LED ZEPPELIN

“They choose the path where no one goes,

They hold no Quarter"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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"B+"

Main Decada:

70's

Main Ages:

Hard Rock (1968-???)

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Key Members:

Jimmy Page, Guitar

Robert Plant, Singer

John "Bonzo" Bonham, Drums

John Paul Jones, Bass & Keyboards

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Key Songs:

Stairway To Heaven, Since I've Been Loving You, No Quarter, Kashmir, Baby I'm Gonna Leave You, Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog, Rock & Roll, Moby Dick, Lemon Song, When The Levee Break, Immigrant Song, Heartbreakr,  D'yer Mak'er, The Rover, All My Love, Communication Breakdown, Trampled Underfoot 

 

If the Beatles, in symbiosis with Dylan, were able to elevate rock music to the status of art, then Led Zeppelin was the one who elevated noise to the same status as a masterpiece. Well, perhaps this phrase isn't entirely appropriate, considering that noise, by the RAE definition, consists of: "noise (from Latin rugĭtus). 1. m. Inarticulate, generally unpleasant sound." Led Zeppelin is not, in short, a disjointed sound; quite the contrary, they were a perfectly synchronized artillery machine, and at least before their last two studio albums, it wasn't unpleasant at all. By noise, we mean the tremendous power, the war machine that Zep seemed to deploy in each work, the fury, expressiveness, and precision of the guitar, the apocalyptic drums, the dense bass, the soaring but energetic vocals.

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Making an objective analysis of Led Zeppelin is quite difficult. I don't think even their most ardent detractor can deny that this band, for better or worse, is one of the five pillars of rock. These days, I think it's easier, at least in Guadalajara, to find T-shirts with the falling Icarus or the burning blimp than to come across any printed image of the Beatles. On the few rock stations that remain, it's more common to hear Black Dog than Satisfaction, and it's easier to go to a sublime Zep tribute than to find a band that can even remotely recreate a Floyd homage in a song. Zeppelin remains more relevant than any of the other four pillars, including the Doors, despite the fact that their lyrics are the most banal and they never took a marked political, social, or philosophical stance (and I clarify that creating lyrical atmospheres from the Lord of the Rings doesn't count as philosophy). Although, come to think of it, perhaps that's precisely why they're still so relevant. Furthermore, despite exploring countless genres, they're best remembered for hard rock and metal, though curiously, I've never heard a hint of heavy metal from them, hints if anything. I remember being impressed on a show on the now-defunct StereoSoul, more than 15 years ago, when they presented "Stairway to Heaven" as the best metal song of all time. I laugh about it now, but at the time, it was very easy to go with the flow and swallow it, as many, many, many people do today. Nope, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Led Zep isn't a band that made metal, and "Stairway" isn't even a power ballad; it's simply a beautiful ballad with a brutally powerful coda and a masterful solo, but nothing more. However, broadly speaking, that's the perception most people have, and there's no way around it. That's why it's so difficult to talk about Zeppelin.

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Another reason that makes it difficult is that it's a band with many stubborn detractors who won't listen to reason and turn them into the worst kind of filth, and who can't be given any argument that will budge them even an inch from their position. Childish lyrics, ego clashes, shrill voices, overrated and over-listened to, formed in a kind of casting call with the aim of creating a money-making machine, unlike the marketing apparatus they had behind them. It even seems like they're describing Velvet Revolver. But you know what? They're right... in part.

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On the other hand, there are the Zepsters, the most fanatical, claiming they're the best band in the universe, that each of them was an unsurpassed demigod on their instrument, that they're the undisputed fathers of metal, that they revolutionized the rock scene forever, and that every time they hear one of their songs on the radio, they make a mean face, raise their fists with their index and pinky fingers extended, and shake their heads like someone possessed during an exorcism. And they're also right... in part.

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The difficult part of analyzing Led Zeppelin is trying to reconcile these two positions, qualifying the not entirely false arguments presented by each extreme. First and foremost, they considered themselves a high-decibel band, who knew how to extract thick, crushing sounds from distortion and bass drums: that's what the band was formed for. But they also knew how to combine the sublime of the most delicate, yet no less powerful, bass guitars, as in "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"; or they could create tremendously beautiful and hypnotic figures with the keyboards amid mammoth atmospheres like "No Quarter." It's not for nothing that Keith Moon said they sounded like a lead blimp, accidentally giving them his name with his own quip. But on the other hand, they also knew how to make folk ballads, experiment with reggae-like rhythms, bring sublime acoustic blues, toy with punk in some chords, or touch on progressive in some complex structures and tangled riffs. But that doesn't mean they're demigods. Jimmi Page, despite being one of the best guitarists in history, will never be able to take the top spot from Hendrix, and although their styles are very different, his level is very similar to that of Townshend and Clapton; while Petrucci, Satriani, and Vai aren't far behind. John Bonham is a masterful drummer (I saw two of Mexico's best drummers, playing simultaneously, try to recreate Moby Dick without much success), but Bonzo will always be in the shadow of Ginger Baker and Keith Moon. John Paul Jones, despite being the most professional and dedicated member of the band and perhaps the best musician (throw stones at me), doesn't stand out in his performances like Jack Bruce, John Entwistle, or Myung on bass, or like Ray Manzarek on keyboards. And Plant has expressiveness, power, and reaches very high registers, but he tends to overdo his prominence, and his babble can sometimes suffocate a good song. That doesn't mean they're any less good on their instruments. They may not be the best, but neither were the Beatles at the time, lyrically or musically speaking.

 

Zep is so great because they were four guys with the same idea: to make the heaviest songs ever made. Jimmy Page had that sound reverberating in his head since the mid-sixties, but he couldn't recreate it with the Yardbirds or as a studio musician in his various collaborations. His first attempt was to create a New Yardbirds, taking advantage of the fact that his former bandmates had just broken up but still had tour commitments. His idea was to recruit none other than Jeff Beck, with whom he shared guitars for a few months in that band, and Moon and Eintwistle, the rhythm section of The Who. The closest he came to this was playing on the song "Beck's Bolero" alongside the guitarist and Moon during the recording of Jeff's first album. Also on the keyboards for the same recording was John Paul Jones, already known to Page from other sessions, but who left him favorably impressed after this performance. After a resounding rejection from Beck and the Who, Page told Jones about his plan, and he immediately supported it, abandoning his plans to dedicate himself exclusively to record production. On his recommendation, they went to John Bonham, another session musician who seemed to rock the drums and suited the sound they were going for. The last to arrive was Plant, recommended by one of the wives of those already there. The creators, therefore, were not Page and Plant, but Page and Jones, contrary to what many people think, although the project itself was always Mr. Jimmy's idea. They weren't the best as Page had originally conceived them, but perhaps they were the most appropriate for the results, since they all had the same idea in mind: to make the most powerful blues rock made up to that point... And they achieved it.

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Personally, I'm surprised by the way they came together as a band so quickly, to the point that their first album turns out to be the most cohesive, with greater musical direction and polished production. They sound like a group that's been playing together for years and had only been rehearsing for a few months! We'll go deeper into this first album, but the fact is that they more than achieved their goal in record time. It's a denser (and at the same time more delicate) sound than anything The Who, The Animals, The Kinks, or The Throggs had ever produced. Led Zeppelin draws on the blues in most of their creations, but it's a blues far removed from the psychedelia of Clapton or Hendrix, and it's also far removed from pure Mississippi blues. Although it takes its foundations in structure and improvisation from it (paradoxically), it's a much more distorted and dirty sound due to the influences of rock and other genres (is it just me, or does Babe I'm Gonna Leave You have vague reminiscences of flamenco?).

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It's still hard rock, but in 1968 there was nothing like it in terms of dark, dense, and powerful atmospheres; in other words, they completely resized it. It's true that they would later be surpassed in power by Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, the true creators of metal, but it's also true that without the earthquake caused by the blimp with its takeoff, the evolution of metal by other exponents would have been much more difficult. Seen from a clear perspective these days, opening the doors for metal to enter the scene is more a defect than a quality, with very rare exceptions. But blaming them for rubbish like Blink-182, Sum 41, and other poser numetal bands is as unfair as blaming the Ramones for the slew of so-called neo-punks like My Chemical Romance, Rasmus, and other adolescent bands that pop up on every corner.

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On the other hand, Led Zeppelin certainly had many low points. Their albums went from strength to strength, slowly drying up their creative wellspring, their freshness, and the power of their performances, to the point that on their later albums they tried to make a name for themselves with mere noise, without clear ideas, resulting in a complete disaster, like a vile copy of themselves. The first four albums were revolutionary in terms of the creation and consolidation of a new sound. We are grateful that later, when every band on the planet was trying to sound like Zep, they attempted a change by fusing new rhythms so as not to repeat themselves. Some experiments worked, others didn't. But the final product was albums that weren't as consistent or cohesive as the first ones. Plant began to exaggerate more and more with his histrionics and vocal prominence, oversaturating the songs and forcing Page into a guitar-vocal duel that usually doesn't bring anything good to any band when it involves ego. In other words, the teamwork began to unravel. Curiously, in these later albums, the one who stands out the most is Jones, the most mentally balanced and professional, and the one who takes the band on his shoulders in the face of his bandmates' creative dullness and dueling egos. On the other hand, there were also personal problems. The death of Jimmy's son in a fire plunged him into a terrible depression. Bonzo was mired in alcoholism and was becoming increasingly slow and predictable. Page was involved in hard drugs, and his lyrics increasingly leaned toward pixies, dragons, and Middle Earths, which may be fine for Wizard of Oz (which also has its thing) but not for the ferocity of Led Zeppelin's creations. Add to this the fact that the global music scene shifted from hard rock to progressive in a matter of minutes, and from progressive to disco and punk in seconds. Zep ended up trying to emulate these trends with more pain than glory, and ended up as a semi-glam band with some flashes of talent. That is to say, unlike the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Zeppelin was best at their specialty: hard rock, and perhaps acoustic ballads, where Page also displayed mastery and control. But outside of these realms, Zeppelin mostly became an average band, producing albums with more filler than good songs, contrary to what was happening in their early days.

 

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Even so, I think they deserve a B+ in their category as a band. It seems unfair to me that simply because they're from the 1970s they're being disparaged, given that they were born just a year after Floyd and were largely responsible for the musical trend that emerged during the transition of decades, a trend that was sorely needed. Besides, while their last two or three albums are almost completely forgettable, aren't all the Stones' albums from the 1980s equally boring and disastrous? No band—I repeat, NO BAND—can remain at their best for more than ten years, and I'd even go so far as to cut that period to 5 or 6.

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In summary, Led Zeppelin certainly has many cons, but they also have many pros, and comparing them to other bands, I can't help but give them a B+. And don't let anyone be scared. It's a subjective matter. I partially agree with all the negative points I mentioned above, based on their detractors' voices, but it can't be ignored that, unlike the Beatles and the Stones, they created entirely new things, fused rhythms, took existing ones to the extreme, and were assembled by one of the best guitarists and drummers (virtuosos, it must be said), as well as one of the most accomplished musicians and arrangers. Finally, it's very difficult to create a song that becomes a classic (how many "One Hit Wonders" have there been, and yet it's still difficult?). Creating five classics is already a great band's feat, but creating the number of historic songs that Zep did—many more than 10—is the merit of legends alone, and Led Zeppelin deserves that place in history, no matter how overrated it may be.

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LINEUP: Robert Plant, Vocalist. Powerful vocals, he reached extremely high registers with his natural voice without needing to use falsetto or fake it. I've heard many vocalists struggle trying to cover Led Zeppelin when Plant made the sound seem so natural and fresh. His voice also lent itself to acoustic melodies or more delicate ballads. As the years went by, it lost that power and at the same time became more saturated with tired "Ah, oh, ah, ah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." You know what I mean. However, he established the style of powerful, very high voice for vocals in hard rock and metal.

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John Paul Jones. Bassist, keyboardist, and author of all the arrangements outside of drums and guitar in the songs, from strings to mellotron and flutes. My favorite? Sometimes; if Page weren't so good... As a bassist, I've learned many things from him. He was precise, very fast when he wanted to be, and sometimes he could argue with a bass solo that left you breathless. Without a doubt the most focused and serious of the band, the quietest, and, due to his instruments, perhaps the least noticeable at first sight or hearing.

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John "Bonzo" Bonham. Drummer. One of the greats, without a doubt. Although from the school of Keith Moon, he had a different style, less refined, but perhaps more free and creative. Despite losing the speed and power that redefined the sound of rock in its early days, and being in the shadow of Moon and Baker, he remains one of the best drummers of all time. Irreplaceable. His death by drowning in his own vomit meant the death of the band.

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Jimmi Page. Guitarist. Also a virtuoso and one of the greatest with the distorted six-string guitar. Perhaps, after Keith Richards, he is the greatest riff creator of all time. He falls behind Hendix on the electric guitar, but unlike him, he masters the acoustic guitar with mastery. Powerful, revolutionary, creative, fast-paced, with a bluesy soul. When his imagination was lost after the death of his son, the band began to die, but the classics he left behind are unsurpassed in their style.

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A better definition, impossible: The Lead Blimp, Led Zeppelin!

 

 

By Corvan 

Oct/7/2007

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