Do you consider Led Zeppelin a METAL band?

[I am Soma]

on a side note i actually like genre classification. it isn't a perfect system but with things like metal i like that i can look up post-metal bands as opposed to having to sift through thrash, doom, etc.

on another side note i like that led zeps wiki page has a link to the music plagiarism subpage.

 

[Double E]

Those of us listening to Rock & Roll back in the day were aware of the media's obsession with applying the heavy metal label where is didn't belong. Did we notice that some articles applied the label to Led Zeppelin? Yes. Did we agree with it? No.

Jethro Tull, another mis-labled act, won the first Grammy for the Heavy Metal genre, goes to show how out of touch some perspectives were then. (sorry if this has already been mentioned).

 

[Jeff Scott]

...I don't envy you the difficulty of keeping up with semantic changes.

I don't worry about genres; that is more for marketing, IMO. There is way too much division in the the music world as to where it "needs to be slotted" into the get to the correct demographic. LZ was just a rock band that I listened to during my musical upbringing, no different to me than Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad, Jethro Tull, Humble Pie, Black Sabbath, Glass Harp, and others in the '60s/'70s.

 

[J-Bassomatic]

Those of us listening to Rock & Roll back in the day were aware of the media's obsession with applying the heavy metal label where is didn't belong. Did we notice that some articles applied the label to Led Zeppelin? Yes. Did we agree with it? No.

Jethro Tull, another mis-labled act, won the first Grammy for the Heavy Metal genre, goes to show how out of touch some perspectives were then. (sorry if this has already been mentioned).

Especially if you heard their first one, 'This Was'.

 

[RickyWoo]

What about Budgie?

 

[StatesideRambler]

Today we're surrounded by bands that play hard rocking music. In 1967 "rocking hard" tended to mean that the guitarist turned his Fender Twin Reverb up to 8 and the drummer used the thick end of his sticks. In Chicago, near where I grew up and went to dozens of concerts*, Hendrix and Cream were, I'm quite sure, the first to line up Marshall stacks [plural] forming a wall behind them with LZ close behind on the calendar. At that time had nothing like that, nor did Soft Machine, the Rolling Stones, Terry Reid, Janis Joplin's band, Vanilla Fudge, et al. These were the heaviest hitters at the time. It's common to judge things in the past by standards of the present. Example: when Elvis Presley performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, the biggest of all variety shows on television, the cameras showed only his torso because he "wiggled his hips" and that was offensive to 1950s sensibilities. Today the audience would wonder if he was ever going to move. Standards have changed, gang. Context.

So, to the thread title, in the context of the late sixties yes LZ was a heavy metal band, outrageous in every way. In today's spectrum, everybody does what they did. Their antics are something we're inured to, therefore we consider them pretty mild.

*Rock concert ticket prices in 1967 were typically $5.50, $4.50 and $3.50, up from $4.50, $3.50 and $2.50 the year before. That was outrageous!

 

[58kites]

What about Budgie?

A band that (on their first record sounded an awful lot like Black Sabbath).....because it was recorded by the same sound engineer in the same studio.
Budgie was clearly also listening to Zeppelin.
I think they were definitely early metal, one of the first bands that seemed to be heavily influenced by Sabbath at the beginning of their recording career.
But Budgie changed over time and sounded a bit different on every record.
I really like their first 3-4 records and can't get through the later stuff.

 

[RickyWoo]

A band that sounded an awful lot like Black Sabbath on their first record.....because it was recorded by the same sound engineer in the same studio.
I think they were definitely early metal, one of the first bands that seemed to be heavily influenced by Sabbath at the beginning of their recording career.

Sabbath formed in 68, 1 year after Budgie. Budgie released their debut 1 year after Black Sabbath S/T album... So which came first? The budgie or the egg? I always wondered which band heard who first when it came to those two. There's an answer somewhere but I haven't gone digging for it either.

Also... Burke Shelley deserves the love!

 

[58kites]

Sabbath formed in 68, 1 year after Budgie. Budgie released their debut 1 year after Black Sabbath S/T album... So which came first? The budgie or the egg? I always wondered which band heard who first when it came to those two. There's an answer somewhere but I haven't gone digging for it either.

Also... Burke Shelley deserves the love!

I think mostly Budgie reminds me of Sabbath in the bass playing, or the sound of the bass as it was recorded.
There are Budgie songs that sound like they are trying really hard to sound like Led Zeppelin.
.
One of the things about the term metal is, that it was not a popular term when Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, Deep Purple and others got started.
By 1977 when Hit Parader magazine or People magazine were throwing around the term, there was an established thing called heavy metal.
When I started listening to all those bands (when they made their first records 1968-1972) there was no term Metal, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Classic Rock.....all the music I listened to was just called Rock Music.
Today, the various bands I was listening to are called Hard Rock, Rock, RocknRoll, Metal, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Fusion, Southern Rock and worst of all Classic Rock (a total radio term).
And there are bands that seem to defy a category like Jethro Tull.

 

[Honch]

Thanks, another label. Who comes up with them? When people ask me what type of music I'm into, I usually reply, "good".

Oh dear, yes and what color do you like? - Good! Why need labels like red, hues, shades of blue, grey, white or black? Just say "Good" and everyone will agree with you!
Let's see if you do a CL ad for a band or other band members. What type of music are you into? Well, good... see how many who shakes their head.
What books do you like? well, good ones.
What films do you watch? Well, just and only good ones, can't stand anything else.
What food do you like? Well, good.
What bass do you play?, Don't know the brand, make or model, but it sure's good.
What chicks do you like? Well, good ones...
What religion are you? Well, a good one that's for sure. Just like the good one's minus one of the o' letters.
What smells do you like? Good ones only, and I am pretty adamant about that.
What's your name? Well, I dunno, but it sure's a good one.

Life would be so much simpler if we could answer "GOOD" to everything, don't you think? Just divide everything into black or white (good or bad) As far as I can tell, no one ever liked bad music... ;-) so you're not that unique you know.

 

[Honch]

Led Zeppelin were too eclectic (you can look that one up if you like) to be labeled as a this or that band, but metal they were definitely not. I've yet to see any Zep tribute band takig their folkier stuff up to the same gusto, and with flying colors as when they perform the heavier material. Some said already way back then that they were really too eclectic for their own good, mixing soft acoustic folk songs (blues too) up with high intensity and loud blues/rock numbers. Zep tribute bands today tends to ONLY veer towards their louder stuff. They "needed" to get off that self indulgence, but never did.

The most fair explanation I've heard of their "style" was by Plant himself: "No matter how famous we got, or sold many albums, I still think we're just still an UNDERGROUND rock band". Today, that moniker has been replaced with INDEPENDENT, which means basically the same. Album based rock rather than hit singles, and self indulgent long jams live. "Eclectic underground rock" maybe, with some acid, psychedelic influence inherited from other bands they were in previously. Underground was in those days very often the trademark for any of those rock acts, that didn't follow any record companies formula. Ahmet Ertegun let them go with whatever they did, because he knew they would sell truckloads anyway. Without singles, without publicists and media coverage.

And "Your Time Is Gonna Come" is pure lightweight pop leftover from the Yardbirds. Still psychedelic though.

I am really thinking that it's all about their name which - really - did include the name of a heavy metal, although spelled a bit differently to differ from "LEAD" as in "leading zeppelin" or something. BTW Peter Grant was that man who Led Zeppelin (ha!)....when people heard the name "led" they automatically started to - after quite a while - think it was a heavy metal band. And others had said already, and agreeing with me (as it would be something I came up with) that the moniker "heavy metal" were moreso used with other bands, especially BÖC, Iron Butterfly, Sabbath, etc, than Led Zeppelin. The funny thing with Zep is, is by the time were they mellowed out on later album and did tone down the screaming and louder bit and incorporated more and more acoustic songs, they got more and more called "heavy metal". Beats me! If they continued in the vein of the first two albums ad nauseam they MAY have had painted themselves into that "heavy metal" corner and would never have got out of it. Luckily they didn't fall into that trap.

Eclectic.

Keep that in mind.

 

[Honch]

And frankly I wouldn't label Led Zeppelin as GOOD music all the way through, since they were - due to their eclitism and urge for variation for variations sake - all over the place ranging from GOOD to BAD, and everything in between. I confess to, that more and more of their material got to "filler" status later on. Snorefest, riffs just going on and on after they'd reached their dramatic impact. The weed wane started to creep in, and they didn't have a proper/strong outside producer who dared to kill their darlings in the studio.

Drum solo on a studio album? nahhh... I've even heard of bona fide drummers who didn't like that at all. Keep that to LIVE!

You know, both "Good Times, Bad Times" as they sing in their song.

 

[ahc]

I consider Led Zep a great band. Genre labels mean nothing. You either like the music or you don't.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Jeopardy just had a Heavy Metal category & 3 out of 5 of the bands mentioned are not even Heavy Metal & a couple never claimed to be either

 

[J-Bassomatic]

Jeopardy just had a Heavy Metal category & 3 out of 5 of the bands mentioned are not even Heavy Metal & a couple never claimed to be either

Clearly standards are being lowered.
What IS the best game show for metal?

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Stump the Trunk is the only Heavy Metal game on TV that I know of:



DOH!
spoke too soon, entirely too many non-Heavy Metal folks showing up in that video

 

[planetdrumz]

I dont consider them metal. Just straight up Rock!✌

 

[Honch]

But frankly, how many bands have you heard confessing to be playing the style they've been tagged with? Especially spearhead bands who started a/the thing?

Will Ackerman of Windham Hill records actually threatened journalists of calling the music New Age, he loathed the term.
Fugazi refused to called themselves anything EMO.
Kraftwerk never came up with the term Krautrock anyway. They loathed it just as well. It was just pejorative.
Motorhead? No, Lemmy called them filthy rock'n'roll band, as if it was derived from 50s rock'n'roll.
Numerous other bands, refuse to acknowledge their "own" label, put by others. Even progressive bands.

Of course Led Zep refused to use the term even for other bands, they did state in interviews that "Bands such as Sabbath and Purple took that genre further than we did, that I refuse to mention, heavy metal" said Pagey once. He thought it was a bad moniker for ANY style or any band really.

FWIW, they used the term heavy metal within quotation marks all of the time.

When I look at their early DVD from Royal Albert Hall 1970, they sound filthy, scary and very underground, raw, ugly and unpolished. Rough diamonds. Even young kids today hear that for the first time, they'll go "...hmmm...is that a new band? ...". When you took a good look at the image on those bands that came out back in the days of Zep, they all looked the same. Eagles and Zep looked the same on publicist pix. Long hair "hippy lifestyle" and the same clothes with flare pants and so on, platform boots, yadayad. When listening to them they were worlds apart. Later on when punk came around, "hard rockers" had to make a visual fashion statement and turned up in leather and bolts and chains, and then distinguished themselves from others, and then "heavy metal" was born. Judas Priest and the like. I think neither Judas Priest or BÖC where "heavy metal" in any way, but I remember clearly that BÖC may have been the only band accepting that term for themselves. I can think of BÖC even less metal than Zep actually!!! Don't know if it was their manager Sandy Pearlman who came up with the term in the first place anyway, since he was originally a music journalist, writing about bands. Hard to say who came first.

 

[zontar]

I considered Zeppelin a genre to themselves--Heavy blues meets folk, rockabilly, rock & roll, pub songs and whatever else they felt like throwing in.

Certainly each member & the band as a whole influenced many musicians and bands--some of which are at least primarily metal.

But they themselves weren't metal--not that's there's anything wrong with that.
(Either being or not being a metal band)

 

[J-Bassomatic]

DOH!
spoke too soon, entirely too many non-Heavy Metal folks showing up in that video

Which would be about right! Seems like only metal gets metal.