I'm not doing to agree or disagree, just going to keep it mutual, because I do have to keep in mind that both guitarist are/were part of two of the most impressive rock bands in history, so it just depends on who you like more.

All I was really doing was answering your question as to why you were asking if this really needs to be a question.

I see what you're saying, my comment was meant to be taken tongue in cheek, haha. Things in text form don't always carry the appropriate tone. I would like to state I am a fan of Sabbath, as anybody who like good music should be, I just of course prefer Zeppelin, and Jimmy Page.

Definitely cool with me man. I'm a huge fan of both myself. I have full discographies of Sabbath and Zeppelin in my collection :)

Absolutely, I'm a massive Zep head, and collect a lot of bootlegs to go along with the official stuff. What Iommi was able to do, even after having his hand mangled is beyond me, His riffs are the heaviest ones in rock and roll, especially "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" at least to me anyway.

I actually created a blog about the life and music of Jimmy Page, the link is in my sig, you should check it out :)

Yeah, Black Sabbath were and still remain to be one of my favorite heavy metal bands. I still have yet to decide if I like them better with Ozzy or Dio. But the nice thing is that if I never choose, I still have a Rainbow live album on vinyl to get my Dio fix if Sabbath doesn't do it for me at the time.

It was such a shame when Dio passed. I got a question for ya...Iommi or Randy Rhoads?

Still gonna go with Iommi. I was just about to vote in the poll as well.

And yeah, definitely a shame about Dio. His voice was something else, packs a punch every time I listen to Sabbath and Rainbow.

I can say without a doubt, Page is better. Iommi is more influential, because Sabbath's heavy guitar sound is what inspired every metal band in the 80s. Ritchie Blackmore is on par with, if not better than both as far as first wave "metal" bands go. Blackmore and Page kick Iommi's ass in soloing, definitely.

I dont know about that. EVERY metal band on the planet sites Sabbath as one of or the main influences.

Well like I said, I was keeping a mutual opinion, though in this case I do agree with you and find that very easy to believe.

At the end of the day I think its impossible to tell. I mean ultimately Sabbath is the beginning of metal, and LZ is a blues/rock band. Sure each has songs in whatever category but thats what the two are known for, and I doubt the bands themselves would dissagree.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you on anything, I would name Sabbath higher than Zep any day, and at any moment the question was asked.

****, album sales don't mean that much. U make it sound like a hell of a lot of people didn't pick up a guitar because of iommi. I'd say it's actually the other way around. Iommi was way more innovative and completely pioneered a new type of music, something that can't be said for page.

Page isn't even first in his category, he's second to Hendrix. Dont get me wrong, I can't deny how great page is, but to say he's way better than iommi is completely wrong. Iommi had a more classical sound in his style, and he was pretty jazzy when he wanted to be. He was great, in no way is page "way better".

I think that after you dial back the gain on his amplifier, there's not anything that Iommi did that was especially innovative. He was responsible for creating some of the most badass guitar riffs in rock/metal history, but then again, so was Page. The difference is that Page drew attention to his talent even after the genre that had already seen some greats. Sabbath influence was more densely focused on the metal genre, but I don't think Iommi as a guitar player was more influential than Page as a whole.

Notwithstanding the fact that Iommi was handicapped by having half of his fretboard fingertips missing, a lot of what Iommi is known for are riffs that were fairly basic and mechanical. The guitar riff from Sweet Leaf is pretty stellar, but I don't think it can hold a candle to Page's bowed string riff from Kashmir. I don't think much of Iommi's playing really hold up to anything that Page has done. Iommi and Sabbath's influence were so great because they were pioneers of the metal genre, not because Iommi's skill or creativity were anything superlative compared to any of the better rock guitarists of his age. I think Page has it over Iommi easily.

Turn Down the gain on pages guitar and he Didnt really do anything innovative, oh yeah, even with the gain up he didn't really do anything innovative. Page wasn't even the first to use a bow on a guitar, although he gets credited like he was. Iommi was one of the first to tune his guitar down and really pioneered the creepy and eerie guitar sound. He single handedly pioneered the guitar playing of a new type of music. Page Didnt do that. Page did have some heavy riffs but they were nothing compared to iommi. Page was more influential on blues-rock guitarists. But like I said, he isn't even the most influential blues rock guitarist.

Zeppelin gets so much credit as a pioneer of hard rock, in reality there were already some bands making hard rock. Sabbath was the more creative and innovative band. Iommi wasn't innovative? Ya right.

They both played some really simple stuff, but at least iommis simple stuff helped pioneer a new style of music. They both also played some more complex stuff. Iommi has some pretty good classically based stuff. The way he could mix classical with his heavy style resulted in a totally unique style overall. Iommi could even go acoustic and play some really unique sounding stuff, and some classically styled stuff.

I have to strongly dissagree with that. Every metal band in existance has at one point or still does downtune way below the Eb sometimes D standard tuning that many blues guitarists like Hendrix used. Iommi was the one who because of his injury downtuned his strings incredibly low for the time and as a result got an even heavier sound bringing the sound we know as heavy metal. Sure the first 2 albums are in standard tuning but live shows usually were not and every album after that was tuned way down.

He also popularized chugging. Sure bands had done some here and there, but that heavy 6th string chugging was pretty much his creation when artist look for inspiration in that genre.

Also you said it lightly that he had good riffs. He brought riffs of which noone had heard anything like every before. Their is a reason every metal band cites him as the main reference. just like every blues guitarist talks about BB King or Albert King etc. Have him play 2 notes and you know its him. Sure he wasnt fast and doesnt shred circles around other guitar prodigies but surely you can acknowledge noone was playing anyhting that sounded remotely like him at the time.

He's not the fastest but he was pretty fast. In no way was he "not fast", especially for his time. He has plenty of solos that are every bit as fast as page solos. Page was probably faster but not that much.

I don't know anyone who did palm muted riffing before iommi, and that became a staple of heavy metal.

I think if you want to think about it purely in terms of who caused more people to pick up a guitar, then that would be Jimmy Page. His music has a broader base of appeal. When Led Zeppelin reformed in 2007, how many millions of people registered just to get the chance to get a ticket? How many rock legends were in the audience that night. I think also to say that Page was second in the blues rock category is also unfair as that boils down to a question of taste. Also, if you don't think Page didn't do acoustic, listen to Led Zeppelin III, almost all of there albums have some acoustic music, and after 1972, they did an acoustic set every night. Jimmy Page could play circles around Tony Iommi, he was just a more talented guitarist, that isn't opinion, that is just fact.

O I know page could do acoustic. He did it a lot, and that has something to do with iommi being the more influential metal guitarist.

And really, that's a fact? It's a fact that it's not a fact. I'd say it's a fact that page is second to Hendrix when it comes to blues rock, but that's just me.

Difference is, Black Sabbath are heavy metal and pack a punch.

Led Zeppelin are not heavy metal, never have been, and are good when the mood strikes.

I can't lie, I'm a little biased when it comes to zepp because I really can't stand Robert plant. He's one of the most overrated musicians I can think of. But page, bonham and jones were great, no doubt.

Robert Plant definitely ruins it for me as well. His vocal style isn't one I favor at all, and makes it very difficult for me to listen to Zep.

First of all, I strongly doubt that Iommi was the first guitarist to implement that tuning. Maybe he was the first to be recognized for doing so, but guitarists have been experimenting with and utilizing alternate tunings for ages. If a blues guitarist can tune to an open C chord for slide work then how much more common sense does it take to figure out that you can create a one-fingered barrable fifth by dropping your E string? Secondly, that tuning doesn't have nearly the same impact when your tone isn't saturated with gain, which basically reinforces my original point.

Are you forgetting how much pages playIng was saturated with gain? It was quite a bit. I know he did a lot of acoustic work, but other than that he used a lot of gain. "planet caravan" exemplifies iommi's less gainy, jazzy style. He could do more than just play with high gain.

Listen to a song called "you need loving" by the band The Small Faces. You'll not only see where Zeppelin ripped off "whole lotta love" (but the small faces also took it from muddy waters and Willie Dixon) but you'll also see wher Robert plant stole his vocal style.

I remember hearing at a lot of instances that Zeppelin stole a lot of styles and riffs from a lot of different songs.

They did, I admit it can be blown out of proportion a bit. A lot of bands did it, but zepp did it a lot.

A similar example would be the allman brothers. They took old blues songs and completely rearranged them, made them a lot more complex and basically made the music completely different to the point where you really couldn't tell it was an old blues song if it weren't for the lyrics. Even though they changed the songs so much, they still credited the original writers. If the allman brothers were like Zeppelin, they would have just changed the lyrics a little and taken full credit as the writer of song, the only difference is that the allmans altered the music of the original songs a lot more than zepp did.

Just because Iommi is missing a few fingertips doesn't necessarily mean he's Django Reinhardt. Planet Caravan is more the exception to the rule than anything else. I will give you that it does have a bit of a jazzy flair to it and it definitely showcases a different side of Iommi's playing, but here are many more examples of Page's work that are clean or acoustic than there are of Iommi's. It's true though, you don't really see Page diving into the jazz idiom at all. It just didn't fit into his style.

Yeah, when I learned that, I found it difficult to take them too seriously. Not a whole lot of originality.

I also don't see page mixing classical in his playing as much as iommi did, even if its presence wasn't all that strong. There are some acoustic examples of iommis classically styled work. He even worked it into his electric playing a little. He's more diverse than he seems sometimes.

And ya, he certainly isn't Django.

i don't even know why we're even bothering to compare the two

each has their own merits

If you can define classical for me I'd be more apt to understand what you're talking about.

Compared to some other bands from around their time period, they're really not all that original.

Straight from the horse's mouth (not that I am implying that Jimmy Page is a horse)

"I always tried to bring something fresh to anything that I used. I always made sure to come up with some variation. In fact, I think in most cases, you would never know what the original source could be. Maybe not in every case — but in most cases. So most of the comparisons rest on the lyrics. And Robert [Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin] was supposed to change the lyrics, and he didn’t always do that — which is what brought on most of the grief. They couldn’t get us on the guitar parts of the music, but they nailed us on the lyrics. We did, however, take some liberties, I must say [laughs]. But never mind; we did try to do the right thing."

When I was just getting into Zep, I really didn't see anything too special about them. Made it difficult for me to understand why they are so special and held up to such high par.

It might be not strict text book classical, but theres some classical style to some of his playing. There are some live videos I've seen where he works some classical chords and fingerstyle techniques into his playing electric playing.

There's the song "orchid" for example. Theres another song I'm thinking of but I can't think of the name. It starts out with an acoustic intro and then oes into some really heavy stuff.

I know what you mean. Even when I did like them more than I do now, I never saw anything that was extremely great. I always sensed something fake about them, then I came across all this plagiarism stuff, it reassured my feeling about them.



Even the guitar parts weren't always really original.

Even Jimmy Page wasn't as special to me as people said he was. He seemed just like a typical guitar player to me when I listen/listened to them.

Then you must not be all that familiar with time signatures

You must not be familiar with some of the licks and riffs he stole.