But seriously, in the era of eBay, you can get pretty much any album you want. It's just a matter of how much you want to pay for it. My true "white whale" would probably be the 1981 St. Valentine's Day Massacre collaboration between Motörhead and Girl School, but that's really just an extended single with three songs, so I am excluding it from consideration.
Setting that one aside, there are a few original presses of albums I have that have really cool features -- like the original Sgt. Pepper's, which has some cool inserts in the album, including a cutout mustache, or the original KISS Love Gun album, which has a cardboard "Love Gun" inside that you can assemble. However, I plan on using The Beatles and KISS in future categories. My true "white whale" is the original Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones, which was designed by Any Warhol and has an actual working zipper that opened to reveal a pair of underwear under the black jeans. I don't have that one.
Anyway, another one of those cool originals was Led Zeppelin's third album. Released in 1970, the album was primarily written by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (and partially recorded) at a remote Welsh cottage, Bron-Yr-Aur -- which, loosely translated, means "golden tits" in Welsh -- where Plant had gone on holiday several times as a kid. The tranquility of Bron-Yr-Aur and the lack of running water and electricity seemed to influence the songwriting, as the album was considered a new direction for the band, as several of the songs featured a more acoustic sound than on the band's previous albums. That's not to say there aren't hard rockers on the album, as "Immigrant Song," "Celebration Day," and "Out on the Tiles" demonstrate, but the album demonstrated that Led Zeppelin could make fantastic music that wasn't just hard rock or blue covers.
The original album cover also had a cool feature, which is why I wanted the original version (as opposed to some of the re-pressings of their albums the band put out a few years ago). As you can see from the photo above, at the right edge of the album cover, you can see a little wheel. If you turn that, the images that peek through the various little circles on the album cover change. My copy of the album itself skips a little at various points, which is kind of a bummer, but I assure you this: I won't let it get me down.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Out on the Tiles"
Aside from "When the Levee Breaks," "Out on the Tiles" is my favorite Led Zeppelin song. It was the last song on Side 1 (the "heavy" side of the album). This is such a great song, and I really have no idea why it isn't played more often (or at all) on classic rock radio. The song is ballsy and aggressive, with a great riff. "Out on the Tiles" is a British phrased often used by John Bonham, meaning a night out on the town getting blitzed. So musically and lyrically, the song is everything I would want from a great rock and roll song.
Favorite song from Side 2: "Tangerine"
My choice on Side 2 (the "soft" side of the album) was between "Tangerine" and "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp," but "Tangerine" got the slight edge. It's a soulful acoustic/electric ballad that Page had originally written when he was still with the Yardbirds. Page plays two guitar parts, one on a six-string and one on a twelve-string, and Plant's vocals are kind of double-tracked during the chorus, but with one track lagging slightly behind for a harmonic effect, which gives an interesting feel. And just because it's on Side 2 doesn't mean it doesn't rock. There's a nice guitar solo, and Page's wah-wah slide guitar is predictably cool. For you Almost Famous fans, Cameron Crowe put five Zeppelin songs in the film, including two from Side 2 of Led Zeppelin III -- "That's the Way," which ended up on the soundtrack, and "Tangerine." "Tangerine" was the backdrop for the film's poignant final sequence, when William finally gets his interview with Russell Hammond, we see Stillwater back on tour (on a bus, for the No More Airplanes Tour), the Millers are shown eating dinner all together as a happy family, Penny Lane is leaving for Morocco, and Stillwater finally gets on the cover of Rolling Stone. The song starts as William asks the question he's been trying to ask Russell the entire film: "What do you love about music?" Russell's response pretty much sums it up for me, "To begin with, everything." This is also a great song to play whenever you are drinking a beer with tangerine flavoring. I recommend Avery's Tangerine Quad.
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