[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
Dustin wrote:
LarryDavid wrote:
The same can be said for Led Zeppelin too. Now I enjoy their music a lot, but there’s not a lot that’s special about playing a guitar with a violin stick thingy. But if you’d read what some people say…
Zeppelin had very little media coverage. The biggest rock magazine, Rolling Stone, all but ignored Zeppelin during the height of their popularity.
The violin “schtick” is not overly special, but it was Page that made it popular. He wasn’t the first to do it, but is always associated with it. Well, that and the theramin.
Besides, the aforementioned only scratches the surface. Zeppelin was in a class of their own in musical arrangement, diversity in music, songwriting and musicianship.
Well I was mainly referring to Rock Canon, since you mentioned how the Beatles are portrayed as practically the only rock band of importance. I agree that this happens, but usually as part of rock canon, and with a band as famous as Led Zeppelin, you get similar notions. Rock canon is always retrospective so while Zeppelin weren’t getting written about (or at least weren’t being written about in a complimentary fashion) when they were at their peak, they are canonized now. And towards the end of their career, Rolling Stone was dying to have them on, and wasn’t being nearly as rude as they were at the start.
As for contemporary coverage (since it was brought up), Led Zeppelin didn’t have the publicity that the Beatles had, but they had different publicity that worked better for their generation anyway. By the time Led Zeppelin hit the scene rock had it’s very own forms of publicity outside the mainstream publicity mold. Album-oriented rock radio would probably be the strongest example. It’s rise was very advantageous for album-oriented bands like Led Zeppelin, as well as the Progressive Rock movement. Single oriented artists (of which many of the big early to mid 60s rock bands were) would not have been as successful under this environment. Not to mention live performances became far more important in the late 60s and 70s and became an art in itself during that period, which factors into the success of a lot of progressive rock bands, and the whole stadium rock thing. I know you said that live performances matter, but for the sake of talking publicity I’ll mention how this helped, cause stories of one hour drum solos help with that and all :). The publicity was there, it’s just that Ed Sullivan and regular news got replaced with AOR radio and other more “rock-specific” forms of publicity.
I agree that Led Zeppelin were great musicians and great artists overall. I think they had a hell of a sound, and while I may not like my artists to be virtuosos, Led Zeppelin did it as a part of an overall aesthetic like Hendrix and Cream before them (and unlike most Progressive Rock, which was musicianship with no aesthetic coherence IMO), and so it’s fine by me. I was just using the violin shtick as an example since people talk like it was genius and a good example of Zeppelin’s greatness, when really it was just a fun little thing.
Good discussion btw.[/quote]
Indeed!
A couple of my favorite Zeppelin tunes for you.
…and
