“Outrider” is the only solo album Jimmy Page has ever made. He was forty four, sober, and a father again, when it was released in June of 1988. He had reportedly been working on ample and varied solo material since Zeppelin broke up but was sidetracked by his work with The Firm. In fact, by the mid-80s, Page was said to have plans to release a double album of solo material, organized by the eclectic genres he was tackling. But, then, his house was burglarized and his demos were stolen and never recovered. So, if there is an ambitious, essential, Jimmy Page double album in the ether, we will never know. We will never know if he had his second half opus. What we do know is that “Outrider” is not it.

1988s “Now and Zen,” Plant’s fourth solo album, promised to be different from the first three. He was even reuniting with Jimmy Page for two songs. Fans were all worked up in a lather at the promise of a “return to form.” Many presumed that Page had gotten the experiments out of his system and was read to have sex with the Marshall amps again. Unfortunately for those die hards, what Page released was instead a weird, great late 80s, New Wave artifact.

Any way I looked at it, the road led here. I couldn’t just go on listening to the tasteful, critically correct middle-aged stuff, could I? No. I knew at some point soon, that I’d have to eat the dog food. And so, last night, with genuine trepidation, I pressed play on David Lee Roth’s 1994 album, “Your Filthy Little Mouth.” Spanning metal, jazz, cabaret, reggae (don’t ask) and blues, the album is equally ambitious, aimless, slick, cheap, loud, fun, boring, safe and a complete mess.