You may recall a piece E. Pluribus Gergely recently published in which he dismissed the first two Stooges albums and only showed mild appreciation for the more conventional Raw Power. I still can’t decide which opinion is more shameful. Speaking of shame, it’s a shame that main thrust of his essay overshadowed some sweet memories of a kind-hearted record store clerk who turned him onto The Rolling Stones‘ 12 X 5 album and, in turn, the music of African American forebearers of the Stones’ particular brand of urgent R&B.
In his piece on The Stooges, EPG also managed to take a shot at Led Zeppelin. Being from his generation and the same strata of proto-cool (ie, incredibly nerdy) high school kids, I got where he was coming from. However, times have changed. We’ve grown. Most of us, that is.
My buddies, The Falcons, caught wind of E.’s continued dismissal of Led Zeppelin, and we want to know what his beef is with them? First, let’s examine his dismissal of a fellow English, authentic blues and R&B-loving band, quote:
I feel seen. My sister, two years older, came back from her first day at middle school and announced that everyone at the school liked this band, Led Zeppelin. Hence, she began collecting their records, but I’m not sure how much she truly liked them. It wasn’t until a few years later she found Costello and Bowie, then the Slits and Raincoats, the Zep LPs gathered dust. I went through a similar experience with “rock” music thrust at me through the dominant pop culture outlets of the 1970’s, until I was old enough to discover new wave and post punk music. If it had that big rock sound, I was out.
Zep seemed like an apex of the type of music that I intuitively disliked, all rock bluster and machismo, impossible to disassociate from the older, long-haired, suburban kids who might be the annoying, loud people at the beach or July 4th fireworks, with coolers of cheap beer, a boombox blaring bluesy rock music, smoking cigarettes, talking shit loudly, characters from “Dazed and Confused.” Sorry if that describes you, but I had a knee jerk reaction to those sorts of people and their culture when I was a kid. WMMR, WYSP, had very little to offer me – which would justify any questions as to why I am here in the halls of rock, talking about why I don’t like rock music. Or should I say cock music. Because that’s what I dislike.
In retrospect, there is much good about Zep – the iconic guitar riffs, the brute-force power of the drumming, the energy of the whole thing. “When the levee breaks” is a fantastic synergy of writing, performing and recording. I do have issues with LZ lyrics, not only because I find some of the sexuality or masculinity to be ham-fisted and embarrassing, or because I find the JRR Tolkien-ism to be silly, but also because in a song like “Ramble On,” you can find both. Which is weird. James Brown lyrics don’t aspire to much, Led Zep’s do – there’s more diverse subject matter in keeping with a wider range of grooves and feels. Also, I just find a lot of riff-based music to be boring. Intro-verse-chorus, you’ve heard the song. Do you need the last three minutes?
As an adult, I’ve seen plenty of praise for Zep, and for the talents of the individual members. Page knew what he was doing, and used different engineers and studios purposely to avoid any one engineer or producer for taking credit for their sound. Most recently, I saw the singer/songwriter of Nada Surf (not a particularly Zeppelin-esque band) respond “Led Zep III” to the question, “What album do you have to play all the way through once you start it?” I’ve been thinking of revisiting that album, since II and IV are the ones I know best. And I respect the hell out of Terry Manning, who recorded III, and who came out of Stax, and also recorded the early ZZ Top records (which is another band I dump into my dislike pile). I know that this is a form of musical discrimination, but I do try to objectively revisit and reconsider music in the hopes understanding why people I really respect praise music that I rejected. I enjoy LZ every now and then, but it will probably never be my bag.
I used to be firmly in the EPG camp. I don’t even remember how or when but got them eventually.
In the sixth form at school at the end of the seventies, we divided squarely into three camps, the glam kids who became punks, the Zep, Yes and Wishbone Ash crowd who got stuck in a time warp with their older sister’s record collection, and the ones who went out every Saturday to collect the numbers painted on the sides of buses and trains. And also the ones who didn’t actually like music but who would tolerate ELO, Rumours and Hotel California.
I’ve got several friends who have a complete blind spot for Zep, having been dragged to the cinema to see Song Remains the Same before I woke up to them I can understand where they’re coming from. I remember wondering if it was ever going to end, although unlike the movie of the Dead Live I did manage to endure it – twice,
since those were the days of double features where only Crystal Voyager or a Leif Garrett skateboard film, the name of which escapes me, prevented us from staying to watch a movie twice, if not three or four times. I would have drawn the line at watching it three times, as I also remember doing for Can’t Stop the Music, the Village People film.
I feel like I have to work to get past the shrieky singing and and thuddy drumming. It’s usually not worth it for me. I have a grudging respect for their records, but I never find myself in the mood to hear them.
Here in the Witch City, several times a year there’s an event held in the local elderly community center where people drop off unwanted books & media and others can pick them up for free. I have found some good books & CDs over the years. A year or so ago, someone actually dropped off a Led Zeppelin CD box set, the cube one that has all their albums. I had the chance to grab it & I did thought about it, but I didn’t.
Count me in among those who disdained Zep back in the day. I had a friend who had IV on cassette & I heard it enough during our neighborhood Strat-O-Matic baseball sessions (which I do miss) that I could still probably know the running order of the songs, just like Rumours & Bat Out of Hell, two other albums that I never owned.
One reason why I never cared for Led Zep is that when I was getting into Elvis Costello & the Jam, I was also getting into the Sixties stuff I remembered when I was small, & that included the Yardbirds. Two of my BIL’s albums that I played while babysitting my niece ( who gonna be 46 this year!) was a Yardbirds compilation from 1970 & the Little Games album. I also remember taping the infamous 1968 live album off of WBCN. I still like the Yardbirds. I even bought the reissue of that 1968 live album that Jimmy Page put out a couple of years ago. I guess that I feel that the Yardbirds are kind of underrated compared to Led Zep & that the former sounded a lot better than the latter, just like how the Beatles sounded better than Wings or the other solo Beatles. I have softened a bit over the years, but I still prefer the Yardbirds.
P.S.: There was a great article about Led Zep in Ugly Things Magazine a few years ago pointing out how Led Zep worked in their own little world above most musical trends during their career.
P.P.S.: Fonzie looks like a dork in that jacket.
I try to go back to things now and then to see if I like them now, but Zeppelin has never cracked that code. I went back to Aerosmith and decided that their first four albums are swell. The original Lynyrd Skynyrd that I always assumed were a bunch of racist assholes? Apparently not! Whatever is called Lynyrd Skynyrd these days is exactly what I thought the original band was, and I think I have all the original band’s albums now, and I like them. So I’m willing to suck it up and say I was wrong. I have tried to like Zeppelin. I’ve even owned a couple albums. Even when I’m being charitable towards them, I get so bored so fast. They just aren’t for me. I know a guy that loves them and hates Greta Van Fleet. He swears Greta Van Fleet sounds noting like Zeppelin, but I think that’s like telling the difference between a $40.00 speaker cable and a $400.00 speaker cable. In other words, pretty much no difference at all. Greta Van Fleet just screws things up by singing about squeezing their lemon in the same song as going to Valhalla, when everyone knows a real Viking doesn’t go to Valhalla just to rub one out.
Crystal Myst? Was their lead singer named Please Punch Me in the Face?
Moderator,
You’ve got a crew up here that can really write, and because of that, I’m gonna let their words serve as mine as well, Here are some more of my problems with Led Zeppelin:
1) “I do have issues with LZ lyrics, not only because I find some of the sexuality or masculinity to be ham-fisted and embarrassing, or because I find the JRR Tolkien-ism to be silly, but also because in a song like “Ramble On,” you can find both. Which is weird. James Brown lyrics don’t aspire to much, Led Zep’s do – there’s more diverse subject matter in keeping with a wider range of grooves and feels. Also, I just find a lot of riff-based music to be boring. Intro-verse-chorus, you’ve heard the song. Do you need the last three minutes?” Cherguevarra
2) “I have a grudging respect for their records, but I never find myself in the mood to hear them.” BigSteve
3) “I guess that I feel that the Yardbirds are kind of underrated compared to Led Zep & that the former sounded a lot better than the latter, just like how the Beatles sounded better than Wings or the other solo Beatles.” diskojoe
3) “Even when I’m being charitable towards them, I get so bored so fast. They just aren’t for me.” 2000man
4) “I know a guy that loves them and hates Greta Van Fleet. He swears Greta Van Fleet sounds noting like Zeppelin, but I think that’s like telling the difference between a $40.00 speaker cable and a $400.00 speaker cable. In other words, pretty much no difference at all. Greta Van Fleet just screws things up by singing about squeezing their lemon in the same song as going to Valhalla, when everyone knows a real Viking doesn’t go to Valhalla just to rub one out.” 2000man
Great points all around. Couldn’t have said it better!
Add in diskojoe’s cut on that satin jacket, and we’re having a banner day!
I liked Led Zeppelin early on and actually bought Led Zeppelin II when it came out. I had lost interest by the time III came out, and moved into an alternative universe focused on Beefheart and Miles Davis.
As time went on, obviously partly driven away by their massive popularity with a massively unappealing audience, I started to actively dislike them. One actual musical element to which I attributed this dislike was a perception that Bonham was an uncomfortably clumsy drummer. I remember being totally put off by the open hi-hat bashing of “Rock and Roll,” and its weirdly ponderous but busy sounding bass drum. It just sounded fucked up and not in a good way.
Sometime in the early 80’s, I was doing sound for the Stickmen, who at that time had a fantastic drummer, Jim Meneses. While doing a rhythm section sound check, he and the bass player were jamming on some Zeppelin tune. Hearing him mimic the specific Bonham feel, particularly in the kick drum, it struck me that Bonham had a intentional aesthetic that previously escaped me. I developed a new respect, if not particularly affection, for Bonham and Zeppelin, particularly for their ability to craft a brontosaurus type groove.
One of the most appealing things about Nirvana was their ability to marry that lumbering groove thing to material that I found appealing.
Hi everyone! Can anybody help Andy out? He wants to know if there’s a US Led Zeppelin greatest hits album, something that’s no longer than 12 tracks. Again, not a British thing with the standard 14 tracks. That’s too much work and too much of a stretch as well.
geo: …” their massive popularity with a massively unappealing audience…”
It’s always unfair to blame an artist for their audience, and but it’s difficult not to. I actually bought the first LZ album when it came out, but my taste was turning away from heaviosity and towards Bob Dylan and The Band etc. The people who were into heavy music were just not my people. I guess I was being classist.
I’ll stand by the one Led Zepp product I had owned – Immigrant Song b/w Hey Hey What Can I Do.
Do you really need anything more?
A link for EPG in honor of Mr. Linkerson:
https://youtu.be/UvOm2oZRQIk
I don’t have a problem with Bonham’s drumming for the most part. My brother in law is an exceptional drummer and Bonham is his guy and he’s spent time trying to convert me by showing me the things Bonham did and explaining why they’re difficult. He never understands why I still laugh before I turn off Rock N’ Roll though. It doesn’t sound so much like Bonham’s playing drums as it sounds like we’ve caught him on some strange workout machine and he’s melting the pounds away.
Bonham’s drumming on When the Levee Breaks seems pretty cool. It’s too bad the song is something like ten minutes too long.
My high school was 100% Led Zep, Yes, Dead, Doors, metal, Stones, and some of the girls were also big into James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Neil Young. But we were half a decade to a decade removed from all of what we listened to. This was 1976-80 yet in my massive suburban school there was no sign of punk or new wave until my very last year when I saw only the most tentative fashion influences creep into only a handful of cool oddballs wearing an old blazer, or pants that weren’t faded flared Levis. We had an English exchange student, but he didn’t even mention punk, just went on and on about some group we’d never heard of called Motorhead.
That same year I rescued a Clash poster from the record store garbage and put it on my wall because it was cool, but it was probably six months before I heard their music in an ad on the radio for a concert appearance. Just the chorus of I Fought the Law was fresh and exciting enough for me to think, hang on, maybe there’s more to music than the stuff I’d been listening to for the last five years. After all, Who By Numbers, Presence, and Shakedown Street weren’t selling me on the longevity of what was dawning on me were dinosaurs. I didn’t go that Clash gig, but I bought the album and never looked back. When I read Paul Simonon saying that even looking at a Led Zeppelin album cover made him want to puke, I felt guilt, shame, but also resentment that he was calling out my people.
I didn’t listen to Zeppelin for a long time from 1980, but you can’t escape them, nor your youth, and these days I do enjoy many of the songs mentioned above when I occasionally hear them. I have to admit it kind of blew my mind that Led Zeppelin was played frequently on the local “alternative” radio station about 10 years ago.
The good: Zepplin isn’t my favorite but I could easily cobble together a 12 song greatest hits with stuff like Communication Breakdown, Trampled under Foot, Houses of the Holy (the song), Over the Hills, etc. I like them best when they focus on (relatively) compact pop songs.
The bad: Between the screeching vocals and the stolen blues lyrics that somehow now have a goblin or a fairy as the protagonist, my least favorite part of Zepplin is easily Robert Plant. I would love to see what they would have been like in the alternate universe were Terry Reid took them up on the offer to be the lead singer, but then they wouldn’t have gotten Bonham who’s style is, for better or worse, a key element to their sound.
Also, as near as I can tell, they were a dreadful live band. The Song Remains the Same is like a Russian nesting doll of pretension and turgid performances. I had a roommate in college who listened almost exclusively to Zepplin bootlegs. It was painful.
I thought I was going to be an outlier, that’s the only reason I typed such a long, defensive post. Shows what I know. I agree with CDM, I like the compact songs too. There are a few tunes on “In Through The Out Door” that I like, an opinion I once stifled in a conversation with a Zep fan who dismissed the album due to Page’s heavy drug use during that time, that John Paul Jones had filled that gap with keyboards and less rocking guitars. I did listen to LZ III yesterday afternoon and it really didn’t grab me, though I at least imagined that there were similarities in the guitar textures between III and the Big Star records. I will listen again. That album cover is one of the coolest, though, if you have the vinyl.
I listened to Zep a fair amount in high school then dropped them in college due to the usual “their fans are not my people” stuff. No offense, but I really don’t cotton to holding onto that stuff in middle age. I’ll admit, Spotify makes it easier. Also, society has basically collapsed — (Bill Murray voice) it just doesn’t matter! So I re-embraced them in my 30s, and while they are not my favorite band by a long stretch, when they get it right, they really get it right. “Good Times, Bad Times,” “Out on the Tiles,” “When the Levee Breaks,” “The Ocean,” that unbelievable JPJ bassline on “Immigrant Song,” I could go on.
They’re definitely one of those bands I’ll listen to for a day or two once every few months and then go, “Okay that’s enough for a while.”
Also, I understand the usual “Plant sucks” arguments. BUT, while his solo albums are not fixtures on my stereo, it’s very clear he has an integrity and curiosity about new sounds/risk-taking that makes him pretty unique for his age cohort. I mean, even new Neil Young albums are basically chores to listen to these days.
Zeppelin may very well be the ultimate Beatin’ the Dead Horse band. A lot of their 4 hour songs could be real winners if they were reduced to two and a half minutes.
It drove us crazy that they played Zeppelin once an hour on KQ92 in Minneapolis. Suburban Twin Cities in the late 70s early 80s was prime Zep territory. My brothers and I still say “finally . . . some Zeppelin!” every time we hear a Zep song in the wild. That said, I own Presence (my favorite) and if I dug aroung I could maybe find In Through The Out Door. I remember pissing a kid off when I smeared around the watercolor imbedded dots on the inner sleeve of his original ITTOD release. He didn’t know you could do that.