Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

I like Plant's voice.

But the stuff I think I most enjoy from them are when they were just plain goofy and/or eccentric. I'm thinking "Boogie with Stu", "Hats Off (to Roy Harper)", "The Crunge", "Hot Dog", etc

Can't think of too many weak moments from Zep, actually...

I can understand those who don't like them becasue of the Prog/Dinosaur overtones, but simply noting that they were in that field would negate the accusations of them bieng anti-intellectual and lacking skill.

Sure, some of their songs are *fairly* simple, but on the whole, they almost always managed to do something unexpected or quirky within the context of Loud Blues.

They're one of the few Rawk bands I can stand, because there's always something ungraspable about how they came to what they ended up doing. To me, if you can figure out how a band got to their end product (and could replicate it yourself), why bother listening to it?

Zeppelin's music, if you listen to it, was exstremly inventive and layered. Led Zeppelins actually musical influence can actually be felt most from everyone from Prince to REM to Jane's Addiction to Smashing Pumpkins. Not lame hair metal, lol. On the other hand all Black Sabbath ever influenced was moronic crap like death metal, or black metal and a bunch of low IQed, beer swilling "metal heads" with a mentality to "break stuff" and worship the devil. Please.

Also the comments about Led Zeppelin not being intellectual are ignorant in my opinion. Is Mozart not intellectual? He certainly did not have many lyrics about war or polotics did he? What was intellectual about Zeppelin was there musical ability. The world was filled with tons of good and lame bands that where "politcally consious", i think they where and still are a breath of fresh air. I like some Punk rock, but if you are that non-ecclectic as to be turned off to great musicans because of some silly ideal or scene (like punk) then your a idiot.

So, did Sabbath influence Iron Maiden or Judas Priest? Probably, but not in the way they might have liked. There may be a reason Maiden - a band that does few covers - did one of Whole Lotta Love, but never a single Sabbath tune.

So, did Sabbath influence Iron Maiden or Judas Priest? Probably, but not in the way they might have liked. There may be a reason Maiden - a band that does few covers - did one of Whole Lotta Love, but never a single Sabbath tune.

Ron

So they influenced R. Kelly, too!

Anyband with Bonham at the back was on to a winner (unless it was Bonham's own band) and Page and Plant ain't so bad either. Actually, I recall Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull fame telling Melody Maker back in the day that with his lyrics and Zep's music they "could have made quite a good little rock and roll band." Ha ha ha ha ha.. sorry, I laugh my ass off everytime I hear that.

Gimme Physical Graffiti everytime. I think it's actually too good, if that's possible, which it isn't, but it feels like it is when I listen to that album. Does anyone else know what I (don't) mean?

Actually quite many. Check out Sabbath's "Behind the wall of sleep".

But for the person who said 'Zeppelin=Overrated' and then trotted out Creedence FFS! Sheesh!! And to hear Plant getting sledged for his vocals and then having some numbnuts raving on about the monumentally mediocre Cure PURLEASE..

The best point in this entire thread is that Zeppelin's music has stood the test of time and that what passes for rock these days will be forgotten this time next year.

Cheers,

REB

this implicit progression was symbolised by the band's unwillingness to let their rip-offs go credited to the original writers

Led Zeppelin's blues songs are NOT ripoffs and they DID NOT steal them!! They don't sound ANYTHING like the originals. Have you ever heard "When the Levee Breaks" by Memphis Minnee? Or "In My Time of Dying" by Bob Dylan?? Ever notice that they sound absolutely NOTHING like Zep's versions??? I really hate it when rock critics say this to somehow degrade Zep's music. It was pretty much the reason why Rolling Stone hated Zep so much. As if that IN ANY WAY has anything to do with how Zep's records sound!!

1. When Zep were good they were really good!!!!!
2. When they weren't good, they really stunk!!!!!
3. Generally the good bits outwiegh the bad, up until about the last couple of albums!!!!!
4. Concert-wise, they were pretty good, if a little bombastic!!!!!
5. The Song Remains The Same being the major exception to the previous point!!!!!
6. It's pretty obvious they weren't just a "metal" band!!!!!!!
7. The bits about the hobbits are really funny!!!!!

I grew up in the '70's and worshiped Zep. When The Song Remains the Same came out I skipped school to see it. It sucked. All those imaginings I had of how much Zep ruled were dashed on the over-blown histronics on Dazed and Confused, I mean God save me,a therimin solo?
I think that this left open the door to The Ramones and the Pistols for me. When Rotten pointed at the dinosaur, I saw it in my record collection.
So I have stood as a Zeppelin detractor for 20 years, then I heard How the West was Won, and ...ah-ha! Here was the band that I loved.

1. when the levee breaks - New Orleans
water

2. Kashmir - Asian Earthquake
earth

what next? something related to the sun? the moon?

Go listen to this list of songs then come tell me zep aren't good, infact why noy go one better and learn to them one guitar then tell me they're not worth listening to man.
list:
Wanton Song
Heartbreaker
In the light
All of my love
houses of the holy
no quarter
achilles last stand
over the hills and far away

ha you won't evn get through Heartbreaker before you turn around and go "oh fuck that"
Page plays a unique scale at a speed you won't believe

Anyone going to try and get a ticket?

lol shitty olden days bands

Fucking Jason Bonham. I would only go if this dude plays drums.

Fucking Paolo Nutini more like. £125 and I've got to put up with that?

I heard Stairway on the radio today. Anybody who says it doesn't rule is a goddamn neo-rockist.

this was posted here Led Zeppelin set to reform but some details are starting to come out:

Tickets costing £125 ($254) will be allocated on a lottery basis through the Ahmettribute.com web site. Billboard.com understands there are no plans to broadcast or commercially release music from the show.

Putting an end to several months of speculation, it was confirmed today (Sept. 13) during a press conference at the O2 that the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin -- Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones -- would reunite onstage for just the third time in 27 years. The drummer for the evening will be Jason Bonham, son of the band's original drummer John Bonham, who died from a heart attack in 1980.

"This is going to be the largest demand for one show in history," promoter Harvey Goldsmith said today, adding that Zeppelin will play a full two-hour set. "I can only tell from the buzz going around now, but it is really just filtering around the world. I feel there's going to be a huge amount of pressure (on tickets)."

The concert will follow the release of a new Atlantic/Rhino two-disc, 24-track best-of Zeppelin set, "Mothership," due Nov. 13 in the United States.

Word up to J0hn
Also an hour ago I put "In the Light" on a jukebox here in PDX and it sounded fab as all hell

Great, another best of Zeppelin set. Just what the world needs.

i'd rather jack

Maybe if Danny Wilson reformed I'd give a shit.

argh, the second summer of love is here...

wow that’s sick!

I did not know clavinets had whammy bars.

yeah that rules

I just saw the Becoming Led Zeppelin doc as well. These interviews were from 2018, I think and a rough cut was shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. Why the epic delay?

Also, what do we attribute the group’s total refusal to discuss their behavior in the 70s to? Shame? Pain? I get Karac and Bonzo’s deaths were maybe part of it. But those were almost five decades ago, and just about every other band has told their stories (and Zeppelin’s) multiple times at this point. What gives?

The filmmakers told me they always intended to cut the movie off after the first couple of records:

“The Royal Albert Hall show, this triumphant homecoming, is Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, Edmund Hillary raising the flag atop Everest,” adds MacMahon. “There were other lunar missions, other trips up the mountain, but they’re not as interesting. It’s just the same thing, repeated. And with Zeppelin, the story becomes a cycle of another album, another tour, and various darker forces coming in. After you become the biggest band in the world, your experiences tend to mirror a lot of other groups; your trials and tribulations become universal, and more boring. Our film, though, is about these specific people, how they did what they did, how they got to this point. They’ve never told this story before, until now.”

I'd settle for a Peter Grant biopic.

Also: that’s bullshit. We knew about Band of Joy, Jimmy and JPJ’s session work, etc. The story that’s never really been told—at least by them, as opposed to Richard Cole (who does merit a quick mention in the documentary)—is all the shit that happened AFTER they became the biggest band in the world.

I get not wanting to admit to some of this. But again, they’ve just avoided talking about any of it at all. Which seems odd.

Klosterman’s interview suggests some of it was just Jimmy being Jimmy. But it seems way more secretive than that.

Perhaps there will be a sequel called Being Led Zeppelin. But I doubt it.

I figured that since everything seems to be a triptych these days, there'd be both a Being Led Zeppelin and a Leaving Led Zeppelin.

Dead Zeppelin obvs

Uh-Oh, We Became Led Zeppelin

Watched it as a captive audience through airplane ear buds, and thus no bass and a tiny screen. So I was left with the interviews as the focal point, and it was a letdown. Page is so avuncular now, the least sinister of the three, which seems... inaccurate. Was odd to keep mentioning marriages without mentioning groupies and drugs. Page emphatically saying "Dazed and Confused" was written by Jake Holmes, as if from a legal settlement. The filmmakers could have made something richer by exploring the contrasts of attitudes between 1970 and 2018 - sex as a free-for-all rather than power imbalance, drug as rebellion rather than a trap, and musical quotation as folk tradition rather than plagiarism. But that's more cultural peril than they'd want to take on.

...which is to say, Zeppelin's ongoing ubiquity is a major part of why we've re-evaluated that stuff. Weird to think the sketchiest thing about them used to be the dabbling in satanism.

least sinister, i dunno...I thought JPJ came off as a real mensch in the doc

Re. Page’s avunicularity, he seemed to be positively beaming in this doc when discussing the studio work, using avant-garde techniques to stymie the label’s desire for single releases and various mixing choices. His charming explanation of panning was as if from a Studio Engineering 101 class, and his lovely description of the moment they played together for the first time … the whole thing sort of seemed like he was relieved to the point of being overjoyed to be finally answering questions about the music instead of … well, everything else.