THE GENERATION GAP GETS WIDER

Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated album of the year. Perhaps not.

This is not a CD review. For starters, who even buys CDs anymore? I could have used the word "album" but that means different things to different people these days too.

No, this is simply my reaction to my 11 year-old daughter's reaction to some music I was playing in my car on Monday.

It's a long way to piano lessons. The teacher moved 20 minutes further away which is pain in terms of fuel consumption, but a bonus when it comes to music appreciation. On Monday, we appreciated the latest offering from Led Zeppelin; Celebration Day - a double disc recording of their one-off O2 concert in 2007.

I say, WE appreciated it. That's not strictly accurate. I tried to appreciate it while daughter completely ignored it, chatted nonstop about her day and even (and this was pretty annoying actually) TURNED IT DOWN at one point.

I used to like her. Now I'm not so sure.

Admittedly, the 63 year-old Jimmy Page playing on this recording isn't quite the performer you hear on 2003's "How the West Was Won" - a compilation of live performances from 1972 - but come on! Jimmy Page! The original guitar hero! Am I starting to sound like a desperate old man here?

I can remember when I first discovered Led Zep like it was yesterday. I was a teenager and I'd heard of them, but I thought they were just some annoying metal band like Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. This wasn't based on anything I'd heard, it was based on what the greasy, long-haired guitar try-hards at had written all over their schoolbags.

Obviously everybody knows "Stairway To Heaven" - quite a good song. I had to wonder if there were more quite good songs to go with it. Almost as I was wondering this, "Remasters" was released and here's the disturbing part kids - I bought it on LP! You know, LPs? Records? To go on a turntable? You've got no idea what I'm talking about, have you? Anyway, on LP, it was a 3-disc set.

Here's a bit of nerdy Led Zep back-story. Basically, when CD's started catching on, someone at a record company somewhere dubbed all their albums off, and released them like that. No re-mixing. No involvement with the band. A pretty rough job. 1990 rolls around and Jimmy Page decides to fix it all up, digitally remastering everything and releasing all the best songs in one package.

I took "Remasters" home, went straight up to my room and listened to the whole thing, all 6 sides, back to back. I was spellbound. "Oh my god," I thought. "This is the greatest band in the history of rock." Of course, by 1990, I wasn't the first teenager to have had this epiphany. In fact, given the band formed in the late 60's, I was joining at least the 2nd, if not the 3rd generation of Led Zep groupies.

So it was with some excitement I pushed play on my Corolla's CD player the other day and waited for my daughter's reaction. She'd got in the car halfway through "No Quarter." This was going to be good.

But no. Nothing. Not even a flicker. Maybe there's something wrong with her. Can Zeppelin appreciation skip a generation? She's a really good musician - better than I ever was. How could she not be impressed by John Paul Jones' sweeping bass lines? By the sheer poetry of the lyrics? By Robert Plant's essential hairiness?

She's just too young, that's the problem. How's an 11 year-old supposed to interpret lyrics like, "Shake for me girl. I wanna be your back-door man." As for the Lemon Song, I'm not even sure I'M mature enough to handle that content. (Google the words. They're dirty, but funny) I'm sure she'll get it eventually. If I just keep playing it to her, she'll come round. Or at least she'll develop the good manners to feign interest, for her old dad's sake. Oh and next time, hands off the volume knob, kiddo.

Hey, that guy on the right doesn't look so old. Oh, he's the son. Of course.