Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin was as much about sonics as it was about songs; that's the reason the band dissolved after the death of its sui generis drummer, John Bonham, and one reason that the recent multi-artist Zep tribute album Encomium was so pointless. The video version, Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin, lets the likes of Sheryl Crow and Hootie & the Blowfish add their useless observations about Zep to their useless cover versions. (Says Johnny Hickman of Cracker, ''We chose 'Good Times Bad Times' because to us it represented the earlier stages of Led Zeppelin.'' That's right, Johnny — as it happens, the song was on their very first album!) Your time would be better spent spinning Houses of the Holy again. D