Do you consider Led Zeppelin a METAL band?

[rymiraflores]

To refer to Led Zeppelin as a "Heavy Metal" band would be a disparaging thing to say to a good band who though outside the box and were never afraid of trying to broaden their musical boundaries, even as far as almost being eclectic at times. They transcended any and all labels, with the exception of being a really good rock band. Metal.....really?

Being labelled as "Metal" isn`t an insult you know.

 

[Max Blasto]

In 1969 there was no such thing as Metal except as a lyric in a Steppenwolf song. In 1969 all this genre-izing of band music didn't exist and it created one of most explosive and creative eras in music as bands as diverse as the Association, King Crimson, Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull and the Who were all just "rock" music. I don't think of Zep as metal or even proto-metal but within the historical context, J.P's use of layered guitars and J.B's drums definitely pushed rock in a heavier direction and were considered heavy by the standards of 1969. It also wasn't until the second album that the "heavy" really kicked in with songs like Heartbreaker and Whole Lotta Love though Dazed and Confused from LZ 1 certainly had a big sound.

I would posit that the genre we now call metal started with Black Sabbath which was what? 1970? I would also posit that The Who gave birth to arena rock and punk rock with the same windmill strum of a guitar.

Before someone gets after me for over simplifying. Nobody invents anything in music. Nothing comes from nothing; it always has an antecedent. It's like asking, did Beethoven invent symphonic music? No, but it certainly changed direction after him but before that Bach took the strict baroque forms of the melodious Telemann and gave us new ways to think of harmony which Handel then turned into the Sonata form which Mozart elevated to high art and then Beethoven came along and added about 30 members to the orchestra and some double basses and gave us dat-dat-dat DAH! and nothing was ever the same again. I don't know if Page and friends had quite the same impact on the music world; we'll have to wait another couple hundred years to sort that out but the fact that there's no musical instrument forum, guitar, bass or drums, where the names Zeppelin, Page, Bonham or John Paul Jones don't come up at least weekly after 47 years shows some lasting impact and influence.

Sorry to quibble, but:
In 1968 Rolling Stone Magazine described Humble Pie as heavy metal. This beats your time line by a year and shows not only how much the perceived sound has changed but how old the concept is.

I'm convinced that no one under age 45 knows what heavy metal is or where it comes from. They only know what they heard in high school.

As for Zep, there is not and never was a metal band with as much versatility as Zep, so while some of their songs fit the bill, their body of work could never be described as something so limited as Heavy Metal.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Ian Kilmister went on TMS a few times, but he never claimed MH was Heavy Metal:

 

[mellowinman]

Not to start a fight but I consider them to be one of the most overated bands of all time, like U2.

Well you have a point, except there are actually no better hard rock bands. Deep Purple, Queen, Aerosmith, and a handful of others might have been AS GOOD, but none were better. U2? How are we talking about U2? You can't start a fight, because you don't have an argument. Led Zeppelin stands high on the mighty mountain, and most bands look up to see them. They're not even my favorite band! I would put them beneath The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Stones, and a few others, but as far as Hard Rock goes, Zeppelin defined the genre, and too many people in and out of the industry have agreed over the years for that argument to be anything other than conventional wisdom.

No fight here!

 

[mellowinman]

Being labelled as "Metal" isn`t an insult you know.

Most "metal" bands have the unfortunate problem of being a bit "silly."

Was Zeppelin ever "silly?" Yes, but a lot of times they weren't, either.

 

[Joe Ty]

Supposedly the "hard rock" arms race started when Paul McCartney, not wanting to be outdone after reading a review of Townsend's "I Can See for Miles.." wrote "Helter Skelter" prior to ever hearing the Who song that inspired it and wanting to write the "heaviest song of all time."

So there. McCartney and Townsend invented Heavy Metal.

 

[Jay2U]

I prefer to use the phrase "Hard Rock Band". To my opinion metal is from a later era and mostly involves screaming vocals.

I think bands like Deep Purple, Yes, The Who and Black Sabbath are better characterized by the term Hard Rock.

 

[jmlee]

It seems to me (and some other people) that true Heavy Metal developed as hard rock lost its blues roots more or less completely and developed an inner culture that was pretty much self-referencing. So...it someone were to ask me where metal started, I'd say with Black Sabbath. Although in their distant past they had played clubs doing blues covers, their success came when they shed that heritage pretty much completely. Zeppelin retained its roots in blues, although in later years they referenced other forums including funk, English folk music, and an idiomatic smattering of other styles.

 

[Jay2U]

Ian Kilmister went on TMS a few times, but he never claimed MH was Heavy Metal:

 

[tpaul]

I try not to consider them at all.

 

[Linnin]

Same with Deep Purple

Missed your post, and wasn't thinking Deep Purple since the question was about Led Zeppelin. Here's an interesting quote written by Invalid Link Removed (2006). "Black Sabbath: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath". Chapter 12, p. 1. "Deep Purple, together with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, have been referred to as the "unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-seventies."

 

[J Gold]

What is Metal? An attitude? Lyrics of a song? A way of life? Signature keys, modes, song structure, etc?
Zep was and is the baddest band of all time. Don't limit life with labels.

 

[leegreenman]

A major influence on the early metal bands, but not metal themselves.
I generally consider Black Sabbath to be the first metal band.

 

[skwee]

Goodness no. Zep seems like a blues band with distortion with some country mixed in.

 

[Pirate Captain]

Well you have a point, except there are actually no better hard rock bands. Deep Purple, Queen, Aerosmith, and a handful of others might have been AS GOOD, but none were better.!

I think Zeppelin's legacy was really helped by the fact that they called it quits at the right time (much like the Beatles). At their best acts like Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, and probably even Aerosmith bury Zeppelin (in my opinion...and especially in the lyrics department), but taken in toto Zep's oeuvre stands up much better (there are very few duds in the Zep catalogue).

Who knows...maybe if they stuck it out long enough they would have had to resort to hiring Diane Warren to pen some crappy corporate "rock" songs for them. Scary thought.

 

[ONYX]

Ian Kilmister went on TMS a few times, but he never claimed MH was Heavy Metal:

Here's his quote from an interview done with The Independent: "We were not heavy metal," he snaps. "We were a rock'n'roll band. Still are. Everyone always describes us as heavy metal even when I tell them otherwise. Why won't people listen?"

 

[Guitalia]

Someone referred to proto-metal, so, from 1965:

 

[Jason Harris]

I've always considered them Metal, and thin of them as the first 3 bands to do so being Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
But which bands are the best that's debatable but Deep Purple for the win!

 

[socialleper]

Not to start a fight but I consider them to be one of the most overated bands of all time, like U2.

I would agree with both of these assertions.

 

[Lee Moses]

Of course!

But maybe not.