Led Zeppelin fit the early definition of "Heavy Metal" hard rock bands. They are NOT "Metal." They are, however, one of the greatest bands of all time.
This basically, is on the money.
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Do you consider Led Zeppelin a METAL band?
- Thread starter MAJOR METAL
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- band led led zeppelin metal
This basically, is on the money.
Blue Cheer was heavy and ahead of their time, I thought they were great.
Iron Butterfly qualify as heavy, but Iron Butterfly had so little contribution/influence that I leave them out of most discussions.
Cream was heavy but purely a blues band exploring a very self indulgent jam thing.
I think The Amboy Dukes were not very heavy until 1974's Call of the Wild and Tooth Fang and Claw, and not metal either.
Kinks weren't heavy.
Vanilla Fudge did not influence anybody in metal I don't think.
Nazareth often gets overlooked they were a great heavy rock band in 1971 and made a bunch of good records through the 70's.
I think the Scorpions were going in the right direction with their first album Lonesome Crow in 1972, on their second record Fly to the Rainbow in 1974, I lost interest.
Hendrix was past hard rock, blues, heavy metal and all of it, he was just a thing of his own, unrelated to anything else, just Jimi.
One band that was heavy that never gets remembered is Cactus, who were a huge band for me in my teens, but they were blues/boogie.
Still think Black Sabbath is the prototype for what became heavy metal.
Iron Butterfly qualify as heavy, but Iron Butterfly had so little contribution/influence that I leave them out of most discussions.
Cream was heavy but purely a blues band exploring a very self indulgent jam thing.
I think The Amboy Dukes were not very heavy until 1974's Call of the Wild and Tooth Fang and Claw, and not metal either.
Kinks weren't heavy.
Vanilla Fudge did not influence anybody in metal I don't think.
Nazareth often gets overlooked they were a great heavy rock band in 1971 and made a bunch of good records through the 70's.
I think the Scorpions were going in the right direction with their first album Lonesome Crow in 1972, on their second record Fly to the Rainbow in 1974, I lost interest.
Hendrix was past hard rock, blues, heavy metal and all of it, he was just a thing of his own, unrelated to anything else, just Jimi.
One band that was heavy that never gets remembered is Cactus, who were a huge band for me in my teens, but they were blues/boogie.
Still think Black Sabbath is the prototype for what became heavy metal.
The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Animals started their recording careers doing blues covers, Hendrix did blues covers, many bands did blues covers in the 60's and early 70's and still now.
The plagiarism statement holds a little bit of water.... and then Led Zeppelin proceeded to make a number of the best rock records ever made.
Several thoughts:
-Metal? No. In the day, it was called 'Heavy Rock', as many have pointed out. But Zeppelin was different, 'ecelctic' as mentioned earlier. The albums were a feast in that they could go from gut-bucket blues (which they repackaged dangerously), to more modern takes but still massive ('When the Levee Breaks), to brutally hard ('The Wanton Song' comes to mind), to just plain silly ('D'Yer Maker') to stunningly Celtic acoustic (their haunting remake of 'Hangman' to 'Going to California' or 'The Battle of Evermore'). It was such a feast with so many different directions and flavors.
-I once read an interview with JPJ (ABSOLUTELY the most overlooked and under-rated bassist of all time) who remarked that while so many 'metal' bands said they copped so much from himself and Bonham, he felt they never 'got it' in that they sounded 'leaden', to excuse the pun. He said that he and Bonham were HUGE devotees of the Motown rhythm sections which these newer guys did not have in their background. I always heard it, so I was tickled to be proved right.
-And while the Great British Guitarists will always be argued over, one thing that sets Pagey utterly apart from Eric or Jeff or Ritchie or all the rest is that Page produced all the records, he was the architect of that sound and those charts (though undoubtedly they all had their input), and was self-centered and egocentric enough to where he always used a different engineer for each project, so no one could say it was the engineer . . . . . . big balls, but I get the point.
-And like all landmark bands, there's the world before Zep, and then after Zep.
-Never spoken about much in public, but supposedly, Zep as a business entity was owned 100% by Page and Peter Grant, with presumably Page becoming the sole owner after Grant's passing. I've always assumed that this was why Plant was 'never interested' in revisiting it when he was younger. I utterly understand that how as a 70+ year old he really would feel funny stuffing sock down his trousers and singing about squeezing his lemon
today.
But as always, any great band really only exists in their day. You can't go back now. If Bonham were still alive, and they were still playing, it would not be THAT Zeppelin.
One of my favorite Zep cover bands: Nancy on her Japanese copy mandolin she's played forever, and Ann with her Heart Signature Martin, actually modeled after a very similar looking Zemaitis she owned first. I just love this:
-Metal? No. In the day, it was called 'Heavy Rock', as many have pointed out. But Zeppelin was different, 'ecelctic' as mentioned earlier. The albums were a feast in that they could go from gut-bucket blues (which they repackaged dangerously), to more modern takes but still massive ('When the Levee Breaks), to brutally hard ('The Wanton Song' comes to mind), to just plain silly ('D'Yer Maker') to stunningly Celtic acoustic (their haunting remake of 'Hangman' to 'Going to California' or 'The Battle of Evermore'). It was such a feast with so many different directions and flavors.
-I once read an interview with JPJ (ABSOLUTELY the most overlooked and under-rated bassist of all time) who remarked that while so many 'metal' bands said they copped so much from himself and Bonham, he felt they never 'got it' in that they sounded 'leaden', to excuse the pun. He said that he and Bonham were HUGE devotees of the Motown rhythm sections which these newer guys did not have in their background. I always heard it, so I was tickled to be proved right.
-And while the Great British Guitarists will always be argued over, one thing that sets Pagey utterly apart from Eric or Jeff or Ritchie or all the rest is that Page produced all the records, he was the architect of that sound and those charts (though undoubtedly they all had their input), and was self-centered and egocentric enough to where he always used a different engineer for each project, so no one could say it was the engineer . . . . . . big balls, but I get the point.
-And like all landmark bands, there's the world before Zep, and then after Zep.
-Never spoken about much in public, but supposedly, Zep as a business entity was owned 100% by Page and Peter Grant, with presumably Page becoming the sole owner after Grant's passing. I've always assumed that this was why Plant was 'never interested' in revisiting it when he was younger. I utterly understand that how as a 70+ year old he really would feel funny stuffing sock down his trousers and singing about squeezing his lemon
today.
But as always, any great band really only exists in their day. You can't go back now. If Bonham were still alive, and they were still playing, it would not be THAT Zeppelin.
One of my favorite Zep cover bands: Nancy on her Japanese copy mandolin she's played forever, and Ann with her Heart Signature Martin, actually modeled after a very similar looking Zemaitis she owned first. I just love this:
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Yes, I told this earlier in post, however, I detected this myself without having to read interviews first. I heard HUGE funk influences behind the heaviness. Although sometimes I could hear the struggle shining through.
BTW Sabbath are the ones that never have been questioned. Even back then, and not even by themselves, when asked about it in interviews. They didn't coin the term at all, themselves, but I've never ever heard anyone object to calling Sabbath heavy metal. I guess their main thing came actually out from doing music that scared people. Intentionally and with deliberate action. They rehearsed in the basement of a village cinema that cold hold maybe 100 people that showed big time movies ONCE A WEEK. Each Sunday. One Sunday in the month they showed horror movies, and that's the ONLY time the people gathered and it was sold out. And off Tony Iommi went "why is this ?!?! People pays to get scared to death..." and that was THE ONLY instance when it was sold out. They thought "hey, let's follow suit".
But about the same time Alice Cooper had the same idea in the US, but went for the theatrics and antics, visuals and stage props instead.
But about the same time Alice Cooper had the same idea in the US, but went for the theatrics and antics, visuals and stage props instead.
And wrote five albums of great music, with Bob Ezrin helping them get it recorded properly.
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Rock not metal. Plus I thought we were discussing LZ not the Beatles, Stones and the Animals. Either way they did rip off a bunch of stuff from other artists without even mentioning the OG's.
The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Animals started their recording careers doing blues covers, Hendrix did blues covers, many bands did blues covers in the 60's and early 70's and still now.
The plagiarism statement holds a little bit of water.... and then Led Zeppelin proceeded to make a number of the best rock records ever made.
Yup, ...you were talking about a Rock band Led Zeppelin who love the blues, the same as the Rock bands The Rolling Stones and the Animals and the Beatles.
My point was to mention that it was not unique what Led Zeppelin did covering blues tunes just as other Rock bands had done before them.
None of what I said in that post had anything to do with metal, and neither did the comments you made about Led Zeppelin.
I will say this for further clarity...there are a hundred rock bands who covered blues tunes and hundreds who have plagiarized old blues tunes, the whole of Rock n Roll (and everything that followed) is based on copying the blues.
The plagiarism comments are really old news, and in no way de-legitimize Led Zepplelin as one of the best Rock bands to ever make records.
They are a huge foundation that so many bands in rock, blues rock, hard rock and metal learned their chops from.
Clearly you don't care for them, but it always sounds silly to hear people try to knock massive artists like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Beck, Bowie, Clapton, Allmans, The Who, SRV, Floyd, etc, etc.
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Yes, and since the plagiarism wasn't from any other metal band, it was mainly ripping off old blues acts, folk acts, and the like. I find this peculiar. I read on the label that some songs where actually - say - Willie Dixon penned and they put down that stuff but missed out on the others. Regarding the blues ones, well so did the blues artists too, they stole from each other without giving credit. It was just the wild west in the copyright dept back then. More intimidating is the Holmes penned "dazed and confused" of course "stairway to heaven" and - especially embarrasing Bert Jansch tune "black mountain ride", and others. I think it wasn't until House Of The Holy where there were no suspicious plagiarism detected. Then "In Through The Out Door" was no "stealth" but even "Nobobys Fault But Mine" from Presence is an old one. But a tad OT, and leaves another debate. What I found peculiar, that NO reviewer at the time - music journalists that had deeper knowldege - would bring this up in the reviews. Even if they went for the axe when slagging them.^ can open up another can of worms
I agree. Plagiarism of songs was kind of winked at until James Brown and Sly Stone began to notice their recordings being literally sampled by hip hop artist. The Original Kats were paying homage to each other and the rock bands were paying homage to the Original Kats. That old school blues is still being ripped. I was taken aback when I heard Where did you Sleep Last Night done by Nirvana which is actually Black Girl by Lead Belly. I have a huge collection of Roots Blues and I here songs by these African American artist being "re-branded" all the time.
Nope. I do like Zeppelin. But I will call it as it is and that's a bunch of songs they took from others. Not just blues artists either.
ps: One of my favorites is "When the Levee Breaks" there again a song from Memphis Minnie and Joe McCoy
Why? Because of the different title? AFAIR Lead Belly's version(s) appeared under different titles in several anthologies; moreover, Ledbetter was even credited as the author of the song, which he wasn't strictly speaking, by Nirvana in MTV Unplugged.
In the Pines - Wikipedia
On Nirvana's MTV Unplugged album, Kurt tells his audience it's a LeadBelly song he is about to sing, and that LeadBelly is his favorite performer and the favorite of the whole band.
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Yep. Because of the title. I heard a female group on NPR do the song and completely change the lyrics. I have a problem with that more so than with the Nirvana version but at least Nirvana gave credit, as they did with The Man Who Sold The World. By the way, I'm a huge Nirvana fan, but I have a problem with the lyric (Black Girl), being disregarded.
Now come on folks, another thread, it's totally OT, let's move over to Zep plagiarism then. Metal, heavy, lot or in between. Actually if I am putting my hands to my heart I absolutely LOVED Zeppeling way back then. Now, these years when I hear them, I don't get nostalgic at all. I do think that time has chewed on them, and music has moved on. It's the "struggle" I hear when I listen to them. It's a bit heavy handed and contrived all of it, in a manner of speaking. But they're definitely not alone in that dept. And when you hear what they got things from, and stole, then you have second thoughts. However, the critics and music journalists seems to reconsider their own flak they once made at them. Find this extremely funny. It's like I am the contrary to the music journalists at that time. At that time, I thought all of them were wrong, and so wrong, and then some. Today, I have swayed, but they have gone into totally opposite direction. If they didn't like it then, they don't like it now, they're all just playing along.
a decent white blues band is what I think of them these days, no matter how influential they were. But still, not heavy metal by any means.
a decent white blues band is what I think of them these days, no matter how influential they were. But still, not heavy metal by any means.
Hmmmm... that one released November 1970.
Led Zeppelin III released October 1970.
Who stole from what? And where? and especially... when? Back in those days (as with the dreaded Spirit - Led Zeppelin rift on Stairway To Heaven) bands usually tested new material on stage first prior to recording them. Pink Floyd played THE LOT of "Wish You Were Here" on tour prior to recording it. At least all of "Shine On". Those days are long gone by. I can very well think of that either bands heard the other on festival or multi-bill shows and whenever they heard something unreleased, it was "hmmm, let's hurry up with this one". Zep DID play a lot of new material before releasing it. They premiered "Stairway To Heaven" live long before recording it, and no one in the audience cared. Lukewarm reaction. "New" songs wasn't really the audiences thing. They wanted recognisable songs. Instantly. It's the same with "Deep Purples" child in time, that is stolen from "Bombay Calling" by It's A Beautiful Day, a psychedelic band that only God and one other person had heard about, maybe Jon Lord. No one sued.
