Music Banter - View Single Post - The Complete Discography Thread Led Zeppelin

Son of JayJamJah · 06-08-2009, 07:16 PM

What started as a vision of a blues-rock super power, evolved into a series of settling for “second best” only to find a combination more potent then even Page’s wildest aspirations may have ventured to suppose. From the start it was Page who guided the bands embryonic evolution.

"Our music should be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses" with "lots of light and shade in the music."

Jimmy Page

"I Think People Just Bought What They Liked"

You'd never convince a kid today that the music of Led Zeppelin was "too hot for TV", but it was a different time and people had never seen an act like this unless they'd been looking for it really hard. There was no internet, no magazines, hardly an underground scene, and how would one even find out about it. Another fact is the time of their debut the Album Oriented Rock era was still in it's infancy.

The first Shows under the new and permanent name were in England and though it’d be easy and poetic to suggest that they were a sensation from day one, it’s really not the case. The band had shed the popularity associated with the Yardbirds name and accompanied with their new heavier style found themselves being looked at only as an opening act initially. They played in front of a host of Bands in England and the Western United states including most notably Vanilla Fudge, who the group (Plant in particular) befriended in England. They quickly developed a reputation as a raucous and unprecedented live act, so much so that they quickly released two albums and were thrust onto the Media circuit. Constantly touring and recording, their first 14 months of existence were ultimately the bands most prolific and grueling era.

One consistent theme with the attitudes of Early Led Zeppelin is a sort of "take this as it goes" mentality. I don't think they seen it coming, I think even though Jimmy Page had always imagined it, he hadn't believed even when he first saw it for himself. These interviews show the begining of their realization of just what their music was doing and what the Led Zeppelin brand was becoming. They are unquestionably cool and relay a sort of humble sincerity and in such a soft spoken nature striking such sharp contrast to their preferred form of musical expression. This captivating dichotomy would eventually crumble as the band's popular reached unparalleled heights and so did the acts of lunacy and debauchery.

I'll Leave you with my favorite of all...