‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ Is an Exhilarating, Hard-Rocking Documentary of the Band’s First 18 Months

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The world loves a good “rise of” story — one that captures the first months of a now-superstar artist’s meteoric rise, whether it’s Elvis or the Beatles or Madonna or Prince or Nirvana (that sound you hear is keyboards clicking on “Rise of Chappell Roan” biopic scripts).

It’s an undeniably compelling premise: seeing how and why the superstar became who they became, before the breakups, crackups and cliches, reliving that first burst of magic almost in real time.

In its way, the rise of Led Zeppelin was just as inexorable as the above-mentioned artists’: They formed in August of 1968 and less than 18 months later, their second album had replaced the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” at the top of the Billboard albums chart, and that was just the beginning.

Zeppelin would become the most dominant rock band on the planet for the next decade, with a blaze of classic songs, great albums and galvanizing tours until excess, tragedy and substance abuse brought them down, culminating with drummer John Bonham’s death from alcohol poisoning in 1980 at the age of just 32.