Versatile? Noone was more versatile than Tony Iommi, his "shade and light" technique was hands above everyone else, creating a genre with Masters of Reality and still managing to squeeze in beautiful guitar passages on every one of the Ozzy albums.

I could give him leeway given that he was at a time when metal was less developed at the time of most of Ozzy era Sabbath (the only Sabbath I enjoy tbh, although Mob Rules is decent), but that's faded and he seems more like a one trick pony than he may have at one time. However, with Page, even after rock has been evolving for so long, his ability to be more dynamic and throw in different ideas (or rip off, depending on who you ask) and styles into Zeppelin's music still holds pretty strong. That's why I put it that way.

I do think that Iommi did do more in the way of genre creation because he was in Sabbath, of course. But as far as range goes he doesn't even touch Page.

Iommi. Because Satan > anything else.

Well said, I agree with all of these words.

Bah, utter nonsense, while I think the Mighty Led Zeppelin was one of, if not THE greatest rock bands ever, Tony was more prolific (still writing music today, what has Pagey done lately?), and his instrumental stuff (Fluff, Orchid, Into the Void) was as good or better than White Summer/Black Mountain Side, and Tony wrote way more instrumental stuff than Page. Just my worthless opinion, of course!

More albums =/= greater range.

Damn shame that Jimmy used up all of his brilliance in a ten year period. But at least we got stuff like this out of it.
The orchestration and overdubbing of the guitars on this....



Iommi can't touch it.

Have a listen to two songs for me, humor me - listen to the Sabbath song "I" off Dehumanizer, listen to the main and especially the exit solo on that. Then the opener off Sabbath's last album, "End of the Beginning", tell me Jimmy was/is capable of THAT level of guitar work.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Jimmy Page, and all of his guitar work, I just think Tony is a better player.

Seriously, go you-tube I and let me know what you think of that exit solo.

Great solo. Wished they'd let it go on longer. Perfect use of the wah wah pedal.

TBHT, he's not doing anything special other than ripping the pentatonic scale.

Same as Page does with this.

Solo starts at 1:30

Ah yes, one of my favorite early Zep tunes - to go from that to Achilles Last Stand is amazing, who knows where Page could have continued on to if the road and all that comes with it had not derailed the band. I miss Bonzo...