Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

waitaminnit! I often see references to Jones doing 30 min keyboard solos, incorporating rachmaninoff and shit?

always seemed to me, w/r/t to my frame of reference post 70s, that the Who appealed to the post-adolescent guy aspect: a drummer and bassist who were uninterested in powering a groove to an unprecedented degree, and Townshend's "oh what does it all mean/we're getting older/AARRGGHH" carrying on. Whereas JB-JPJ was all about a groove 100%, and there was a grown man, no angst confidence to the LZ worldview. Both of which contribute to the sense that women in my experience didn't particularly like the Who, but boy did they like LZ.

Huh, were there keyboard solos in Zep? Well, here's a 3-minute solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biKTiCfjyQo

But did he have 30 minute epics? Book doesn't mention them.

Compare that to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqqksUbXTm0

The thing about live Zep is that they seemed to get winded pretty quickly. So much of their show seemed to be about giving someone in the band a chance to rest.

Jones would get space to solo on "No Quarter" but from all the live boots I've listened to I can't recall anything over the 10 minute (!) mark.

@ Josh - yeah he def. did keyboard solos. Got pretty jazzy towards their final tours.

But not really long solos, no? Like Page and Bonham had?

OTM about the band being winded, or, you know, "winded." I'm sure they all needed lots of "breaks" backstage.

The thing about Zep is that the band sounds awesome but watching this I can totally see why I would not want to be associated with it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebz8gcWvg5A

It sounds great, but it looks ridiculous.

memory serves, lengthy JPJ solo would have been in the middle of "no Quarter."

and what was Plant supposed to have been strung out on? Davis' Hammer of the Gods made no reference to that, but Hoskyns does?

re: Page being a schnook…it's kinda tragic that he can't think of anything to do when Plant sez he doesn't wanna go on tour. JPJ and Plant go out into the world and be musicians, but Page will just show up at someone else's show and play "Rock and Roll" or some shit and then remaster the albums for new formats, what, every five years or so? what's stopping him from doing whatever he wants, unless the only thing he wants to do is Zep? But he's said recently that he's gonna make a record, which put him over on Townshend, who has given up on doing anything other than trotting out Daltrey. God, those Endless Wire tunes were dire as dire can be…

xposts re: Pete

I think it's also timing - the new heavier crop of bands that came out around '68 - '70 seem like a distinctly different thing than the first wave of 60's Brit bands - less pop, more apolitical and zonked out, more macho and virtuosic, and more into genre fiction like fantasy and horror than the class consciousness social satire of the Beatles, Stones, and Kinks. Maybe more overtly escapist? Also just completely divorced from the Mod-era origins of those first wave bands. I can see how Led Zep and Cream and Sabbath turned Townshend off - even though his band had evolved musically in the same direction of the early proto-metal bands.

what's stopping him from doing whatever he wants, unless the only thing he wants to do is Zep?

I think that's it. Zep was his dream scenario. Everything he's done since has been an attempt to resurrect it in one form or another.

But he's said recently that he's gonna make a record, which put him over on Townshend, who has given up on doing anything other than trotting out Daltrey. God, those Endless Wire tunes were dire as dire can be…

Townshend at least had an interesting solo career post-Who. He doesn't trot out Daltrey; Daltrey wears Townshend down until Townshend agrees to tour or record. And Endless Wire was great, best thing they'd done since The Who By Numbers.

Xpost never said Plant was strung out? He did coke and stuff but by the end mostly abstained.

I mean... Outside of Syd Barret, has any living rock icon done LESS than Page? Even Brian Wilson has outpaced him by now...I mean... All there is is:

Deathwish soundtrack (awful)
Outrider (mediocre if you're feeling charitable)
Coverdale/Page (barf)
Unledded (cool zep nostalgia but still zep basically)
Page/Plant - pretty solid
Black Crowed/Page (less interesting Zep nostalgia)
Celebration Day (zep)

Six albums in 35 years, unless I'm forgetting something...
2 are live albums relying heavily on Zep stuff, one is a one off reunion gig... I mean that's pathetic for one of the most talented guys in rock history

And of the original stuff, 1 is with Plant and 1 with a bargain bin Plant

Dang dude, you forgot his biggest hit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd8WUJ9uT3o

Townshend and Plant both had interesting if uneven solo careers.

Oops shit The Firm! A pox on my house

ha, was just trying to post a youtube of "Radioactive", such a great track

plant's been pretty incredible lately between celebration day and plant/krauss and band of joy.

he is happy, healthy, and creatively inspired.

aside from 'the who sell out' and 'who's next' i'll take zeppelin any day of the week

ahem LIVE AT LEEDS ahem

― it definitely wasn't designed to be a pants pocket player (stevie), Thursday, May 29, 2014 8:55 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Live at Leeds kills anything Zeppelin ever did.

there's a 25 minute no quarter, heavy on the keyboard excursion, on the boot Bringing The House Down, and it's pretty wonderful.

For a band that wrote rock operas, the Who were remarkably not indulgent the way Zep was live.

Hey is that unused Page soundtrack to Kenneth Anger's "Lucifer Rising" awesome? Worth hunting down?

Yeah it's kind of unsettling and great imo

Xpost never said Plant was strung out? He did coke and stuff but by the end mostly abstained.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, May 29, 2014 9:43 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

With 70s rock bands I always assume the "straight" members of the bands did what we would consider a shitload of drugs but it was just a normal 70s amount of drugs, like taking a multivitamin

yeah you're right re: Daltrey wearing down Towmshend. but it truly surprises me that you dug EW: daltrey sounded so so tired and geriatric. Now that I think of it, like Page being hung up on the LZ template, Townshend can't seem to make solo records that are not limned to a concept/storyline. Only Empty Glass and Chinese eyes are records with, yknow, songs unburdened by that conceit. I remember hearing Iron Man and Psychoderelict (last Townshend solo album was 21 years ago) and thinking "why does everything have to burdened by some dumb concept?" I would listen to a Townshend solo record, and surely lots or folks would too.

I listened to Lucifer rising recently on YT and yeah very cool, eerie. To me, "Satisfaction guaranteed" is the best thing Paul rodgers has ever done full stop. Unledded is excellent with the orchestral embellishment emphasizing the Oum Kalthoum aspect, and Walking through Clarksdale is terrific.

xp haha, totally. like i think of neil young as "clean" b/c he never fucked around w/ heroin but there were garbage trucks full of weed, booze, and coke running through his system through the 70s

Page should do a new smart horror movie soundtrack or something dark like a Lars Von Trier soundtrack, all minimal style like Neil Young did for Dead Man.

I've said for years that, Honeydrippers excepted, Plant is the only boomer with an unembarrassing and often surprising solo career.

yeah there's a ring of truth to that recent Plant interview where he says the Eagles and the other Zep guys like reunion tours not for the money but because "they're bored. i'm not bored."

yeah you're right re: Daltrey wearing down Towmshend. but it truly surprises me that you dug EW: daltrey sounded so so tired and geriatric. Now that I think of it, like Page being hung up on the LZ template, Townshend can't seem to make solo records that are not limned to a concept/storyline. Only Empty Glass and Chinese eyes are records with, yknow, songs unburdened by that conceit. I remember hearing Iron Man and Psychoderelict (last Townshend solo album was 21 years ago) and thinking "why does everything have to burdened by some dumb concept?" I would listen to a Townshend solo record, and surely lots or folks would too.

I wouldn't compare Townshend's need for a storyline to Page's need for Zep, but Townshend's continued revisiting of the Lifehouse material might be a better comparison -- his ultimate project, never seen through to a satisfactory resolution. I don't mind the concepts, but I honestly couldn't tell you if they made the records (Iron Man and Psychoderelict) better or worse -- I didn't like either very much, give or take a few tunes. But I'll take Townshend spectacularly falling on his face over another pseudo-Zep rehash any day.

As for Daltrey's voice, it doesn't sound tired on EW to me, but I kept up with him/them through the years. 2006 Daltrey wasn't a shock to me -- I thought he worked with/around his limitations exceptionally well -- but I can see how it would be to someone who last heard him on, say, "You Better, You Bet."

more into genre fiction like fantasy and horror than the class consciousness social satire of the Beatles

except the beatles planned on filming 'the lord of the rings'

http://whatculture.com/film/best-films-never-made-1-the-beatles-lord-of-the-rings.php

using an interest in tolkien to beat up on 70s bands is as stale as the snot on johnny rotten's "i hate pink floyd" tshirt

I haven't been super into actually listening to it, but Plant has great taste in songs to cover in his various solo projects (Dillard and Clark, Barbara Lynn, Low, Little Milton, Skip Spence). If nothing else, he's putting some dough into the estates of under-appreciated songwriters. Maybe not conscious, but a nice penance for Zep's thievery.

xpost - wasn't using Tolkien to beat up on them at all, just pointing out what seemed like a contrasting set of interests between two eras of Brit bands

I guess I was just trying to think what it was about Zep that someone like Pete would not be into - especially since the basic sonics and aesthetics of The Who and Zep in 69-70 weren't miles apart.

Plant is the only boomer with an unembarrassing and often surprising solo career.

Peter Gabriel counts as a boomer, right?

I think I can understand the desire to basically sit on your ass for the rest of your life after working in one of the greatest bands of all time for a decade.

yeah, it's tough though. there's probably no profession where people are quicker to tell you that you've peaked and shouldn't bother trying to top past glories, no matter how young you are, than music.

Modelling?:P

gymnastics

ha yeah. and sports too. but there's at least a somewhat logical basis for those. with music it's less about "we don't think you can physically play as well as you once did" as it is superstitions about creativity and aging. xp

unless I'm forgetting something...

Puff Daddy obv

i think pete was just talking trash about a rival he'd influenced

xpost

Plant is the only boomer with an unembarrassing and often surprising solo career.

no time for Neil eh

superstitions about creativity and aging

I've tried to drum up threads about this topic cuz it is really interesting and bothersome

but music does allow for getting old - I think part of the reason Dylan and Keith Richards keep touring is that they're now more credibly the legendary old bluesmen they always dreamed of being

Neil's solo career has led to some incredible work. I'd be hard-pressed to call parts of it unembarrassing, though.

Agreed. "You Dont Bring Me Flowers" and his Christmas album were fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8rpDjoulMY
that 24 minute no quarter i mentioned earlier

xposts
The later part of the mid-career seems like a bitch, but it seems like there's now an established path once you're ready to settle into the legendary old guy role. Johnny Cash's American records and Dylan from "Time Out Of Mind" on seem like the templates. Plant's dignified, covers-heavy solo records seem like a move that way too. Neil's gone full old man on the latest, everybody's digging it. I kind of admire the Stones for resisting the a sitting-down-in-wooden-chairs faux back porch record, even though it might be more listenable than their efforts to stay rockin'.

I've sometimes wished that Jagger would do a solo old-man sitting-down-in-wooden-chairs blues record, preferably playing a lot of harmonica ... but that's not going to happen