, and all continue to remain peerless, pure hard rock songs with subtlety and depth. Also present is "What Is And What Should Never Be" and the cover of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," which was one of the songs Jimmy Page used to present the idea of Led Zeppelin to his future bandmates ("light and shade" was his phrase).

The acoustic side of Led Zeppelin III is ignored in favor the galloping "Immigrant Song" and the straight-blues "Since I've Been Loving You." Finally, five songs from the band's untitled fourth album round out the collection: the manifesto "Rock And Roll," the loved/reviled "Stairway To Heaven" (still a wonderful guitar solo), the stomping "Black Dog" (never a great song, but it gets airplay) and the mandolin/acoustic fantasy duo "The Battle Of Evermore" are all here. All of this leads up to the absolute crushing stomp of "When The Levee Breaks," which is on par with anything the band ever wrote and the first true epic of a career that would eventually become full of them.

There is little to quibble about with the song selection, save for two things. First, "Heartbreaker" really should  have been here. Second, there is really no attention paid to the band's acoustic side save for "Evermore;" to be truly representative, something like "Thank You," "Gallows Pole," the superb "That's The Way" or even radio favorite "Ramble On" would have rounded out the story a little better. But this is nitpicking from a hardcore fan; the people who will buy this collection will be happy to have all this in one place, and those who have never heard Zeppelin and just want a sampler will be well served by this 13-song lineup of some of the best rock ‘n’ roll ever made.

Rating: A-

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