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Dr. Prunk
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Where the buffalo roam.
Posts: 12,137
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Led Zeppelin - Reasons you say?...I have four, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones...Maybe not the best ensemble in terms of technical ability, but f*ck technical ability, like them or not, this band represented the 70s, i would cut my penis off just to have been there and see them live... The fact these guys are in my top 5 may come as a shock to those who think i would be into more sophisticated artists, but to hell with that too, Zeppelin rocked hard, but were very progressive and experiemental as well...Few bands can go from the proto punk of Communication Breakdown to a complex, beautiful ballad like Ten Years Gone...They were all fantastic musicians and performers, and unlike many bands they could both compromise and improvise, they could have composed a 20 minute symphonic rock suite if they wanted to, but they chose to play like wild animals, paving the way for metal and punk in the future.
Pink Floyd - Unlike most progressive rock bands, Pink Floyd were not really virtuoso musicians (Waters and Mason were inexperienced, Gilmour rarely did anything out of the minor pentatonic scale) but unlike their peers they could channel their music into places no other band could, they could be complex and enchanting without being technical and their music could be really beautiful and deep without being corny or sentimental...Barrett was a mad genius who burned out way too soon, but unlike most bands who would break up if their primary creative force left the band, Pink Floyd kept making music, and amazingly they evolved from a underground, unknown garage band to stadium rock super gods, Roger Waters lyrics hit a deep chord that no other 70s arena rock band could touch, and David Gilmour was no shredder by any means, but he played his guitar like it was some kind of spirital entity, his solos were like messages from the heavens (corny as hell i know, buts that the best way to describe it), just one note from his guitar leaves all technical wankers like Cooley and Batio in the dust...Like The Beatles they were a very versatile band, that could go from the kind of mellow pyschedelia that they were best known for to something like The Nile Song, walls of wild guitar noise that was basicly heavy metal before it even existed, and like The Beatles every album they made was a complete shock...Pink Floyd had me hooked first time i heard DSOTM, i have never fully recovered from the trance it put me in when i first listened to it...The Wall was the bands turning point, where they went for a darker, more rock oriented sound, they turned their backs on prog and never looked back, and bravely stood up against all the punk bands who considered them washed up dinosaurs, and they made one of the greatest albums of all time as a result.
The Who - This really goes without saying, when Rock N Roll died, The Who manged by inventing rock, they define everything rock music is about, and they embody everything music could be, energetic, powerful, rebelious, raw, beautiful, deep, emotional, colorful, experiemental, simple AND complex, punk AND progressive and of course, fun...Few bands could capture all those elements, but The Who could, hell, they could cram all those qualitys into ONE song, who else can do that?...And they were such a influence on so many bands, the power chord may have been around before The Who, but it was Townshend who made it a hard rock staple...They are probably the only band who had a deep influence on the development metal, punk AND prog...They always tried new things, went from simple, loud as hell pop songs like My Generation and I Can See For Miles And Miles in the mid 60s to more complex pieces of music in the late 60s and eary 70s with Tommy and Quadrophena and then arena rock gods with Whos Next and Live At Leeds...Most importantly, they had that f*ck everything attitude that The Sex Pistols would eventualy bring to the next level.
Sorry for the history lessions, i tried to be brief and short but dammit, im a ranter, its in my blood.
I could do so much more but im tired.
More to come.
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