Release and Critical Reaction
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. Plant jokingly referred to the delays at times during the performance on 4 August.
Despite receiving poor reviews, the album went to No. 1 on Billboard's chart in its second week on the chart. On this album's release, Led Zeppelin's entire catalogue made the Billboard 200 between the weeks of 23 October and 3 November 1979, an unprecedented feat. The album remained on the US top spot for seven weeks and sold three million copies by the end of September 1979. It is also the Led Zeppelin album that has been most weeks on the top of the charts (tied along with Led Zeppelin II). To date, the album has sold six million copies in the US.
Following its release, Plant, Page and Bonham all expressed reservations about the album. In 1990 Plant stated:
In Through The Out Door wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but at least we were trying to vary what we were doing, for our own integrity's sake. Of all the records, it's interesting but a bit sanitised because we hadn't been in the clamour and chaos for a long time. In '77, when I lost my boy, I didn't really want to go swinging around—"Hey hey mama say the way you move" didn't really have a great deal of import any more. In Through The Out Door is more conscientious and less animal.
In a 1998 Guitar World magazine interview, Page was asked about the paradigm shift of the album's composition and style:
GW: I thought maybe you were losing your enthusiasm for the band.
Page: Never. Never. In fact, Bonzo and I had already started discussing plans for a hard-driving rock album after that. We both felt that In Through the Outdoor was a little soft. I was not really very keen on "All My Love". I was a little worried about the chorus. I could just imagine people doing the wave and all of that. And I thought, 'That is not us. That is not us.' In its place it was fine, but I would not have wanted to pursue that direction in the future.
In the same interview Page explained that in juxtaposition to the previous Presence album, John Paul Jones was inspired to create new material from his recently purchased Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer, and he was "...working closely with Robert, which was something that had not happened before."
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.
On the other hand, former road manager Richard Cole stated in his book Stairway to Heaven during his time with the band, that after John Bonham sat through and listened to 'All My Love', he declared that it was the best song in which he ever heard Robert sing.
In Through the Out Door was Led Zeppelin's final album to be released while the band was together. Drummer John Bonham died the next year on 25 September 1980.
Read more about this topic: In Through The Out Door
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