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ineedadrink
if you've never heard a groove in a zeppelin song, then you need to get your ears checked

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skipstone
Can't You Hear Me Knocking rocks just as hard as a lot of other songs do by other artists.

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skipstone
"Lazy forms of rock"? Huh? That makes no sense! CYHMK might not be "hard rock" but it rocks hard. So so what, right?

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Rev. Robert W.
A few years ago, my brother-in-law and I were getting to know each other, talking music and so on, and he decided to throw a big one at me: "You know, the Stones are great and all, but they don't really compare to Led Zeppelin..."

I thought this was so outrageous that I couldn't really respond--but it has been eating at me for years now and it occasionally flares into an active argument. The happy thing for me is that because I was provoked, and because I have had to think about it, I can say that it has become more and more and more obvious to me that, while all things are relative and matters of taste and that they come in shades of gray and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that LED ZEPPELIN DOESN'T EVEN COME CLOSE TO THE STONES. NOT EVEN IN THE SAME WEIGHT CLASS. NOT NOW, NOT EVER. And mind you, I say this as a person who spent two years in boarding school positively drenched in Led Zeppelin during the 1980's. I'm actually a big fan...

So? Top four albums?

Zep IV
Zep II
Zep I
Zep III? Or Physical Graffiti? or Houses?

vs.

Beggar's Banquet
Let It Bleed
Sticky Fingers
Exile

Zeppelin IV is one of the all-time greats and deserves its rep and sales, but "Stairway" is, to my mind, a big, bloated, pretentious mess (Amen to you, Rockman). And as awesome and thundering as it is, "When The Levee Breaks" is a poor man's "Gimme Shelter."

Zeppelin II, which I always thought of as a masterpiece, also breaks down in some important ways: "Thank You," even with its lovely acoustic/electric dynamics, has syrupy Plant lyrics and vocals. And with all due respect to Bonham, "Moby Dick" is an indulgence. "The Lemon Song" and "Bring It On Home" and "Whole Lotta Love" grab from Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters in some creative and successful ways, but apart from the last, they don't seem quite as special as time goes on. Basically more percussive thunder and guitar fireworks layered on Chess classics that are perfect in their own right. Pretty much illustrates the whole (sometimes exciting) Zep formula: take blues (or folk or world) and amp it to the max. Fun, gloriously stupid and excessive, perfect for huge venues, but never a match for the Stones' smarts and sexiness, their wit and sass. I mean, never. And Plant's sensitive/hippie/mystic lyrics drag the whole LZ enterprise down further....

And as fond as I am of Zeppelin I or III, I just can't see any of these four albums matching up favorably with their Stones counterparts from the celebrated '68-'72 renaissance. There just isn't a weak cut anywhere in the Stones' output during the period, nothing to match, say, "Out On The Tiles" or "Celebration Day" or "Moby Dick." So, at the top of each band's catalogue, and in the LP format that defined Led Zeppelin, the Stones take a huge victory.

But what if we're to isolate the double albums? The holy grail of the ambitious (the "white album," Electric Ladyland, Blonde On Blonde, London Calling) rock'n'roll band?

Physical Graffiti vs. Exile? I love the fragments from the 1970 sessions: "Bron-Yr-Aur," "Black Country Woman," and--of course--"Boogie With Stu." If they had used those tracks, "Poor Tom" and "Hey Hey What Can I Do" to create some kind of double Zep III, it might've been one of the alltime greats. And as much fun as "Houses Of The Holy" is, so much of Graffiti is leaden and dull and overwrought. "Down By The Seaside?" "In The Light?" Ugh. And "In My Time Of Dying" demonstrates the over-amped blues thing in an even more pointlessly excessive way. (While I do have a soft spot for "Nobody's Fault But Mine," it's pretty funny to listen back-to-back with Blind Willie Johnson's--armed only with an acoustic guitar, a voice and 1930's technology, he goes toe-to-toe with Zep's assault. Incredible power, there.)

Exile is Exile: It's Go-Go-Honky Tonk-Juke Joint-Revival Hall heaven--set on the French Riviera and the Sunset Strip and co-starring the most beautiful women, the most reckless sidekicks and the best drugs the world has ever seen. All that tucked into the best--and most appropriate--album cover ever designed. Again, the questions being: who's smarter, sexier, tougher, leaner, meaner? Think about that as you listen to the Gothic Moog playing on "In The Light." Spinal Tap all the way, baby.

What about comebacks? What about surviving? Some Girls vs....what? Zeppelin never did come back, never did respond creatively or successfully to punk and the late 70's. After a decline that I would say began with Houses Of The Holy, (again, think about it: even if you consider Houses to be on par with the first four--dubious--they never made a completely successful new LP after 1973) the creative balance and the sound of the group shifted dramatically with In Through The Out Door. So, as great as "In The Evening" is, and as much fun as "Fool In The Rain" can be, think about "All Of My Love" and thank God that they stopped (for the worst reason imaginable) before they started making 80's records.

Live album? Well, now that Zeppelin has opened its archives, the How The West Was Won album stands up pretty wonderfully. But The Song Remains The Same was, like Zeppelin itself, a more bombastic--and more ponderous ("No Quarter?" for what, 20 minutes?) version of that wicked energy and swing that is distilled so wonderfully onto Ya-Ya's. Zeppelin was tremendous onstage and their setlists and overall swagger actually made them rivals to the Stones' far superior songs. But, honestly, even if one prefers Page's virtuosity to Keith's slash-and-burn, would any but the most ardent Zep fan choose Plant over Jagger as a singer and frontman? I mean, really? Anyone? It doesn't take a whole lotta watching Percy cock his hip and flip his big, blond mane back while wailing on, say, the hugely overrated "Since I've Been Loving You," to decide that Jagger of any period--right up to the Millenium Dome of August, 2007--is in another realm, entirely.

So, for me, the Stones win the late 1960's and the 1970's pretty handily. Very handily, in fact. During the period where both bands were functioning, the Stones delivered more and better, recorded material overall. Meanwhile, Zeppelin, as good as they were in concert, could do no better than match the Stones. And while the Stones in 1982 entered a period of only project-by-project work that lasted to Spring 2010, they managed to come up with at least five first-class songs for each new release through the 80's, 90's and 2000's, songs that any other band at any other time would kill for (some will debate this, I'm happy to take it up another time). The Rolling Stones are (forgive the American-centric analogy) an alltime great, a "five tool" player, they're Willie Mays. And they're back in New York, with the Mets, in 1972. Are they at their peak? No, but they still have plenty of recorded moments--and many, many more live ones--that demonstrate amply why they're the best ever.

Hmmmm...I'm forgetting something...what can it be? Oh yeah, THE STONES HAD PRODUCED AN EPOCHAL, HALL OF FAME BODY OF WORK BEFORE LED ZEPPELIN HAD EVEN FORMED. ZEPPELIN STEPPED INTO A KIND OF ROCK'N'ROLL STARDOM THAT WAS INVENTED BY THE STONES (and Elvis and the Beatles, of course, though their appeal and their imagery was so different--almost outside rock music). British blues? World music? ("Paint It, Black" vs. "Kashmir" may actually sum up the whole argument.) "Heavy" acoustic music? I love Zeppelin's dense Anglo-Celtic folk-blues thing. I love it. But it's the only part of the whole package that belongs entirely to them--and I'm not sure I'm giving Fairport Convention adequate credit when I say that...

It's funny. At the Joint, in Vegas in 1998, I had the amusing experience of watching the Stones from third row center, while surrounded by Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and Lars Ulrich from Metallica--as well as Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Eddie Murphy, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Leonardo DiCaprio and a gang of others. It was hilarious to watch the most sought-after people on Planet Earth, the ones that supposedly define power and hipness and cool, absolutely melt and cower before the Rolling Stones. And in the case of the metal guys, it occurred to me that while they all always prattle on about Zeppelin and Sabbath as heavy influences, those references are always based on the foundation of love and reverence for the Stones. In many sub-genres of rock'n'roll, but especially in hard rock/heavy metal, before Pagey and Ozzy, before the Yardbirds even, it all starts with the Stones--always. It's dat attitude, baby...

Zeppelin has eight studio albums and a little over ten years of history. They're similar to the Beatles in that they have a catalogue of very manageable size and that it presents a clear and satisfying story of the band. The Stones have nearly fifty years of studio and live albums, singles, concerts and films. It's a sprawling, messy tale, with ups and downs, blind alleys and hidden jackpots. The vast majority of people, when confronted with this, will buy Hot Rocks and then pay for expensive concert tickets and t-shirts. That's a shame, but it has nothing to do with the relative merits of the bands. If it sometimes seems that the Stones' legacy isn't as visible, that's only because the influence and the legacy is woven through every single aspect of the record and concert businesses--and through the idea of rock'n'roll itself. The Stones are an entertainment juggernaut and a multinational corporation. You know what else? THEY ARE THE BEST GARAGE/BAR BAND ON PLANET EARTH. Period. And that--not beating Grand Funk Raiload's attendance record at some Godforsaken Florida football stadium--is the name of the game in rock'n'roll. That's at the very core.

My sense? Elvis, Chuck Berry, Dylan, the Beatles, and the Stones all swirl around at the very top of the heap--maybe, in a weird way, the Beach Boys, too. All matters of taste aside, those are the artists whose historical importance is crucial and indisputable. And it's a long, looooooong way down to the next tier...

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ineedadrink
lsbz, is your skin that thin? seriously? you're not very tough, are you...

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ineedadrink

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71Tele
Let me be precise: I mean the style and sound of Led Zeppelin has not been positive, in my opinion, as in influence. Too many bad Page and Bonham imitators. I think their overall influence on music has been a negative one, in the same way that too many guitarists (in my opinion, of course) picked up the wrong things about Hendrix and ended up being tiresome guitar @#$%&. I think a lot of Zep's legacy is the attitude, and the bombastic image. Unfortunately, that's what appeals to many teenagers. When I hear Aerosmith, Guns & Roses, and many "grunge" bands from the 90s, I hear Zeppelin. And that's not a compliment.

sounds to me like you're paying zeppelin a compliment. as the old saying goes, often imitated but never duplicated.

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StonesTod

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ineedadrink
lsbz, is your skin that thin? seriously? you're not very tough, are you...

hey - now that's insulting! but there are classes out there to improve toughness and thickness of skin too. maybe we can enrol him in a overall imrpovement program.

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StonesTod
... it's clear they've inspired many in the music business, and i don't see how that can be anything but goodness.

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Doxa

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StonesTod

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ineedadrink
lsbz, is your skin that thin? seriously? you're not very tough, are you...

hey - now that's insulting! but there are classes out there to improve toughness and thickness of skin too. maybe we can enrol him in a overall imrpovement program.

Now it is a great moment to insult anyone as much as possible! BV's is reprtedly in concert for Stu, so no use to push the "Report This Message" button...

- Doxa

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lsbz

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StonesTod
... it's clear they've inspired many in the music business, and i don't see how that can be anything but goodness.

I a not so good band would inspire many not so good bands in the music business, that would definitely not be a good thing.

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StonesTod
it would be good for those that like these not so good bands

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lsbz

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StonesTod
it would be good for those that like these not so good bands

And for those that don't like them it would not be so good. But the issue really is whether some band according to some criteria can be better than another band. And of course it can, no matter how much some people seem to deny that.

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lsbz

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StonesTod
... it's clear they've inspired many in the music business, and i don't see how that can be anything but goodness.

If a not so good band would inspire many not so good bands in the music business, that would definitely not be a good thing.

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Justin

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lsbz

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StonesTod
... it's clear they've inspired many in the music business, and i don't see how that can be anything but goodness.

If a not so good band would inspire many not so good bands in the music business, that would definitely not be a good thing.

What does it matter to you if these "not so good" bands exist or not? There are probably thousands of "not so good" bands out there right now that you have NO IDEA about and it's not disrupting your life in any way. As StonesTod says...these bands matter to their own fans. You don't have to worry about it.

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Justin

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lsbz

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StonesTod
... it's clear they've inspired many in the music business, and i don't see how that can be anything but goodness.

If a not so good band would inspire many not so good bands in the music business, that would definitely not be a good thing.

What does it matter to you if these "not so good" bands exist or not?.

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ineedadrink
keith introduced the song in concert by calling it a reggae song. you'd think he'd know what he was talking about...
and yes, john bashed away because he was a rock drummer. what's wrong with that? are you going to criticize a jazz drummer for using a feather touch on every song?

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StonesTod

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Justin

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lsbz

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StonesTod
... it's clear they've inspired many in the music business, and i don't see how that can be anything but goodness.

If a not so good band would inspire many not so good bands in the music business, that would definitely not be a good thing.

What does it matter to you if these "not so good" bands exist or not? There are probably thousands of "not so good" bands out there right now that you have NO IDEA about and it's not disrupting your life in any way. As StonesTod says...these bands matter to their own fans. You don't have to worry about it.

there's an elitism rampant through some of these posts. i got some news fer ya:

there's nothing special about the music you like - you're no better, your tastes are not better and the music you like is no better than the music you don't like.

we all like the stones - but there's nothing empirically better about their music than anyone else's. we just happen to like it.

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lsbz

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skipstone
"Lazy forms of rock"? Huh? That makes no sense! CYHMK might not be "hard rock" but it rocks hard. So so what, right?

No, not really. It has a way different musical approach; generally harder technical musical work and less effects. Putting overdrive and fuzz on the guitar does not make one a good musican. The word "bombastic" has been mentioned, and I think it relates to that.

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lem motlow
71 Tele-this was my exact point about the beatles.you have millions of people who grew up in the 70s and 80s who would swear zep was the most influencial band ever.
you don't agree and thats fine but its not the foregone conclusion about the beatles that the original poster suggests.

like i said,to come out and say"we all know the beatles are the #1 most influencial band,who"s #2? is a bullshit statement on its face.

its mostly to do with when you grew up,if you were standing in a stadium watching zep in 77 and said",they'll never be as big a deal as the beatles" you might as well have replaced the word "beatles" with buddy holly and the crickets.

and by the way,the stones story is no where near done being written.

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Justin

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Rev. Robert W.
A few years ago, my brother-in-law and I were getting to know each other, talking music and so on, and he decided to throw a big one at me: "You know, the Stones are great and all, but they don't really compare to Led Zeppelin..."

I thought this was so outrageous that I couldn't really respond--but it has been eating at me for years now and it occasionally flares into an active argument. The happy thing for me is that because I was provoked, and because I have had to think about it, I can say that it has become more and more and more obvious to me that, while all things are relative and matters of taste and that they come in shades of gray and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that LED ZEPPELIN DOESN'T EVEN COME CLOSE TO THE STONES. NOT EVEN IN THE SAME WEIGHT CLASS. NOT NOW, NOT EVER. And mind you, I say this as a person who spent two years in boarding school positively drenched in Led Zeppelin during the 1980's. I'm actually a big fan...

So? Top four albums?

Zep IV
Zep II
Zep I
Zep III? Or Physical Graffiti? or Houses?

vs.

Beggar's Banquet
Let It Bleed
Sticky Fingers
Exile

Zeppelin IV is one of the all-time greats and deserves its rep and sales, but "Stairway" is, to my mind, a big, bloated, pretentious mess (Amen to you, Rockman). And as awesome and thundering as it is, "When The Levee Breaks" is a poor man's "Gimme Shelter."

Zeppelin II, which I always thought of as a masterpiece, also breaks down in some important ways: "Thank You," even with its lovely acoustic/electric dynamics, has syrupy Plant lyrics and vocals. And with all due respect to Bonham, "Moby Dick" is an indulgence. "The Lemon Song" and "Bring It On Home" and "Whole Lotta Love" grab from Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters in some creative and successful ways, but apart from the last, they don't seem quite as special as time goes on. Basically more percussive thunder and guitar fireworks layered on Chess classics that are perfect in their own right. Pretty much illustrates the whole (sometimes exciting) Zep formula: take blues (or folk or world) and amp it to the max. Fun, gloriously stupid and excessive, perfect for huge venues, but never a match for the Stones' smarts and sexiness, their wit and sass. I mean, never. And Plant's sensitive/hippie/mystic lyrics drag the whole LZ enterprise down further....

And as fond as I am of Zeppelin I or III, I just can't see any of these four albums matching up favorably with their Stones counterparts from the celebrated '68-'72 renaissance. There just isn't a weak cut anywhere in the Stones' output during the period, nothing to match, say, "Out On The Tiles" or "Celebration Day" or "Moby Dick." So, at the top of each band's catalogue, and in the LP format that defined Led Zeppelin, the Stones take a huge victory.

But what if we're to isolate the double albums? The holy grail of the ambitious (the "white album," Electric Ladyland, Blonde On Blonde, London Calling) rock'n'roll band?

Physical Graffiti vs. Exile? I love the fragments from the 1970 sessions: "Bron-Yr-Aur," "Black Country Woman," and--of course--"Boogie With Stu." If they had used those tracks, "Poor Tom" and "Hey Hey What Can I Do" to create some kind of double Zep III, it might've been one of the alltime greats. And as much fun as "Houses Of The Holy" is, so much of Graffiti is leaden and dull and overwrought. "Down By The Seaside?" "In The Light?" Ugh. And "In My Time Of Dying" demonstrates the over-amped blues thing in an even more pointlessly excessive way. (While I do have a soft spot for "Nobody's Fault But Mine," it's pretty funny to listen back-to-back with Blind Willie Johnson's--armed only with an acoustic guitar, a voice and 1930's technology, he goes toe-to-toe with Zep's assault. Incredible power, there.)

Exile is Exile: It's Go-Go-Honky Tonk-Juke Joint-Revival Hall heaven--set on the French Riviera and the Sunset Strip and co-starring the most beautiful women, the most reckless sidekicks and the best drugs the world has ever seen. All that tucked into the best--and most appropriate--album cover ever designed. Again, the questions being: who's smarter, sexier, tougher, leaner, meaner? Think about that as you listen to the Gothic Moog playing on "In The Light." Spinal Tap all the way, baby.

What about comebacks? What about surviving? Some Girls vs....what? Zeppelin never did come back, never did respond creatively or successfully to punk and the late 70's. After a decline that I would say began with Houses Of The Holy, (again, think about it: even if you consider Houses to be on par with the first four--dubious--they never made a completely successful new LP after 1973) the creative balance and the sound of the group shifted dramatically with In Through The Out Door. So, as great as "In The Evening" is, and as much fun as "Fool In The Rain" can be, think about "All Of My Love" and thank God that they stopped (for the worst reason imaginable) before they started making 80's records.

Live album? Well, now that Zeppelin has opened its archives, the How The West Was Won album stands up pretty wonderfully. But The Song Remains The Same was, like Zeppelin itself, a more bombastic--and more ponderous ("No Quarter?" for what, 20 minutes?) version of that wicked energy and swing that is distilled so wonderfully onto Ya-Ya's. Zeppelin was tremendous onstage and their setlists and overall swagger actually made them rivals to the Stones' far superior songs. But, honestly, even if one prefers Page's virtuosity to Keith's slash-and-burn, would any but the most ardent Zep fan choose Plant over Jagger as a singer and frontman? I mean, really? Anyone? It doesn't take a whole lotta watching Percy cock his hip and flip his big, blond mane back while wailing on, say, the hugely overrated "Since I've Been Loving You," to decide that Jagger of any period--right up to the Millenium Dome of August, 2007--is in another realm, entirely.

So, for me, the Stones win the late 1960's and the 1970's pretty handily. Very handily, in fact. During the period where both bands were functioning, the Stones delivered more and better, recorded material overall. Meanwhile, Zeppelin, as good as they were in concert, could do no better than match the Stones. And while the Stones in 1982 entered a period of only project-by-project work that lasted to Spring 2010, they managed to come up with at least five first-class songs for each new release through the 80's, 90's and 2000's, songs that any other band at any other time would kill for (some will debate this, I'm happy to take it up another time). The Rolling Stones are (forgive the American-centric analogy) an alltime great, a "five tool" player, they're Willie Mays. And they're back in New York, with the Mets, in 1972. Are they at their peak? No, but they still have plenty of recorded moments--and many, many more live ones--that demonstrate amply why they're the best ever.

Hmmmm...I'm forgetting something...what can it be? Oh yeah, THE STONES HAD PRODUCED AN EPOCHAL, HALL OF FAME BODY OF WORK BEFORE LED ZEPPELIN HAD EVEN FORMED. ZEPPELIN STEPPED INTO A KIND OF ROCK'N'ROLL STARDOM THAT WAS INVENTED BY THE STONES (and Elvis and the Beatles, of course, though their appeal and their imagery was so different--almost outside rock music). British blues? World music? ("Paint It, Black" vs. "Kashmir" may actually sum up the whole argument.) "Heavy" acoustic music? I love Zeppelin's dense Anglo-Celtic folk-blues thing. I love it. But it's the only part of the whole package that belongs entirely to them--and I'm not sure I'm giving Fairport Convention adequate credit when I say that...

It's funny. At the Joint, in Vegas in 1998, I had the amusing experience of watching the Stones from third row center, while surrounded by Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and Lars Ulrich from Metallica--as well as Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Eddie Murphy, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Leonardo DiCaprio and a gang of others. It was hilarious to watch the most sought-after people on Planet Earth, the ones that supposedly define power and hipness and cool, absolutely melt and cower before the Rolling Stones. And in the case of the metal guys, it occurred to me that while they all always prattle on about Zeppelin and Sabbath as heavy influences, those references are always based on the foundation of love and reverence for the Stones. In many sub-genres of rock'n'roll, but especially in hard rock/heavy metal, before Pagey and Ozzy, before the Yardbirds even, it all starts with the Stones--always. It's dat attitude, baby...

Zeppelin has eight studio albums and a little over ten years of history. They're similar to the Beatles in that they have a catalogue of very manageable size and that it presents a clear and satisfying story of the band. The Stones have nearly fifty years of studio and live albums, singles, concerts and films. It's a sprawling, messy tale, with ups and downs, blind alleys and hidden jackpots. The vast majority of people, when confronted with this, will buy Hot Rocks and then pay for expensive concert tickets and t-shirts. That's a shame, but it has nothing to do with the relative merits of the bands. If it sometimes seems that the Stones' legacy isn't as visible, that's only because the influence and the legacy is woven through every single aspect of the record and concert businesses--and through the idea of rock'n'roll itself. The Stones are an entertainment juggernaut and a multinational corporation. You know what else? THEY ARE THE BEST GARAGE/BAR BAND ON PLANET EARTH. Period. And that--not beating Grand Funk Raiload's attendance record at some Godforsaken Florida football stadium--is the name of the game in rock'n'roll. That's at the very core.

My sense? Elvis, Chuck Berry, Dylan, the Beatles, and the Stones all swirl around at the very top of the heap--maybe, in a weird way, the Beach Boys, too. All matters of taste aside, those are the artists whose historical importance is crucial and indisputable. And it's a long, looooooong way down to the next tier...

I would like to frame this.

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StonesTod
why folks insist there's some kinda competition here is beyond my comprehension. it's music, not sports nor politics nor something else where there's some kinda prize for the winner.

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stones_serb
I'd also argue that they were better musicians than the Stones with the exception of Mick T.

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stones_serb
As great as Charlie and Bill were they just didn't not gel as well as Bonham and John Paul Jones