...yeah probably the best song on the cd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRYHNPkGesQ
― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Saturday, 11 March 2017 17:33 (seven years ago) link
I should check out the rest of this. The Rollins Band cover is p much ruined by Rollins trying to sing
― waht, I am true black metal worrior (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 March 2017 17:34 (seven years ago) link
Was going to post exactly the same thing--looked at the results, was surprised that Rollins got zero ("Does he sing?"), gave it a listen. Twelve bulls in a china shop; he's so unsuited to something requiring subtlety, mystery, swing, and a million other things Led Zeppelin had going for them.
― clemenza, Saturday, 11 March 2017 17:42 (seven years ago) link
(Which doesn't mean the zero's not reasonable--I'm sure there are other horrors on there.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 11 March 2017 17:43 (seven years ago) link
All of these pale in the face of knowledge that a couple of years ago Train inexplicably covered Zep II in its entirety:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA8MykYXoq0
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 March 2017 17:49 (seven years ago) link
i like rollins' cover of franklin's tower, but on the other hand nobody in the dead could sing!
― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Saturday, 11 March 2017 17:58 (seven years ago) link
yeah see... like if 4 non blondes had not been on here, but Train had formed a little earlier and made it in, i feel pretty confident they would have taken this in a walk. i just learned they STARTED AS A LED ZEPPELIN COVER BAND so my god did we dodge a bullet there. i think most on ILM would agree they are a worse band than 4 Non Blondes and they kept...making...songs. but there are tons of mainstream 90s dude bands of this period that ime do NOT get a free pass or license to suck on ILM. Live, The Offspring, Collective Soul, Counting Crows, 311, Silverchair, Bush. all of those have folks here repping for this or that song, but all of them had more than one hit song. and yet generally they do not have cred on this board afaik. even considerably better bands like Smashing Pumpkins have more detractors here than fans. if Soul Coughing, a band i like a lot, were on here i am confident they would have attracted whole new voters to come out and slam them. i think people who hate soul coughing and the pumpkins hate them in a lot of the same ways/reasons people hate 4 Non Blondes - inescapably attention-grabbing and unconventional vocalist front and center, with painstakingly enunciated lyrics that come off as pretentious bullshit if you feel superior to the particular brand of 90s-ness being peddled.
i'm belaboring all this not because i want to prove that women in rock don't face all the asymmetrical uphill bullshit that's being pointed out. they totally do. but because katherine indicated the equal "stature" of the bands was an important factor here.... and as nitpicky as it probably seems, i think it's weird to suggest that STP and 4 Non Blondes are bands of the same stature. STP have sold forty million records and among their sixteen or so high-charting singles, have at least a dozen songs that are still in regular rotation. hootie were coming off their sixteen times platinum debut (including three huuuuge singles) and hadn't yet sophomore-slumped. 4 non blondes had had one moderate-sized hit two years before, and then four singles that did not make the hot 100, and had already broken up by the time this album was released. if one aspect of the poll is "which of these acts seems the most pitifully out of their league trying to cover zeppelin" then some of that does enter the picture and i don't think ALL of it is gendered.
that doesn't mean that the questions of who gets cred, who gets stature, who's seen as appropriate to sit at the big-kids' rock table, aren't profoundly gendered. they totally are and even as i'm typing the above i'm struggling to write it in a way that doesn't fall into tropes that are typically masculine rockist dudebro tropes. i think this is super interesting and important and i'm glad katherine brought it up as it's giving me some things to think about and challenge in my own assumptions. i just, still, sincerely question whether a single-vote radio button poll, with so many other variables in play, can really be that revealing. or again if it's THAT noteworthy that a notoriously hated one-hit wonder band would take a particular beating on a label cash-in album thread, especially when their song is one of the two singles/videos that people are likely to have actually heard, and the other one of those two (STP) took third place.
the two tori amos votes could be people who don't like tori amos or people who think the idea of robert plant showing up to his own covers record is gross, who knows... but it got less votes than hootie and the same number as duran duran and big head todd. if a plant-free tori - surely the actual best artist here, by some distance - had won this by the margin 4NB did, then i would be a lot more "wtf ILM."
― tales of a scorched-earth nothing (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 11 March 2017 18:56 (seven years ago) link
Thing about STP too is 70s-flavored hard rock was a thing they dabbled in a lot. DeLeo loved his slide guitar (which he used much more later on) so I get the pick.
I think this is one of the few Zep songs they wouldn't fuck up because Weiland always seemed more suited to 70s glam than wailing bluesy hard rock, but this isn't a very demanding song vocally...no Plant wailing, few ad libs, straightforward as hell.
Imagine STP doing "Immigrant Song" on the other hand
― waht, I am true black metal worrior (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 March 2017 19:15 (seven years ago) link
which would actually be GOOD casting for 4 Non Blondes!
― tales of a scorched-earth nothing (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 11 March 2017 19:43 (seven years ago) link
they STARTED AS A LED ZEPPELIN COVER BAND so my god did we dodge a bullet there.
they released an album last year on which they covered the entirety of led zeppelin ii, so potentially we didn't dodge a bullet atall
― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), Saturday, 11 March 2017 19:48 (seven years ago) link
now she's back from the atmospherewith drops of lemon juice in her hair
― tales of a scorched-earth nothing (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 11 March 2017 19:53 (seven years ago) link
It's not actually horrible, but it's like paying to hear a tribute band
― waht, I am true black metal worrior (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 March 2017 19:54 (seven years ago) link
How soft your fields so greenCan whisper tales of goreOf how we calmed the tides of warWe are your overlords
Tell meDid the wind sweep you off your feetDid you finally get the chance to dance along the light of dayAnd head back toward the Milky Way
― waht, I am true black metal worrior (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 March 2017 19:58 (seven years ago) link
this thread just prompted a "Zeparella" rabbit hole on YouTube - thank u thread
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 12 March 2017 00:56 (seven years ago) link
Kinda nice that Plant sings with Tori as Zeppelin was her favourite band as a child and inspired her playing in the conservatory.
― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Monday, 13 March 2017 00:23 (seven years ago) link
IIRC, she asked him to join her, going so far as to let him pick the song. He picked DBTS because it was a track he felt he'd contributed a lot to, writing-wise, that was at the same time reasonably obscure and underexposed (did they ever even do it live?).
― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 13 March 2017 01:34 (seven years ago) link
There's a Tori interview where she says she was asked to do the song via a phone call; don't think they've performed it live though.
― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Monday, 13 March 2017 01:43 (seven years ago) link
― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain)
good pick, i think; i think the _encomium_ version of it is probably better than the zep version.
― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Monday, 13 March 2017 01:53 (seven years ago) link
Well, speaking of Linda Perry and covers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_wtzVvstfA
― how's life, Monday, 13 March 2017 18:33 (seven years ago) link
Violent J has really shed some pounds!
― how's life, Monday, 13 March 2017 18:35 (seven years ago) link
wtf with the 4 non blondes revisionism in evidence here, they are terrible, what's going on is terrible, this cover is terrible.
still say the STP cover is p nice if not incendiary
― I am a free. I am not man. A number. (Neanderthal), Saturday, 16 May 2020 20:44 (three years ago) link