The Official Led Zeppelin Thread

[Classof75]

Originally Posted by mr dave

yes some of it was called 'traditional', although a lot of that is due to contentious claims by various people claiming to be the original authors. 'hey joe' and 'house of the rising sun' are other clear examples of 'traditional' songs with claims of ownership.

but i was thinking more in terms of them having to attach the name 'killing floor' to 'the lemon song' and adding credit to Memphis Minnie for 'when the levee breaks'. plus how can one call an uncredited addition to a song a 'tribute' to the original artist? if you don't name drop the artist or list them in the credits how are people who only know the details of the music from the liner notes of the album supposed to find out?

There are cases where the origin of a song is known, but the blues has so much history that unless the actual source of a song is known, it is probably better to term it a "traditional" song. I have been reading "The Land Where Blues Began" by Alan Lomax, and can see how many people sang and played this music, most of them not really concerned about "who wrote it". This music came from people who (sadly) "owned" very little.

[The Unfan]

Originally Posted by Classof75

I think they played most of the music they did well. What is not "particularly well"? Not authentic enough? You think they were "jack of all trades, master of none"? Something like that? I have no problem with the stuff they "blatantly stole" because the blues stuff they did was passed on to them just like it was learned, borrowed (or stolen) by the black folks who were not really sure where it came from to begin with. You don't seem to know what you are talking about. If you don't like Zeppelin, fine, but I don't think you know where they are coming from.

This doesn't account for stolen folk and rock riffs. Your post seems to be ignoring the majority of their material to make an invalid point.

[Classof75]

Originally Posted by The Unfan

This doesn't account for stolen folk and rock riffs. Your post seems to be ignoring the majority of their material to make an invalid point.

All music is "stolen". What people play is just a take of what they have heard. If you don't like music or a band because you feel it was stolen, then you might as well find something else that does'nt bother you.

[mr dave]

Originally Posted by Classof75

All music is "stolen".

i don't buy that at all. it's a cheap cop out for people who lack creativity and those who want to defend a lack of taste. if someone wants to cover, or pay tribute, or follow in other people's footsteps then whatever, that's fine - so long as you have the guts to be upfront about it before you get called out on it.

playing music, ESPECIALLY the blues, is about expressing the human condition through song. consider the social structure of the southern US almost 100 years ago, how were uneducated, segregated, oppressed people supposed to know about 'copyrights'? how were they supposed to have any idea of what contracts were about? the songs were written because it's what they did, they got 'stolen' because one guy heard it and decided to sing it to his friends, not to pad out a record made in a studio that cost more than the entire worth of their families.

[boo boo]

Leave it to The Unfan to bring this stupid argument back from the dead.

Originally Posted by The Unfan

Yet they did none of them particularly well and blatantly stole most of their material.

Stop trolling please.

[boo boo]

Originally Posted by mr dave

i don't buy that at all. it's a cheap cop out for people who lack creativity and those who want to defend a lack of taste. if someone wants to cover, or pay tribute, or follow in other people's footsteps then whatever, that's fine - so long as you have the guts to be upfront about it before you get called out on it.

playing music, ESPECIALLY the blues, is about expressing the human condition through song. consider the social structure of the southern US almost 100 years ago, how were uneducated, segregated, oppressed people supposed to know about 'copyrights'? how were they supposed to have any idea of what contracts were about? the songs were written because it's what they did, they got 'stolen' because one guy heard it and decided to sing it to his friends, not to pad out a record made in a studio that cost more than the entire worth of their families.

Oh I get it, let's turn it into an argument about class.

Zep "insulted" a genre of music that is ALL ABOUT plagiarism, but the only reason they're at fault here is that they're not poor and black, and because they're a very popular band, obviously nobody gives a sh*t about the neverending plagiarism in metal and punk, bands who actually DO steal riffs and not just lyrics or a few guitar licks (and EVERYONE recycles guitar licks).

Seriously, if people want to put an end to racism people need to stop using "being black" as an excuse. Blues artists ripped each other off all the f*cking time and overall most blues songs are incredibly generic and indistinguishable. There's really not a lot of room for originality to begin with.

I've made this argument thousands of times, and everytime I argue with someone, they just copy and paste from some dumb website without checking the sources whatsoever and because I actually heard the f*cking songs I can tell these people what was stolen and what wasn't.

Except for one part from the Lemon Song I can't really think of a Page riff that was outright stolen, almost all of the alledged plagiarism involves lyrics or vocals.

It's also stupid to call some of their songs "uncredited covers" when all it is is a brief reference that's only a small portion of the song.

And a lot of it is just f*cking retarded. Wow, Communication Breakdown is an exact ripoff of Eddie Cochran's Nervous Breakdown, what did they steal? ONE WORD IN THE F*CKING TITLE.

You can call me a rabid fanboy making excuses for them, but really, I have yet to have anyone actually prove to me that they stole more than lyrics and vocal melodies and then make a valid argument as to why they're such reprehensable monsters for doing something that most blues musicians do all the time.

I mean sh*t, why are so many folk and blues songs "traditional", because people didn't credit the f*cking songwriters, that's why. And I'm sorry, you can't justify it in anyway if you think Zeppelin doing it is such a horrible offence, it's the same thing.

That's my rant, you can give me your argument so I can yell at you and tell you how wrong you are. Or we can agree to disagree because I hate that this discussion has come up again and I know I can't be the only one.

[someonecompletelyrandom]

^I say delete every single post in this thread and just Sticky that!

[boo boo]

I shouldn't HAVE to delete or close a thread like this, it's a perfectly legitimate thread for a specific band and fans of that band, these kinda threads should be encouraged, not get locked just because a bunch of trolls are trying to screw it up and refuse to stop, I do that and they win.

If Unfan tries to start any more crap on this thread I'm just gonna start deleting his posts, that's as good of a warning that I'm gonna give him for now and he'll have no grounds to bitch about it.

There's a lot more useful things he could do on this forum besides specifically trolling threads for bands he hates, of course that may be too much to ask because it's really the only thing he ever does.

[Dr.Tchock]

You can like Led Zeppelin and still admit to the few "creative liberties" in their approach to songwrinting.

They were far from saints. I remeber reading somewhere that they got sued by Willie Dixon about the lyrics in Whole Lotta Love.

But who cares anyway.

Even if they didn't steal anything it certainly doesn't excuse them from pratically pioneering c0ck-rock. And the power ballad.

[boo boo]

I don't see the problem with ballads or c*ck rock when it's done right.

Zeppelin did ballads, I can't however think of them doing anything that could qualify as a power ballad, except maybe Stairway but that's really pushing it.

Either way, power ballads is a concept invented by record companie execs, it's really dumb to blame Zeppelin for that trend.