POLL LOTTA LOVE - ILM Artist Poll #6 - Led Zeppelin

omg "Dancing Days", I'd forgotten this song existed

I'm not surprised RS would have contemporaneously dismissed Led Zeppelin. And maybe, possibly, Bangs shaped his review of III with that in mind (not saying he did, just that it's a possibility). But the review doesn't suggest hate.

Over across the tracks in the industrial side of Cream country lie unskilled laborers like Black Sabbath, which was hyped as a rockin' ritual celebration of the Satanic mass or some such claptrap, something like England's answer to Coven. Well, they're not that bad, but that's about all the credit you can give them. The whole album is a shuck—despite the murky songtitles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream cliches that sound like the musicians learned them out of a book, grinding on and on with dogged persistence. Vocals are sparse, most of the album being filled with plodding bass lines over which the lead guitar dribbles wooden Claptonisms from the master's tiredest Cream days. They even have discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitized speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters yet never quite finding synch—just like Cream! But worse.

LESTER BANGS

(Posted: Sep 17, 1970)

70s critics = morons

(Bangs did change his tune a bit, tbf)

70s critics = morons

Strong dissent.

it's really more "critics = morons"

(obv there is an unspoken "when I disagree with them" caveat there)

lol Dan

Geez...I'm trapped inside of a Lou Reed live album.

4 references to Cream and one to Clapton? Uh, no...

Music-reviewing-as-artistic-performance was a bad bad development. Bangs playing typewriter onstage with the J. Geils Band? COME ON, MAN.

Strong dissent.

what can I say, there seems to have been a general tendency to have not gotten/seriously misjudged/completely overlooked a lot of things that have gone on to become seminal, massively influential, widely loved bands/works - Sabbath, Zeppelin, Prince, P-Funk, etc.)

look at this half-assed review of Mothership Connection, for example: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/mothership-connection-19760325.

like, I dunno WHAT the editors of Rolling Stone thought was important in the early 70s, but it's pretty clear they were wrong from a historical POV

much longer better example of Bangs on Sabbath:

http://www.creemmagazine.com/_site/BeatGoesOn/BlackSabbath/BringYourMotherPt001.html

RS "Maggot Brain" review literally opens with "who needs this shit?"

Funk for funk's sake becomes merely garbage.

seriously, I STAB YOU

much longer better example of Bangs on Sabbath:

yeah that piece is way better, obviously

whatever, Shakes

As the risk of stating the obvious, responding to something when it appears, and responding to it 30 or 40 years after the fact, are two very different things, and one's a lot easier than the other. And not that I want to derail this thread with opinions of my own that would be very unpopular around here, I think they were right on one of the four artists you list. (No, I'm not going to say which one.)

If you were to go back to and check, I bet that most of what RS writers thought was important in the early '70s--Who's Next, Every Picture Tells a Story, There's a Riot Goin' On, Tapestry--holds up amazingly well. Sure they missed some, and sure they treated some stuff as important that nobody cares about anymore.

"right on with one of"

I think there was a window after punk and their break-up, but before the Beastie Boys sampled them on Licensed to Ill, when they were much less revered than they are now

I think this is important, except that I'd extend the time way out - in the UK they were all but invisible the whole time I was buried deep in alt music (up to at least '97 I'd say). There was the occasional whisper about a band with a delayed album 'going Zeppelin' (Stone Roses, Verve, even heh Chapterhouse - anyone with the guts to put a big lead on record would get it basically), or they'd be mentioned in passing on a certain type of band who weren't afraid to get a bit epic (Jeff Buckley, Puressence, the less credible grunge bands).

But the point was, you just couldn't hear these guys. They're not a radio staple here in the same way, they never had a hit single access into the national consciousness, they have zero scope for exposure on MTV etc. I was lucky in that I had a fantastic library nearby and wasn't afraid to use it, but I don't think I ever met anyone my age who knew them and whose exposure didn't come from me in the first place.

Bear in mind this is a narrow personal experience and about a narrow category of kid - I'm sure hiphop types and the uncooler metallists knew them plenty. But I'm pretty sure this is how it was across UK 'indie' from punk onwards 'til I lost interest at least. I kind of love that aspect for me, simultaneously being a cult secret and the biggest thing ever.

I can understand ppl slagging off Plant, who definitely can come off as shrill; I am a little perplexed by ppl who slag off Page...

(in ref to Bangs' comment re: 'Friends', other Zep-haters)

to the end I grapple with thee. for funk's sake, I stab at thee.

Funny 1969 Rolling Stone 1-2 on albums I and II:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/led-zeppelin-i-19690315

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/led-zeppelin-ii-19691213

and pretty soul-belter who can do a good spade imitation

W T F

I stab that guy too

that's p. messed-up

oh come on, you can't tell me you are actually shocked/surprised by casually racist commentary from over 40 years ago

My impression was that Zep was a little too close to prog for a lot of those guys' tastes...?

In Bangs' case, it was that Zep came out of the almighty and unfuckwithable Yardbirds.

Also, the Who always got rave reviews, so (some) 70s critics apparently did want to rock.

Interestingly, Vince Aletti was one of disco's staunchest and most vocal defenders.

"Like I listened to the break (Jimmy wrenching some simply indescribable sounds out of his axe while your stereo goes ape-shit) on some heavy Vietnamese weed and very nearly had my mind blown."

I got nothin' for John Mendelsohn--going by anything I've ever read by or about him, he was off on some other planet. I've got a Rhino reissue of all his music.

http://johnmendelssohn.blogspot.com/

oh come on, you can't tell me you are actually shocked/surprised by casually racist commentary from over 40 years ago

not really - I mean Lester indulged in it too.

just sort of frustrating/irritating to see it employed as a back-handed diss of something that is actually great (I imagine Mendelsohn would defend himself by saying Zep were the REAL racists because they were ripping off/aping black blues musicians etc)

My basic point: using old reviews of Led Zeppelin or P-Funk or anybody else as a means of dismissing '70s critics en masse makes no sense to me. Paul Nelson, Billy Altman, Tom Carson, Charles Young, Ellen Willis, Nick Tosches, Vince Aletti, the famous ones already mentioned, etc., etc., etc.--there were just so many great music critics in the '70s.

On the other hand, I am posting under the influence of some heavy Vietnamese weed right now, so take that for what it's worth.

xp clemenza OTM. Also, lumping it all into it being Rolling Stone's ethos doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering how many disagreements there were on the reviews pages. Jann Wenner LOVED the Grateful Dead; Dave Marsh, for one, despised them.

Of course, this was all before Wenner started selling 5-star reviews in exchange for exclusive access to bands for cover stories.

OK, I'm grammatically fucked, but you get the idea.

I was making an offhand blanket judgment based on trolling through old RS reviews, that's all.

The only one of those guys clemenza listed that I've read is Nick Tosches. (Aletti's name sounds familiar)

xp

On the other hand, I am posting under the influence of some heavy Vietnamese weed right now, so take that for what it's worth.

where the fuck can u cop vietnamese weed

Vietnam

some Americans hung out there once iirc

On the other hand, I am posting under the influence of some heavy Vietnamese weed right now, so take that for what it's worth.

where the fuck can u cop vietnamese weed

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, August 19, 2011 9:00 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Vietnam

― Rob Based and DJ EZ God (DJP), Friday, August 19, 2011 9:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

"...and that's how our own underrated aerosmith wound up doing 20 years in Chí Hòa Prison! True story."

Just stating that I will have a ballot! First time voting in any of these (though I have enjoyed reading them), but considering the amount of time I spent in my life listening to these records it would not be right to skip out. Gotta slim my list down from about 45 right now though!

I just had to dive right in and start with a pretty short list I could commit to. If I started at 45 I never would have made it down to 20.

I kind of want to do a second ballot now; there are at least half-a-dozen tracks I feel I've treated real bad.

I didn't try to get to 45, I just kept thinking of stuff I think is great. Pretty sure with a little distance, i.e., many listens and a couple of more days, I can whittle it down pretty easily. It was just that the first rush of listening to songs I hadn't heard in years got me all "shit, right, that fucking solo" and "holy shit, I forgot how great this was". Over and over again, obviously.

I thought I could rid myself of stuff like "Hearbreaker", which while listening in my head (you know, from memory) can seem silly, especially Plant, got totally reinserted because of the break for the solo Page moment and then the cool rave-up before the outro of the main riff etc. Just Classic. Still may not make final 20 though.

Would this band be as revered/respected were it not for its folk rock inclinations? That side of the group breaks things up nicely, and Page is one of those rare electric guitarists equally adept and inspired on acoustic.