While digesting the hundreds of threads about how my favourite band for the past 35 years suck during their recent outing, I've been listening to lots of Led Zep, and other bands. Believe me, I've listened to ABB 50 times, and its a good album.

The question remains, is it that Robert Plant is a better rock singer than Mick Jagger; or that the Led Zep ensemble was stronger than the Stones?

I love them both, but have listened to the Stones 1000X more than any other band ~ but greatly appreciate the Led Zep efforts of the '70's that I basically turned my head to since I was a Stones fanatic...


I love the way Robert sings ballads vs the MJ approach. It basically sucks.

for my taste, not even close...Jagger by a country mile....just like his voice much better...plants' got that shrieky upper register but it appeals to alot of people as well...do like zep 1...zep 2...zep 4...physical graffiti...but not close to the stones "magic"...of course, if i posted this on a zep site, i'd have dozens of death threats by now



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-28 02:19 by Leonard Keringer.

How funny! I often try to justify why the hell I didn't like Led Zep anywhere near the Stones when I was such a young rock fan. I kinda like them more now; or appreciate them more now, than I did during high school. I mean, the gang that listened to LZ were total waste product; whereas I was out there alone listening to the Stones. I mean, after Angie, they thought I was a fag!

The way to look at the Stones is, there the best garage band, not the best rock and roll band. The whole Beatles vs. the Stones thing is for another time. I've been pretty pleased with my favourite British band basically my whole adult life.

Maybe the question is, who would you rather shoot ~ Roger Daltry or Robert Plant?

Plant WAS good once, he's lost alot of whathe had in the 70's;I rather liked the high register he used to reach. Mick is 10000x better all the way around, but I do love Zeppelin! I have their entire catalog.

Mick's roots are in rhythm and blues while Robert came from folk and it shows in their singing style. Personally I hate Robert's voice, especially in ballads like "Stairway to heaven". Also I hate when he gets into very high shrieking, a gimmick that was overtaken by too many bad heavy metal bands in the 1980s. Besides he's an ugly geezer with a guitarist just twice the size of my little finger.

There simply is no better rock singer than Mick Jagger.

Led Zeppelin had some good songs (interestingly most of them recorded with the Rolling Stones Mobile and long time Stones engineer Glyn Johns). But apart of that they are a subordinate blueprint for hard pop. They just ain't rock'n'roll to me, they were hard pop at their best. However, they had way too many posers in the band. Too many complexes showing off.

rock'nroller Wrote:
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> How funny! I often try to justify why the hell I
> didn't like Led Zep anywhere near the Stones when
> I was such a young rock fan. I kinda like them
> more now; or appreciate them more now, than I did
> during high school. I mean, the gang that
> listened to LZ were total waste product; whereas I
> was out there alone listening to the Stones.


same here rocknroller...tried to get into zeppelin in high school, but i was forcing myself, whereas the stones were naturally compelling to me...and all the dirtbags back then liked the zep...i was the outsider...now i'm a dirtbag, have no prejudices against zep, so i can listen & enjoy them now with fresh ears



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-28 02:45 by Leonard Keringer.

the Zep were a hard rockin band. the Stones aren't. why try and compare two totally different types of music ?

having said that. in a straight head to head as best album of the year. Plant's 'Might Rearranger' would beat 'A Bigger BanG' any day

sad but true

OK, let's all pause and pay our respect to Robert Plant. <thank the Lord for Robert for one minute> Let's all thank God Keith didn't OD, Ronnie didn't kill himself, and Charlie overcame throat cancer. Funny, I often wonder, if you were a Rolling Stone, would you be alive? I certainly would have died many years ago...Everything you want, all the drugs you desired, all the women you wanted, anything and everything, in any quantity. It's too much for 99.9% of the population.

That's probably why we relish being "able" to catch the Stones for "one more show/tour." For me, I'm looking forward to MSG; HBO or not!

i wouldve tried to stay sober for the women...good luck...lol! actually if anybody heres ever toured with a real band, its not easy...you live in a stinky van, have 4 to 10 hour drives every day...so, the partying catches up with ya quickly...you carry all the equipment, "do it yourself"....its a GRIND!!! especially when your in yur 30s & 40s..unfortunately sleep takes priority over partying



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-28 03:03 by Leonard Keringer.

>>Plant WAS good once, he's lost alot of whathe had in the 70's;<<

You'd be surprised at how good he can sound in concert these days, Debra. Or maybe you >have< heard him recently but on a bad night... I went to the Montreal gig in Sept. on the insistence of my daughter, being quite skeptical - I thought he merely >hushed< on his new album - but got the surprise of my life with his road-broken-in voice! No, he hadn't regained his high register, but his pipes were strong and carrying, with a very loud band around him, just never failing! Alternating almost systematically a Zeppelin war horse (or semi-) with a new piece, I can tell you they REALLY rocked the house!!

>>I rather liked the high register he used to reach.<<

Me too, the higher the better I thought! Well he did some stuff in that very high register that was pretty amazing! Those Arabian lines during the fade-out to "Four Sticks"... Wow!!

But the comparison with Mick Jagger, which I also love as a singer, is a tough one, they're so different... In the ballads, the one thing I don't like from MJ is when he forces that fast vibrato (Wild Horses). Otherwise, his low register in the soft songs is warm and virile.

I like Zep very much the only 2 things I don't like about them are too many ridiculouslylong songs(dazed and confused!) and Robert Plant.

Mick Jagger is so much better then Plant, not even close!

Loved Zep in my teenage years. No doubt, Zep are rock gods.
The weird thing to me is how I feel so strongly that the stones sound more contempory throughout. The Zep songs are great, but they definately seem more dated to my ears.

its not even an issue, robert plant is not even on the same planet as jagger,
please, its an insult to even talk about it

I'll take Mick Jagger for $500 Alex. lol No seriously, I've never been much of a LZ fan so ol' rubber lips wins hands down!

I like Plant a lot more today than in Zep days. Never dug that screeching bit. Plant was such a force. In retro now today I see how much of the coolness in ZXep was thanks to Plant and not Page. Just check their repsective solo careers.
Jagger sings circles around Plant, ballads or not. Both are superb singers. never did understand how a generation of he-boys went for Plant's sissy finger twirling with Zep. At least Jagger was whipping the stage with a belt or riding a huge dick like a bronco.

Plant was an inferior copy of Roger Daltrey chosen for his blond curly hair and looks rather than talent.

the last time i saw plant was 2002 in hershey ,, he backed up 4 ,, the band that pretends 2 b THE WHO ,, the who were incredible ,, plant just so so ,, ive seen plant many times with page & also with zeppelin ,, i like jagger's singin much more than plant ,,esp the blues ,,or rock & roll,, or country ,,or ballads ,, or disco ,,jagger is singin Great on this tour ,,this is a great stones tour

As a singer Plant (Soprano) is a professional unlike Jagger(???), but the charisma of them both are the same in a different way one of the best. So therefor Plant is way ahead without discussion.

Mick has held up way better than Plant but are/were great in their own way. Same goes for Daltrey.

led zepp was my first no 1 - stones were no 2. dont know what happened, i guess when some girls came out. Bought the big four after that and its been downhill ever since.

andy js Wrote:
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> > the Zep were a hard rockin band. the Stones
> aren't. why try and compare two totally different
> types of music ?
>
> having said that. in a straight head to head as
> best album of the year. Plant's 'Might Rearranger'
> would beat 'A Bigger BanG' any day
>
> sad but true

YES - Mighty Rearranger is absolutely stunning. Haven't seen a Stones show so far but Plant in Berlin was fantastic (worth a 10-hours drive).

I've seen Plant a couple of months ago and he was great...What a classy guy...He's unique and so is Mick..


Yes, he has lots of talent....

Mick's the boy.......Plant doesn't even enter the arena.



ROCKMAN

Jagger vs. Plant is like Blondes vs. Brunettes ... I don't want to choose, I take them all...

C

<having said that. in a straight head to head as best album of the year. Plant's 'Might Rearranger' would beat 'A Bigger BanG' any day >

bullshit, Plant solo tries to be Led Zep without Page. Instead he is as well working (remember B2 with all those fancy computer stuff and producers. The old guys should stick to what the can do best. Thats why BB is an outstanding album.

Plant was (and is) a great singer, but his high-pitched voice has some natural limitations that makes his blues and rock'n'roll suffer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-28 11:54 by DandelionPowderman.

@#$%& blues Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> bullshit, Plant solo tries to be Led Zep without
> Page. Instead he is as well working (remember B2
> with all those fancy computer stuff and producers.
> The old guys should stick to what the can do best.
> Thats why BB is an outstanding album.

LOL - that's a good one !! :-)

That's why he was probably called a "dirty old sow" in a NYC(?) newspaper because of rearranging songs like No Quarter and Black Dog in a totally different way. and honestly, I can't tell any Zep-song which comes near to sound like Another Tribe.

But I agree, ABB is outstanding album!

IMHO - ABB is a very good album weighed down by too much filler, it certainly isn't 'outstanding' or anywhere near it. its solid but not spectacular

Might Rearranger on the other hand is amazing from start to finish. a true work of excellence by an old bloke. that doesn't happen very often for sure

I am still not entirely sure what to think of Mighty Rearranger - is it really brilliant or just a "really good" piece - and this is probably a good sign AFAIAC... I can never skip a track without wanting to come back to it later. Some songs have this weird feeling of both familiarity and strangeness... First thing I said to my fan-daughter about it initially is I thought this production sounded foreign, like from another planet, compared to what I get from today's rock music in general. The texture, low-level signal, and pacing are so "un-CD"...
So I'm still "working" at it... I enjoy the ride anyway so far!

As for Plant's high-pitched voice of youth... This is funny... My wife used to get hives rash from it; she absolutely HATED it, altough she had never been too sure about Led Zeppelin's music. Now, with the kids playing their music around, and me the DVDs, by and by she asked me to put this track on, then that other track, on one of her favourite car cassettes... And as of today, the damn cassette is full of Zep (her own picks) and she is the biggest fan, INCLUDING OF PLANT'S HIGH-SCREECHING VOCALS!! She says it fits in with the music perfectly...

When I compare Plant's best efforts from the studio with Jagger's, Plant does just fine. For example, The Lemon Song contains a great vocal: powerful, great phrasing, and a perfect complement to Page. Of course, Jagger does as much on his best recordings in the context of the Stones. So, for me, on their best work it's pretty much a dead heat.
However, live it's another matter. Jagger's frontman abilities far outstrip Plant's (or arguably anyone's), and I think the best live Jagger efforts are light years ahead of Plant's.

On the screaming thing, I've always thought of it as a way of compensating for only having one guitar. Plant, in my view, seems to be providing some of the licks, the counterpoint to Page, that another guitarist would otherwise have brought to the song. This fits in with the blues tradition, in an updated way. But it's not to everyone's taste, that' for sure.

One other area that bears commenting on is that Plant has probably been imitated much more than Jagger by lesser 80's corporate rock-like singers, and I think that imitation has devalued the currency of Plant's vocal style compared to Jagger's. Not to many folks have done a good job of imitating Jagger's vocal style (some have, but not as many as have imitated Plant), so I think Plant's style is more tired and cliched as a result of its imitation and resultant over-exposure.

It'd be interesting to ask this question to audiences of both bands in 1972.