For starters, I'd be interested to know the level of familiarity of everyone following (hence the poll). So, if you vote, also let others know what bucket you fall into. Naturally, I put myself in the Expert category, but by no means would put my in the same manaical fandom that ytserush and The Letter M and KevShmev are with Rush. I'm sure many of my other fogey's will drop tidbits on me that I didn't even know.
Why am I doing Zeppelin? Why am I qualified to lead this discussion? Well, growing up, neither of my parents were all that in to music, so I just kinda wandered musically, never really finding anything that I could get truly connected to. I had to discover things myself, and ultimately ended up on Top 40 pop stuff like Wham, Madonna, Culture Club, Cindy Lauper etc... Sure, there were some bouts of Supertramp, Yes, and Halen, but only their fluffy songs that made it on to top 40 radio in the early/mid 80s.
November 23, 1985, my parents sat my brother and I down to tell us they were separating, just 4 days after my 14th birthday. It was quite the shock. This kinda shit happened to other kids, not me. Quite the influential thing to happen to a pubescent boy. Just a couple months earlier, they had me start high school at a different school than all my grade 8 class mates attended - nice huh? Send a 14 year old to start high school with 0 friends, then 2.5 months later, split up. Parenting 101 hard at work.
How does this shape me musically? Well, for the next few months, I was really trying to find my place in life. It sounds so cliche, but it really is the case. I really didn't know what to do with my (albeit inconsequential) 14 year old life. No true friends, fucked up family life (relatively speaking). I didn't give 2 shits or care about anything really. So, sometime early in '86, my brother (4 years older) bought a wicked cool stereo with this CD player thing. First disc he throws in after setting up the system starts with this nice little waa-waa guitar thing, then a god-like voice takes over.
Hey hey mama said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you grooveThat moment, and that song gave me wonder, appreciation, awe, inspiration, amazement, desire, drive, determination and probably a whole host of other emotions. It breathed life into me again. Gave me a purpose. Made me a fan of something. Nowadays, I don't do anything without music. I take my iPod to Costco when shopping; it's on in the background right now; when doing household chores, I needs me my tunes. I used to need it to fall asleep (probably would still if not for Mrs Jingle being pretty much the opposite when it comes to music - drives her nuts "take your headphones out and be part of the family!"). For anyone who followed my original Top 50, it was full of glam and classic rock, which was all I listened to until the late 90s, when I discovered Prog. I don't have a lot of diversity ... One of my rules of life is to spend time with music I love, and don't waste time with anything else. So, I love rock, and stick with it. It all started with this song.
Up to that point, I'd really only known Stairway to Heaven... having been the closing song at every elementary school dance since 1971. Like I said, I had no musical direction, and was a Top 40 radio listening guy. So Led Zeppelin was pretty much wide open territory for me, and boy did I explore. I remember the feelings the first time listening to Whole Lotta Love (dat opening riff), Immigrant Song (dat scream), and Kashmir (pretty sure I was higher than a kite for that first listen).
At the age of 18, knowing that Zeppelin would be with my soul forever (thankfully, I was right) I got this, much to the dismay of my mother!
To understand Led Zeppelin and the their historical impact on the genre of Rock, hell, on the music industry as a whole, we have to start at the very beginning. Here's how this thread will develop. I'll start with how the four of them ended up coming together - it's important. Then we'll hit the discography discussion... going with the 8 true studio albums, and regrettably Coda. In between the discussion of those albums, I intend to offer some insight into the life of Led Zeppelin as a live act, as that is what really made them larger than life. I won't lead a full in-depth discussion on all the post 1982 releases, but will touch on the significance of some of them.
For each of the studio releases, to prevent the posts from being WAY too long, I may split the discussion in two - a primary post on the album itself, and then a follow up secondary post with some comments song-by-song. Otherwise, I think I'm going to have too much to put into a single post. I know how limited our attention spans are, and I know I glaze over when I see a 3 page post.
Poll
Topic: The Led Zeppelin Discography Discussion: v. Everything still turns to gold (Read 55934 times)