Has Led Zeppelin Dated Poorly?

Billie Jean & Beat It = Class. the rest = Dud. ( i have tried but don't get it)

If that's the case, then the Archies defined 1969. I'm not knocking the Archies, but since "Sugar Sugar" was the number one song of that year, it's safe to say the "average 12-year-old" was into them.

And since when is the average 12-year-old necessarily NOT into influential underground stuff?

My 7-year old daughter puts in a vote for HANNA MONTANA as the most influential and significant artist of this decade (Hanna getting the nod over Radiohead).

Of course it may be a question of age. I was too young in the 80s to be into that college stuff, for me it was all about the hitlists.

GEIR HONGRO, STOP MAKING ME FEEL OLD.

When I was 12, my favorite albums were:

1. Men Without Hats - Rhythm of Youth
2. Red Hot Chili Peppers - s/t
3. Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier
4. Prince and the Revolution - Controversy
5. The Jets - s/t

Also anyone who doesn't love "Human Nature" or "Wanna Be Startin' Something" is a robot.

(btw: "sugar sugar" was written by the same dude that wrote that "rock me gently, rock me.." song in that jeep or whatever ad that was ubiquitous durring football season in the us...with the singing animals)

xpost my 7-year-old daughter was dancing to Loveless this evening. there is some hope for the next generation at least (possibly)

Arguing that the pop charts are a big part of the definition of an era's musical culture is totally valid (after all, they represent what most people were buying/hearing/enjoying).

But arguing that the pop charts are the only meaningful way to define an era's musical culture seems foolish. Intentionally blinkered. Such a view takes no account of influence or eventual significance, no account of the fact that "the past" is not a fixed object -- it changes depending on your distance from and perspective on it.

xpost my 7-year-old daughter was dancing to Loveless this evening. there is some hope for the next generation at least (possibly)

Oh, that prompts me to be serious. My seven year old girl also likes The Bleeding Heart Show from The New Pornographers and some songs from The Field's 2007 disc. And some Black Sabbath.

J/K about Sabbath. I can't back that one up.

mine also likes High School Musical. we can but try :-)

Are you British, Thomas? It seems pretty evident to me that kids do still listen to LZ.

when i was 12 (this would be 5/6th grade however old i was then) i wanted to growout, perm and bleach my hair, and wear tight jeans (to be robert plant)...within 2 years i would have hacked off the hair, (had it been allowed) and switched to army surplus cargo pants...

despite the year (88-91), i went from loving zeppelin and dylan and hendrix to the clash, the cure, janes addiction, and blur...(and sold the classic/cannonized cds to buy new stuff)

so were just back to growing out vs records really going moldy. because now that i listen again, they sound good (save some production decisions or limitations of the times)

Whoever said holding up isn't a linear process is OTM. Fashions change. There's plenty of music that's less than a decade old that has dated worse than Led Zep, and that proves nothing because it's not a linear process.

But was there ever a time when Led Zep were considered dated? Not really, right? So no is the answer, like everyone says. The only people who will ever not like Led Zepellin are the girlfriends of guys who like them way too much.

(WTF is Britain like? I've never been there. Do pubescent music fans generally listen to like Morrissey or The Stone Roses or something when they want to explore the classics? Bowie and T-Rex perhaps?)

Rod Temperton or whoever might be a great songwriter, but we wouldn't be talking about those songs w/out MJ & Quincy's sick arrangements and MJ's style.

this is a hypothetical that cannot be proven. Certainly Rod could've sold those songs to someone else, who could have similarly hired QJ (who was obviously on a hot streak in the early 80s and was also a dependably versatile and creative producer - see his stints arranging for Frank Sinatra in the 60s, sdtk work etc.) My point is that Jackson's talents as a musician are vastly overestimated - he's always relied on a large supporting cast, especially with his best stuff, whether it was the Motown hit machine or Quincy Jones or Temperton or whoever.

My larger point re: the primary role I assign to writers (and producers) can be summed up by saying that without Cole Porter Frank Sinatra would not be as great as he was. But without Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter's songs would still be fucking awesome.

many x-posts

xpost: Yes, pretty much. "Classic rock" doesn't exist in the same way over here, so the canon teenagers work their way through is completely different.

e.g. you get people who are pretty into music by any country's standards who literally haven't heard of Rush or CCR.

that Alison Krauss girl doesn't seem like she'd put out

when i lived in the uk the teenagers on camden highstreet on saturday were wearing offspring and korn t-shirts (mind blowing), but perhaps the kids hanging out in camden don't count.

teenage fandom in the uk did seem very, very different than the american teen fandom...but i could never quite finger it...

ha (btw: how did my pamela joke above die so easily?)

when i lived in the uk the teenagers on camden highstreet on saturday were wearing offspring and korn t-shirts (mind blowing)

why mind blowing?

(this is getting way off topic, but i was pretty impressed by the home demos that were on one of those reissues of 'off the wall', a lot of the percussion arrangements and other parts are almost fully formed)

because i never new that many teens in america into the offspring. in retrospect its less shocking. given i lived in a hippish college town in upsate new york prior to london, it seemed really weird.

siad bands also seemed so tied to an american mid-west vibe that the younger me couldn't fathom how that could be romantic to a 12 yr old schoolboy on the northernline

yeah, I guess it was a weird subculture for the rest of the world to run with.

this is a hypothetical that cannot be proven. Certainly Rod could've sold those songs to someone else, who could have similarly hired QJ (who was obviously on a hot streak in the early 80s and was also a dependably versatile and creative producer - see his stints arranging for Frank Sinatra in the 60s, sdtk work etc.)

Quincy's "hot streak" in the early 80s was pretty much limited to Off The Wall (which was 1979 anyways), Diana Ross' 1982 album (which was crap), and Thriller...and if Michael's "Billie Jean" demo is any indication, Jones didn't/couldn't add too much to Michael's arrangements.

Oh, and Michael sang on those tracks, so like with Sinatra and Elvis (and countless others), who gives a shit who wrote them? His singing on Thriller defines unfuckwithable.

There's plenty of music that's less than a decade old that has dated worse than Led Zep, and that proves nothing because it's not a linear process.

This is very OTM.

Look at those readers' lists of Best Albums Ever, for instance. In the wake of Britpop, The Beatles dominated more than they had done since before punk. And "All Mod Cons" and "Quadrophenia" were gaining classic status.
In the early 00s, The Beatles were a bit more down the charts while a lot of Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding would get into the listings in the wake of R&B's popularity. And you also had The Stooges and stuff like that performing better than ever in the wake of the "nu garage" thing. In the most recent (around mid oughties) Q list, there was suddenly a lot of hard rock (Iron Maiden, Metallica) as the kids were then getting into hard rock more than for a long time.

Quincy's "hot streak" in the early 80s was pretty much limited to Off The Wall (which was 1979 anyways), Diana Ross' 1982 album (which was crap), and Thriller...and if Michael's "Billie Jean" demo is any indication, Jones didn't/couldn't add too much to Michael's arrangements.

"The Dude", anyone?

^^^James Ingram, bitche

o like with Sinatra and Elvis (and countless others), who gives a shit who wrote them?

I do! You can totally chart these artists' best work by who they working with at the time (Sinatra w/Riddle, Elvis w/Sam Philips, etc.)

His singing on Thriller defines unfuckwithable.

when I hear it now all I think of is this

heeeheee chamoanya chickachicka

Again, that's your hangup.

I could just as easily say its YOUR hangup to privelege performers over writers or producers but what's the point of that exactly

The point is that you're flat-out wrong about Michael Jackson in the court of popular opinion, which is the only court that matters when considering his legacy. People think he is a completely tragic freak who's probably done some awful things to children who is also responsible for one of the greatest albums ever recorded; your music geek tendencies do not change this.

wtf do I care about the court of popular opinion

your music geek tendencies do not change this.

A lot of music geeks think Thriller is pretty great, too.

the king really never was the most rightious person to be on the throne...otherwise we might not need this democracy thing we play at...

the one guy that died in killing joke liked to fuck fish.

which is the only court that matters when considering his legacy

also I don't think this is true. history clearly shows that what was most popular during its day is not always what endures or becomes considered important - and this is because popular opinion is not an institution that enshrines cultural narratives, that's something that's done by media and academic institutions (which, I will grant you, are not going to overlook Michael Jackson for a number of reasons, but let's not go any farther with this WHAT'S POPULAR IS THE ONLY THING THAT COUNTS twaddle)

x-post

Okay so if you're granting that Michael Jackson has been annointed by everyone as The King of Pop, what exactly is your argument here beyond "I am whiny and contrary"?

he anointed himself with that title

I think the "Thriller is one of the greatest albums of all time" is the more popular meme of the two.

and yes I disagree with it, cuz, well, cuz it isn't.

I mean I REALLY don't think his legacy is gonna include being the "King of Pop". As time passes I'd wager that moniker's gonna be seen as the clumsy publicity stunt that it was, and not some kind of bonafide title that he earned or something. Certainly as he becomes more pathetic in his declining years, there's gonna be some serious re-evaluations of his "legacy" and his body of work.

(we are WAY off-topic now, sorry)

This period saw Jackson enjoy "a level of superstardom previously known only to Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Frank Sinatra."(62) This success led to him to be dubbed the "King of Pop",(2). The nickname was conceived by actress and friend Elizabeth Taylor when she presented Jackson with an "Artist of the Decade" award in 1989, proclaiming him "the true king of pop, rock and soul."(63)

3 seconds on Wikipedia to refute the "he called himself 'The King of Pop'" claim.

can I just say i love this thread. only on ILM can 50% of the posts on a Led Zep thread be about Michael Jackson...

e.g. you get people who are pretty into music by any country's standards who literally haven't heard of Rush or CCR.

-- caek, Thursday, February 28, 2008 9:41 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
totally OTM
I know Fortunate Son. that's it.

hey guys, have your heard that yoko ono song, "what a waste"?

I'm with Shakey on Jax, even though I disagree with him on Sabbath v. Zep.

"get people who are pretty into music by any country's standards who literally haven't heard of Rush or CCR."

Depressing.

lolz @ Elizabeth Taylor as objective bestower of royal titles wtf dan

we should join together to bring more ccr to the youth of the world!

I mean CLEARLY she did that without any prompting or orchestration on the part of MJ's media team, and the title was arrived at via careful and thorough deliberation

we should join together to bring more ccr to the youth of the world!

a cause we can all get behind

lol @ Shakey being Shakey

(Basically, the genesis of the title is not nearly as important as the fact that everyone basically picked it up and ran with it, practically en masse; first in the media, then in the business and people's everyday lives. It is now a moniker by which he is known and your "but he doesn't DESERVE it!" stance doesn't actually make any sense.)

Holy Crap did this thread take off again.

alls i knows is that you still see 10-year olds in Led Zeppelin t-shirts. you won't see anyone in Beyonce shirts ten years from now.

Not for nothing, but I don't see a lot of Beyonce shirts now, but then -- Beyonce fans don't seem to be the t-shirt type. Moreover, t-shirt sales and popularity (or album sales or merit or even awareness) aren't really parallel. Witness the vast number of Motorhead, Ramones, Iron Maiden and CBGB shirts worn by people who've never actually heard those bands or been to that venue. People are posers.