Ahh... Led Zeppelin. How hum-drum and shocking is it for a 47-year old male who went to HS in the 70s to proclaim that Led Zep is his all-time favorite band? Ummm... very! But I'm gonna say it anyway: Led Zeppelin are my all-time favorite band. It wasn't always this way, as this is one band that has managed to come full-circle on me.
It started when I was about 12-13 yrs old and I first heard Whole Lotta Love being played as a single on the radio. Everything about it absolutely blew me away, from that weird cough at the beginning into the explosive Page riff that immediately gets doubled with JPJ's bass. Then the unbridled Plant vocal/lyric that's filled with sexual innuendo up the kazoo, and the weirdly orgasmic instrumental break that resolves itself into a classic Page solo.... I was hooked BIG TIME. So was the rest of the world.
And that was part of the problem with Zeppelin for me after a few years of hoarding up all their albums..... they got TOO big. They were EVERYWHERE overexposed with their music being played to death on hit radio, and I got caught up in the media backlash that called them out for being self-indulgent piggish superstars (which they were). So there was a time in my college years when I didn't go near Zeppelin, opting in favor of more trendy 80s music like The Clash, Iron Maiden, Priest, Queensryche, Metallica, The Grateful Dead etc.
With the perspective of time, however, and after listening to tons of bands over the years, I've come to recognize that their music has never really been truly surpassed. Led Zeppelin manages to satisfy my craving for so much that I ask for in my music.
- I love hard rock, and there is no rhythm section that has ever hit me quite as hard as Jones/Bonham. Not one. Back in the day, most bands revolved around 1, maybe 2 players, usually the vocalist or lead guitarist. Zep was one of the 1st groups (Cream the other) that showed what could done when a band consisted of 4 "lead" instrumentalists.
- I love prog rock, and Zeppelin, while not truly 'prog', is one of the only hard rock bands to "progress" from album to album. What band was able to shift from heavy blues to celtic folk to Middle-eastern modes so seamlessly, and all within the span of one album? Banjo anyone? Mandolin Mellotron Theremin? Page was not afraid to experiment. And the beauty of it was that he was his own George Martin. No one except Page himself was going to mess with the artistic integrity of his band. When I first bought Led Zeppelin III, I didn't get it. WTF were they doing with all these mellow acoustic tracks? At the time, it was a letdown to me after the heavy metal brute power of II. In hindsight, after seeing what they did with Zoso and Houses, I can better understand where Page was coming from and now have a whole new appreciation and love for III.
- I love jam music, and Zeppelin are one of the few bands (The Dead and King Crimson being the others) that I will actively seek out bootlegs because I absolutely adore their extended jams (No Quarter, Dazed and Confused, Bring It On Home) and song variants (Immigrant Song, Over The Hills, etc). As exacting as Jimmy Page was in the studio, they played fast and loose in a live setting. Page admitted that they were very much a "jam" band when a journalist opined that their live songs were never faithful to the studio versions.
So yeah... nerdy as it sounds, I've got a little shrine to Zeppelin in my den consisting of my old vinyls, a newer cd boxset, several biography books, live dvds, bootleg cds, all topped off with a miniature Jimmy Page figure triumphantly holding up his violin bow.
Topic: Led Zeppelin Appreciation Thread (Read 60768 times)
