Do you consider Led Zeppelin a METAL band?

[Treebeard]

LZ.....the GOAT.

 

[J-Bassomatic]

No way LZ is HM.

My first car was a 1962 Mercury Comet. I was in high school and had a job. I bought that POS Comet from a neighbor lady whose husband had passed away. I think I paid her $200 cash. The Comet was beige. An ugly drab beige Comet with a 2-speed automatic and probably about 50 HP. It was his daily driver to his job at the naval shipyard in Long Beach. He probably died of mesothelioma from asbestos exposure. The Comet wouldn't run whenever it was foggy.

But I digress.

Anyway I installed an 8-track tape player in the Comet. The first tape I got was Led Zeppelin (first album). Oh holy heck, that LZ album rocked the Comet! I remember this very clearly.

Sorry for the slight derail.

Man, my first one was a 63 Oldsmobile 98 I got for $200. It had an AM radio with a 'Wonder Bar', when you pressed it it automatically found the next station up. It had TUBES, it took 15 or 16 seconds to warm up. But I had a Radio Shack 8 track recorder so I could make 'mix tapes'. Everyone thought that was cool. It was so much easier then to bolt a player under the dash. Back to the thread.

 

[J-Bassomatic]

No.

Short, sweet and to the point.

 

[jmlee]

I really and respectfully have to disagree, when Led Zep first appeared they were mainly out of the blues strained through England's vision of American bluesmen. In the day we NEVER referred to them as heavy metal, they were 'Led Zeppelin'. I honestly think they were not even pioneers of the genre (heavy metal), true, they could rock out. I would put the linage on Steppenwolf, Deep Purple etc eventually Sabbath who really nailed it down. I do not, will not argue and no snark intended. It does make for a great discussion, this is the view of someone who was 16 or so when Zep hit. One of the first 'genres' I can remember was when no one could classify the Eagles (Burritos, Parsons etc) and it was designated as 'country-rock'. Silly people. Trix are for kids. Hell, I remember buying a Led Zeppelin record and a Micheal Nesmith and the First National Band record on the same day. PTOO on genre. Dig the MUSIC.

Bless you for remembering Michael Nesmith, @J-Bassomatic! I still have four or five of Michael Nesmith's albums on vinyl—same with Zeppelin. Time for a Duke Ellington quote: "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind." Zeppelin and Nesmith were both good music. End of categorization for tonight.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Compressorhead are the only band where all the members are metal:

 

[J-Bassomatic]

Compressorhead are the only band where all the members are metal:

I have seen the future of Rock and Roll, and it is Compressorhead.

 

[bassstrangler]

Compressorhead are the only band where all the members are metal:

That was painful.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

yeah, they sound awful, but they are definitively metal.

 

[foolforthecity]

if i think back to 69/ early 70's ...

Beach Boys/ Beatles - pop
Clapton/Doors/Doobies - rock
Led Zep/ Black Sabbath/ Grand Funk - harder rock
Yes/ Who / Deep Purple / Uriah Heep - early prog rock


i really never thought of that era as having ' metal ' here in the US , probably more so in the UK .. ?? maybe things like The Velvet Underground .. ?
maybe Black Sabbath a bit later . ? or into the mid 70's - Judas Priest ,Iron Maiden , Motorhead ...
i think metal hit it's stride in the early 80's ... Metallica , Anthrax , Pantera , etc ...

I'm sorry, which Velvet Underground are you referencing?

 

[J-Bassomatic]

yeah, they sound awful, but they are definitively metal.

No lie!

 

[Hopkins]

I consider Zeppelin a Hard Rock/Heavy Blues band. Especially their early stuff. They became more of a progressive band their later years.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

Put the question into context. In the early 1970s, Led Zeppelin played heavy metal music.

 

[BrickBatMansion]

In their heyday of the 70's, I thought of them as HM/hard rock. They weren't metal like Judas Priest or Sabbath but they could certainly be HEAVY. I was not a LZ fanatic. I thought they either hit home runs or struck out. And their homeruns were grand slams.

 

[Basshappi]

They were considered simply a rock band.
All of these different labels and subgenres came much later and were mostly the inventions of record company marketing departments and music critics.

 

[J-Bassomatic]

Put the question into context. In the early 1970s, Led Zeppelin played heavy metal music.

No, they did not. I was there (I'm on my last legs) LZ was never considered heavy metal. Trans-genre maybe but NEVER heavy metal.

 

[gjohnson441496]

I grew up during that era, bought the music, wore the clothes, saw the concerts etc. LZ, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were considered heavy metal simply because there wasn't another name to describe their sound which was harder than what came before it, like Clapton, Hendrix... guitar heroes or bands like Jefferson Airplane or even the Who. They were simply rock/hard rock. IMO, true Metal came into being with bands like Anthrax, Metallica, Pantera and Slayer... music I actually couldn't understand and did not like because it was too speedy/mumbo jumbo. Although, I like Metallica from the Black album on, true metalheads do not and do not consider the latter Metallica metal, and this makes sense to me because it's more melodic, as if they were affected by age and time.

 

[TheGreatSealof]

No. In music, as in life, there is a beginning and a progression. Rock started in the 50's. Every rock musician that followed was influenced by the musical precedence of the artists of the 50's.

New artists built on their musical influences and developed their own unique musical innovations. Metal, as a genre, developed because of the same processes.

Zep established their own sound in the same framework. Zep was influential for the development of the metal bands that followed. Progression.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Do you consider Led Zeppelin a METAL band?

No, I don't. They were just another rock band, among many, that I grew up with.

 

[SasquatchDude]

I'd argue that some of their stuff is heavier than conventional heavy metal (live versions of Whole Lotta Love, anyone?), but I'd never consider them a "metal band"... at the end of the day, it's still grooving, I-IV-V based, pentatonic-inflected material.

That being said, the Immigrant Song is notable exception with its thrashing, chugging riff.

 

[J-Bassomatic]

I grew up during that era, bought the music, wore the clothes, saw the concerts etc. LZ, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were considered heavy metal simply because there wasn't another name to describe their sound which was harder than what came before it, like Clapton, Hendrix... guitar heroes or bands like Jefferson Airplane or even the Who. They were simply rock/hard rock. IMO, true Metal came into being with bands like Anthrax, Metallica, Pantera and Slayer... music I actually couldn't understand and did not like because it was too speedy/mumbo jumbo. Although, I like Metallica from the Black album on, true metalheads do not and do not consider the latter Metallica metal, and this makes sense to me because it's more melodic, as if they were affected by age and time.

One of the main differences to me was the 'heavy metal' branch was one or two steps removed from the blues, they did not rely on blues progressions, they kind of made a 'leap of faith' into the future.