New track from Led Zeppelin

That is a straight-up lie; I’m sorry. There are no new tracks from Led Zeppelin. I am a horrible person.

However, the “new” track “Sugar Mama,” which will be included on the upcoming Coda remaster, is technically previously unreleased, so it’s kind of like a new song, right? Except, of course, that bootleg versions of “Sugar Mama” have been floating around for years so I guess not. Like, you can hear it on YouTube right now.

Led Zeppelin (or actually pretty much just Jimmy Page) has been remastering and re-releasing the entirety of their discography over the past year. On July 31, they’ll release the last three volumes: Presence (1976), In Through the Out Door (1979), and Coda (1982). Overall, I’ve been kind of disappointed with the remasters – they do sound better, of course, but the real treat to re-releases is the additional material, demos and unreleased tracks artists usually include. There’s been nothing really noteworthy, in my opinion, on any of the re-releases that make me say, “WOW,” though I can’t really fault Led Zeppelin for releasing their best stuff the first time around. Would I like to own every remastered album on vinyl right now? YES. Of course I would. I’m a human person who likes Led Zeppelin. But I would also like to eat and buy necessary things to my existence and the remasters really haven’t been strong enough to make me forgo that.

I haven’t heard the last three yet, but being as how they’re my 3 least favorite Zeppelin albums (though I do feel Presence is kind of underrated), I’ll probably skip the listening for now. However, I think for collectors or new listeners who want to hear the highest quality Led Zeppelin available, the remasters of Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti are particularly good.