I find their social commentary regarding the residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina – on “When the Levee Breaks” -- to be highly insensitive. Crying won’t help you? Praying won’t do you no good? Show some tact, please, Mr. Plant.
seriously, though, this is probably the album we'll listen to that i'm most familiar with. great album. it's so familiar, though, i literally can not imagine what it would be like to hear this for the first time. it must have been mind-blowing at the time, but it seems nothing but standard now.
could somebody explain “Black Dog” to me? It’s 4/4 time, right? but the phrasing is all sorts of funky. i can’t count that song for the life of me.
laf. stairway to heaven comes on the radio SOOOO MUCH that i trained my mom to be able to pick it out. just driving around running errands with my mom, it gets played like once an hour in ohio.
i've heard this album a million times and robert plant just gets more annoying. his voice, his words, the way he sings...gah. i gotta give him credit though, he really puts a lot of effort into taking every little note he sings waaaay too seriously.
its a shame, too, for a couple reasons. the rest of the band is great, and the production, especially for the drum sounds, is just amazing. 'rock and roll' and 'battle of evermore' are really fun songs, ruined by robert plant's annoyingness.
led zeppelin, with the help of whoever did an amazing job of producing and engineering their recordings, are a very foolishly macho band that adds a twist by occasionally going all out folk-mellow. they're too much. they're putting on a show for us, the listener, and they do it so well and have so much attention paid to the small details, that they lose any shred of sincerity. even on their first album. from day one they were 'bigger is better'. they boisterously take themselves far too seriously, CONSTANTLY, and through great production, they force this upon the listener. and i dont like. i dont mind it, but i dont like it.
if this sounds confusing, i apologize. the world of classic rock, a world i grew up in when i was a kid and know very well, has decided that these guys were the greatest heavy band ever. and they're not, but its hard for me to argue coherently with dogma.
okay so yeah this is the album with all those songs from the car commercials. turns out i have indeed heard most of them. just didn't know they were led zeppelin, and didn't realize their lead singer was a 12 year old lesbian.
i liked black dog, and the katrina song. i found the rest inoffensive except for the blatantly folksy proggy evermore track, and the apparently non-ironic tribute to rock and roll track. i still to this day do not understand the appeal of stairway. i imagine i would just need more context to appreciate it, but as much as i legitimately try, pretending to exist in an age i was not alive for is a tough task.
wiki notes that the stairway intro is also a blatant ripoff of the song Taurus by the band Spirit, for whom LZ opened 2 years earlier. [fight bait:] but there are no new ideas, great artists always steal, and that is something to be CELEBRATED, RIGHT?
the songs were too long for my attention span in general. as D says, yeah it all seems a bit much, dunnit? i like when they just rock, but when it gets fancy and thought-out, i drop out.
as for the meter of black dog, yes it's in 4. what's going on over that meter? confucious say, "pulse" not same as "beat". ommm.
I almost made my first comment “which one of you snobs is going to hate this classic album? turns out it is BOTH.
perhaps it’s fancy and thought out, but it never seems that way to me. it strikes me as just grooving, evolving rock. makes it tough for me to get bored.
I do, however, understand D’s anti-stance. being against something because everybody is stupidly for it is actually a really good reason to hate something [not sarc here]. blind devotion is usually blind for a reason.
I think zep is a FANTASTIC band and they really pushed rock music forward light years from where it was, but they are de facto acknowledged as the non-beatles greatest rock band of all time. as though it’s inarguable. I can see how that would be grating. it’s one of the reasons the beatles piss me off so much. it’s not that I’m completely contrarian, just that I’ve heard so many people give john, paul, George and ringo verbal blowjobs that I just don’t give a shit anymore. just saying “some of their lyrics are absolute shite” is equivalent to being the girl who bites down.
back to zep, tho, it speaks to the music that acid-trippy british pre-metal folk blues can inspire such crazy allegiance in dumb white trash.
hm. i dont really want this thread to stop, hehe. i might keep coming back to this one occasionally. why?
because this is the greatest album of all time.
no no, certainly not subjectively. i didnt put it in my top 100, jack. but there are a lot of objectively positive aspects to this album that cant be ignored, especially since "classic rock" idolizes this album and forces it upon anyone interested in said genre, which is basically anyone interested in rock and guitar music pre-nirvana. i am well aware that i just totally knocked it a few postings back and said how annyoing it is and how robert plant is a big fat bozo and ruins everything. and obviously, my feelings on this are just super confused and contradictory. but...
way back in the late 60s early 70s, 'god' lost a lot of popularity with youth. and i believe that for whatever reason, whether it be evolved or learned or both, people want to be religious. they want something to follow and rally behind, something larger-than-life, and i'm-not-worthy types of scenarios. and even if you think you dont, or other people dont, thousands of years of having religion forced upon the masses isnt just going to die out over night. i think this attitude is still well ingrained in our heads, even among people raised secular. anyway, in the 70s, people took these attitudes and desires, and went looking for a new god or king or religion or drugs or whatever to follow. and led zeppelin fit the bill, consciously and perfectly. there's no humor in the bible, and there's no humor in zep's music, each take themselves tragically seriously. the bible took from older sources of information without really giving credit [mostly in early genesis] and downplayed its own pre-history [ie - only 7 days of creation], as did zeppelin blatantly steal from the blues and other sources while simultaneously passing themselves off as original [look up their court cases about the music of willie dixon, and that good point about taurus mentioned above][one might also compare this to christianity's incorporation of pagan holidays into its calendar]. zeppelin is big and heavy, and their music production makes them sound omnipresent on their albums, which themselves are named in roman numerals, like epic chapters in a book. 'battle of evermore' plays on prog-rock and fansay fans' notions of epic fantasy, adding another, mythical element in there. i can go on. there are tons of comparisons one can make with zep and religion, moreso than any other band i think. so, in answer to the post above, its probably no coincidence that zep appealed to the very demographic that used to be and still are courted by missionary-types.
the beatles were a bunch of goofy comedians who could harmonize. the rolling stones were smart, sex-obsessed stylish blokes. led zeppelin, on the other hand, were gods.
and zeppelin IV was the tightest, most epic, and most coherent statement they ever made.
party never over! [see disdainty's wish to keep this thread always alive above]
i can't believe D compared zep to religion! and called them humorless! i'm not sure "humorless" is really apt. plant is constantly orgasming vocally all over the tracks and referencing Lord of the Rings (Ramble On, Battle for Evermore, Over the Hills & Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop). moreover, the band took their name from a negative review, which said that the band -- then called the new yardbirds -- made music that would go over with audiences about as well as a lead zeppelin. and they NAMED THEIR BAND AFTER THAT. if that isn't taking the piss, i don't really know what is...
as for the use of roman numerals and perceived importance, sure, that's all valid. but i think it's a natural extension of the LotR themes. it's all just symbolic fantasy bullshit. it's taken seriously, but within a fantasy-world context. it's overly involved, well-considered storytelling to an obsessive, charming extent...and ultimately harmless.
besides, the band really was pushing the limits of popular music through experimentation. laf. you really call it STEALING from the blues? man, show me one original blues song. ONE. blues, by nature, is just about 100% referential...it's what makes it so amazing. a bunch of guys trying to put their inimitable stamp on three-chord progressions and a hexatonic scale. [that's right, BITCHES. you didn't count on the schnit pulling out both of his pieces of music knowledge out, didya?]
ultimately, i don't care if you dislike the album. i don't care if you dislike the band. but it really is of the utmost importance to understand why what led zeppelin did was so important to rock and how they changed the musical landscape...even if it is a stupid cliche to call them the first metal band or a direct precursor to heavy metal, it's still true. these guys had a monumental influence, partly b/c they were able to take elements of the experimental shit that guys like Can were doing and apply those hot production sounds to a pop-blues framework. they created songs with different movements (even if they ripped those movements off), shifting comfortably from folksy fingerpicking to raucous banging within one 6 minute tune. THAT's the significance of "Stairway," sgt. puprz. listen to a little metallica and you'll hear a very clear structural influence.
my last criticism is categorizing the beatles as goofy comedians who could harmonize. sure, but these guys were gods. the difference is that beatles were mainstream, pentacostal revival tent snake handling people passing out in the aisles religion. zeppelin was david koresh in a bunker religion.
so this is a typically long-winded way of me saying, i agree with 90% of what DD put down.
granted, there are no samples from the album of discussion in that video. but i think this helps prove my point.
here's part one, if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvLsutfI5M&feature=player_embedded
giving willie dixon absolutely zero credit while using his lyrics is STEALING. i would also claim that using certain, specific signature riffs from well known blues standards would also be stealing, but i'm not here to accuse zep of that. [oh, regarding the small faces in the first video, i love them, but fortunately or unfortunately, they personally made very little money during the late 60s, despite being very popular in england. any money from that song most definitely went to the record label.] ofcourse those dinosaur fuckers settled out of court, i hope ol' willie got the billions he deserved. yes, billions he deserved. but i dont want to get too off topic here.
plant does not orgasmically vocalize to make you laugh. he does it because he takes himself and his singing too seriously. whether getting their name from a bad review is humorous or not [that could also just be laziness - just look at their first choice for a band name - or a poetic nod to the writer of the article. 'there's no such thing as bad publicity', remember], there is no humor in their music. god could be playing a huge joke on us by virtue of our existence, but with zero jokes in his instruction manual [el biblio], we wont know for sure. and in that case, it really doesnt matter.
when you copy so much without giving credit to the people and history that you're copying from, its like ignoring and basically breaking ties with that history. if some kid comes along and picks up that record without knowing that a bunch of old african american dudes were responsible for those songs, well, he's not getting the history behind it. they'll think zep is so great for coming up with all of that stuff on their own, AND zep will get all the royalty money.
also, no, the beatles were not gods. god would never claim that he's bigger than himself or license his name out to a cartoon movie about brightly colored u-boats. it'd be too obvious.
i definitely agree that it is absolutely reprehensible to take another artist's music and not give credit to that artist. to me, though, the key is GIVING CREDIT.
i'm glad that, as an advanced society, we give artists of all genres copyright protection to help ensure that the tangible works they produce -- and all the economic benefits associated with those works -- remain their property for a period of time. i'm also glad that zep was brought to court and forced to pay big for their LEGAL crimes.
i think it's no MUSICAL crime, though, to grab the wonderful things other artists are doing and incorporate it deeply into your own art. quite the opposite, i highly value it. again, though, i completely agree that it's absolutely necessary to credit those who produced the original work.
if we're going to talk about stealing from artists and get into the whole "merit of copyright" debate, though, perhaps [RADIO EDIT] [ALSO HO SNAP].
"Jimmy Page. Musician. Guitarist with Led Zeppelin, group famous for its humorless approach to rock and incomprehensible lyrics."
"Through clever historical revision, Led Zeppelin has gone from a band loved by audiences but hated by critics (like Aerosmith or Creed) to a band that was totally great and ahead of their time. They innovatively combined the British blues-rock tradition of totally sucking with the heavy metal tradition of writing songs about fantasy novels. Genius!"
if you trawl around for a while it becomes clear that plant seems to have been relatively laid back, whereas page was utterly bereft of humor. it was page, plant insisted, who prevailed upon their legal team to ban sale of a record which included a mashup of stairway to heaven with the theme from gilligan's island :P
pitchfork's top 100 of the 70's + top 100 of the 80's, considered, scrutinized, explored, assailed, defended, appreciated and deprecated, fussed over, held up high, kicked to the curb and held back up again. education by fire and a middle finger to disdain. tea, anyone?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/pitchfork_gives_music_6_8
ReplyDeleteI find their social commentary regarding the residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina – on “When the Levee Breaks” -- to be highly insensitive. Crying won’t help you? Praying won’t do you no good? Show some tact, please, Mr. Plant.
ReplyDeleteseriously, though, this is probably the album we'll listen to that i'm most familiar with. great album. it's so familiar, though, i literally can not imagine what it would be like to hear this for the first time. it must have been mind-blowing at the time, but it seems nothing but standard now.
ReplyDeletecould somebody explain “Black Dog” to me? It’s 4/4 time, right? but the phrasing is all sorts of funky. i can’t count that song for the life of me.
i have not ever heard this album and this shall be my first time.
ReplyDeletei've never even heard stairway to heaven all the way through :P
laf. stairway to heaven comes on the radio SOOOO MUCH that i trained my mom to be able to pick it out. just driving around running errands with my mom, it gets played like once an hour in ohio.
ReplyDeleteuch, i'm so glad this one is over.
ReplyDeletei've heard this album a million times and robert plant just gets more annoying. his voice, his words, the way he sings...gah. i gotta give him credit though, he really puts a lot of effort into taking every little note he sings waaaay too seriously.
its a shame, too, for a couple reasons. the rest of the band is great, and the production, especially for the drum sounds, is just amazing. 'rock and roll' and 'battle of evermore' are really fun songs, ruined by robert plant's annoyingness.
led zeppelin, with the help of whoever did an amazing job of producing and engineering their recordings, are a very foolishly macho band that adds a twist by occasionally going all out folk-mellow. they're too much. they're putting on a show for us, the listener, and they do it so well and have so much attention paid to the small details, that they lose any shred of sincerity. even on their first album. from day one they were 'bigger is better'. they boisterously take themselves far too seriously, CONSTANTLY, and through great production, they force this upon the listener. and i dont like. i dont mind it, but i dont like it.
if this sounds confusing, i apologize. the world of classic rock, a world i grew up in when i was a kid and know very well, has decided that these guys were the greatest heavy band ever. and they're not, but its hard for me to argue coherently with dogma.
srsly, these guys are the radiohead of the 70s. and i know you both like radiohead, and i dont, for the same reasons that i dont like zep.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"...and the apparently non-ironic tribute to rock and roll track."
ReplyDeleteyes, there was a time when rock and roll songs were typically about rock and roll. i hear tell it was a good time.
okay so yeah this is the album with all those songs from the car commercials. turns out i have indeed heard most of them. just didn't know they were led zeppelin, and didn't realize their lead singer was a 12 year old lesbian.
ReplyDeletei liked black dog, and the katrina song. i found the rest inoffensive except for the blatantly folksy proggy evermore track, and the apparently non-ironic tribute to rock and roll track. i still to this day do not understand the appeal of stairway. i imagine i would just need more context to appreciate it, but as much as i legitimately try, pretending to exist in an age i was not alive for is a tough task.
wiki notes that the stairway intro is also a blatant ripoff of the song Taurus by the band Spirit, for whom LZ opened 2 years earlier. [fight bait:] but there are no new ideas, great artists always steal, and that is something to be CELEBRATED, RIGHT?
the songs were too long for my attention span in general. as D says, yeah it all seems a bit much, dunnit? i like when they just rock, but when it gets fancy and thought-out, i drop out.
as for the meter of black dog, yes it's in 4. what's going on over that meter? confucious say, "pulse" not same as "beat". ommm.
I almost made my first comment “which one of you snobs is going to hate this classic album? turns out it is BOTH.
ReplyDeleteperhaps it’s fancy and thought out, but it never seems that way to me. it strikes me as just grooving, evolving rock. makes it tough for me to get bored.
I do, however, understand D’s anti-stance. being against something because everybody is stupidly for it is actually a really good reason to hate something [not sarc here]. blind devotion is usually blind for a reason.
I think zep is a FANTASTIC band and they really pushed rock music forward light years from where it was, but they are de facto acknowledged as the non-beatles greatest rock band of all time. as though it’s inarguable. I can see how that would be grating. it’s one of the reasons the beatles piss me off so much. it’s not that I’m completely contrarian, just that I’ve heard so many people give john, paul, George and ringo verbal blowjobs that I just don’t give a shit anymore. just saying “some of their lyrics are absolute shite” is equivalent to being the girl who bites down.
back to zep, tho, it speaks to the music that acid-trippy british pre-metal folk blues can inspire such crazy allegiance in dumb white trash.
v good point. amazing what kind of pull this music apparently exerted.
ReplyDeletehm.
ReplyDeletei dont really want this thread to stop, hehe. i might keep coming back to this one occasionally.
why?
because this is the greatest album of all time.
no no, certainly not subjectively. i didnt put it in my top 100, jack. but there are a lot of objectively positive aspects to this album that cant be ignored, especially since "classic rock" idolizes this album and forces it upon anyone interested in said genre, which is basically anyone interested in rock and guitar music pre-nirvana. i am well aware that i just totally knocked it a few postings back and said how annyoing it is and how robert plant is a big fat bozo and ruins everything. and obviously, my feelings on this are just super confused and contradictory. but...
way back in the late 60s early 70s, 'god' lost a lot of popularity with youth. and i believe that for whatever reason, whether it be evolved or learned or both, people want to be religious. they want something to follow and rally behind, something larger-than-life, and i'm-not-worthy types of scenarios. and even if you think you dont, or other people dont, thousands of years of having religion forced upon the masses isnt just going to die out over night. i think this attitude is still well ingrained in our heads, even among people raised secular. anyway, in the 70s, people took these attitudes and desires, and went looking for a new god or king or religion or drugs or whatever to follow. and led zeppelin fit the bill, consciously and perfectly. there's no humor in the bible, and there's no humor in zep's music, each take themselves tragically seriously. the bible took from older sources of information without really giving credit [mostly in early genesis] and downplayed its own pre-history [ie - only 7 days of creation], as did zeppelin blatantly steal from the blues and other sources while simultaneously passing themselves off as original [look up their court cases about the music of willie dixon, and that good point about taurus mentioned above][one might also compare this to christianity's incorporation of pagan holidays into its calendar]. zeppelin is big and heavy, and their music production makes them sound omnipresent on their albums, which themselves are named in roman numerals, like epic chapters in a book. 'battle of evermore' plays on prog-rock and fansay fans' notions of epic fantasy, adding another, mythical element in there. i can go on. there are tons of comparisons one can make with zep and religion, moreso than any other band i think. so, in answer to the post above, its probably no coincidence that zep appealed to the very demographic that used to be and still are courted by missionary-types.
the beatles were a bunch of goofy comedians who could harmonize. the rolling stones were smart, sex-obsessed stylish blokes. led zeppelin, on the other hand, were gods.
and zeppelin IV was the tightest, most epic, and most coherent statement they ever made.
aaaand the D-man wins. party over!
ReplyDeleteparty never over! [see disdainty's wish to keep this thread always alive above]
ReplyDeletei can't believe D compared zep to religion! and called them humorless! i'm not sure "humorless" is really apt. plant is constantly orgasming vocally all over the tracks and referencing Lord of the Rings (Ramble On, Battle for Evermore, Over the Hills & Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop). moreover, the band took their name from a negative review, which said that the band -- then called the new yardbirds -- made music that would go over with audiences about as well as a lead zeppelin. and they NAMED THEIR BAND AFTER THAT. if that isn't taking the piss, i don't really know what is...
as for the use of roman numerals and perceived importance, sure, that's all valid. but i think it's a natural extension of the LotR themes. it's all just symbolic fantasy bullshit. it's taken seriously, but within a fantasy-world context. it's overly involved, well-considered storytelling to an obsessive, charming extent...and ultimately harmless.
besides, the band really was pushing the limits of popular music through experimentation. laf. you really call it STEALING from the blues? man, show me one original blues song. ONE. blues, by nature, is just about 100% referential...it's what makes it so amazing. a bunch of guys trying to put their inimitable stamp on three-chord progressions and a hexatonic scale. [that's right, BITCHES. you didn't count on the schnit pulling out both of his pieces of music knowledge out, didya?]
ultimately, i don't care if you dislike the album. i don't care if you dislike the band. but it really is of the utmost importance to understand why what led zeppelin did was so important to rock and how they changed the musical landscape...even if it is a stupid cliche to call them the first metal band or a direct precursor to heavy metal, it's still true. these guys had a monumental influence, partly b/c they were able to take elements of the experimental shit that guys like Can were doing and apply those hot production sounds to a pop-blues framework. they created songs with different movements (even if they ripped those movements off), shifting comfortably from folksy fingerpicking to raucous banging within one 6 minute tune. THAT's the significance of "Stairway," sgt. puprz. listen to a little metallica and you'll hear a very clear structural influence.
my last criticism is categorizing the beatles as goofy comedians who could harmonize. sure, but these guys were gods. the difference is that beatles were mainstream, pentacostal revival tent snake handling people passing out in the aisles religion. zeppelin was david koresh in a bunker religion.
so this is a typically long-winded way of me saying, i agree with 90% of what DD put down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zThdTAWQFAQ&feature=player_embedded
ReplyDeletegranted, there are no samples from the album of discussion in that video. but i think this helps prove my point.
here's part one, if you're interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvLsutfI5M&feature=player_embedded
giving willie dixon absolutely zero credit while using his lyrics is STEALING. i would also claim that using certain, specific signature riffs from well known blues standards would also be stealing, but i'm not here to accuse zep of that. [oh, regarding the small faces in the first video, i love them, but fortunately or unfortunately, they personally made very little money during the late 60s, despite being very popular in england. any money from that song most definitely went to the record label.]
ofcourse those dinosaur fuckers settled out of court, i hope ol' willie got the billions he deserved. yes, billions he deserved. but i dont want to get too off topic here.
plant does not orgasmically vocalize to make you laugh. he does it because he takes himself and his singing too seriously.
whether getting their name from a bad review is humorous or not [that could also just be laziness - just look at their first choice for a band name - or a poetic nod to the writer of the article. 'there's no such thing as bad publicity', remember], there is no humor in their music. god could be playing a huge joke on us by virtue of our existence, but with zero jokes in his instruction manual [el biblio], we wont know for sure. and in that case, it really doesnt matter.
when you copy so much without giving credit to the people and history that you're copying from, its like ignoring and basically breaking ties with that history. if some kid comes along and picks up that record without knowing that a bunch of old african american dudes were responsible for those songs, well, he's not getting the history behind it. they'll think zep is so great for coming up with all of that stuff on their own, AND zep will get all the royalty money.
also, no, the beatles were not gods. god would never claim that he's bigger than himself or license his name out to a cartoon movie about brightly colored u-boats. it'd be too obvious.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletei definitely agree that it is absolutely reprehensible to take another artist's music and not give credit to that artist. to me, though, the key is GIVING CREDIT.
ReplyDeletei'm glad that, as an advanced society, we give artists of all genres copyright protection to help ensure that the tangible works they produce -- and all the economic benefits associated with those works -- remain their property for a period of time. i'm also glad that zep was brought to court and forced to pay big for their LEGAL crimes.
i think it's no MUSICAL crime, though, to grab the wonderful things other artists are doing and incorporate it deeply into your own art. quite the opposite, i highly value it. again, though, i completely agree that it's absolutely necessary to credit those who produced the original work.
if we're going to talk about stealing from artists and get into the whole "merit of copyright" debate, though, perhaps [RADIO EDIT] [ALSO HO SNAP].
;)
hey princess. why dont you give credit to SHUTTING UP.
ReplyDeleteladies, ladies ... we have quite a bit more led zeppelin to go! conserve your pretty voices.
ReplyDeletecan we change the name of this blog to "CC ALBVMS" ?
ReplyDeleteit would greatly emphasize the epic importance of our work here. also, disdainty is utterly humorless, so it should suit him perfectly ;)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletefrom the hinternet:
ReplyDelete"Jimmy Page. Musician. Guitarist with Led Zeppelin, group famous for its humorless approach to rock and incomprehensible lyrics."
"Through clever historical revision, Led Zeppelin has gone from a band loved by audiences but hated by critics (like Aerosmith or Creed) to a band that was totally great and ahead of their time. They innovatively combined the British blues-rock tradition of totally sucking with the heavy metal tradition of writing songs about fantasy novels. Genius!"
if you trawl around for a while it becomes clear that plant seems to have been relatively laid back, whereas page was utterly bereft of humor. it was page, plant insisted, who prevailed upon their legal team to ban sale of a record which included a mashup of stairway to heaven with the theme from gilligan's island :P