Taking sides : Zeppelin or Sabbath

and i'm beginning to reconsider my vote fer sabbath b/c THEY DID NOT HAVE THE FUNK ... while zeppelin DID.

i still think that mistah sinkah said it best ... "led zep = layered stuido-pop written played by bubblegum session musicians, sung by a hobbit muthafucka; sabbath = rewrite of laws of music hurrah (with silliness thinly smeared on top to confuse fools)."

I don't know. Sabbath actually sound more like early Funkadelic to me than Zep does. "Super Stupid" could almost be a Sabbath song.

I think the Funkadelic comparision is a particularly good one, myself.

Listen to "Supernaut" again.

Misty Mountain Hop
Dancing Days
Custard Pie
Candy Store Rock
Royal Orleans
Out on the Tiles
Houses of the Holy
Hots On For Nowhere
...

fuck, ALL of it. that's why they were the best.

Tad's right that they're pretty different. Esp post-II, Zep aren't even really 'heavy' at all, more like blues- and folk-rock with a serious avant/improv/sometimes-proggish bent, this wacked-out funky fusion act. I think I mentioned before that I sometimes think you can hear more of them today in stuff that's associated with jazz (and maybe in pop-rock!) than in heavy rock.

Why do people seem to complain so much more about their LOTR- or mythology-based lyrics (which I prefer to the LOTR movies) than their overtly misogynist songs? Does the latter just seem obvious?

A couple obvious examples: "Dazed and Confused" ("soul of a woman was created below"), "Whole Lotta Love" ("I'm gonna send you back to schoolin'"), "Black Dog" ("I don't know but I been told a big-legged woman ain't got no soul"). I love all these songs but if anything, these seem more problematic than the LOTR-ish lyrics, which I kind of like.

(Actually, that's another issue unto itself that you raise)

WHO REALLY SAID THAT JIMMI WAS TONY'S DADDY.
IF YOU REALLY LISTEN TO JIMMIS SOLOS ARE PRETTY DIRTY AND JIMMI HAD TO USED TO GUITARS TO SOUND LIKE ONE THATS WHAT COULD I SAY GREAT. WHIILE
TONY DID NOT HAD FINGER TIPS AND ONLY USE ONE GUITAR TO SOUND LIKE
TWO OKAY. yOU SHOULD LISTEN A LITTLE BIT MORE SOME SABBATH SO YOU COULD GET A BETTER OPINION i KNOW YOU GUYS LIKE ZEPPELIN BUT YOU GOTA OPEN YOUR MIND AND LISTEN TO MORE MUSIC.
LISTEN TO

PARANOID,WARPIGS,FAIRY WERA BOOTS,RAT SALAD,NIB,IRON MAN,SWEATLEAF,
SNOWBLIND,SUPERNAT,THE WIZARD,SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH I COULD JUST KEEP ON GOING DONT BE IGNORENT AND LISTEN TO ONE EXPLORE DIFFERENT TYPE OF MUSIC THERE'S MORE BANDS THAT PEOPLE DONT MENTION.
BLACK SABBATH WAS ACTUALLY CONSIDER LIKE UNDER GROUND BAND NO GONE WANTED TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO PLAY IN THEIR STAGE AND THEY STILL MADE IT WHILE LED ZAPPELIN ALL THE OPUTUNITIES BUT IF IT WASNT FOR THAT ZAPPELIN WAS NOTHING COMPARE TO SABBATH
I COULD TALK SHIT ABOUT LED ZAPPELIN THAT AINT GANA GET NO WERE...........

-- mark s (mar...), November 25th, 2001.

I think this might actually be the greatest single sentence review on ILX.

Without warning
A wizard walks by

Is it normal for there to be a warning when a wizard walks by? Perhaps someone comes along ringing a bell and shouts, 'He ye! Hear ye! A wizard will soon be walking by!' But in this case, it didn't happen: there was no warning. The wizard just walked by and took everyone by surprise.

"heavy boots of lead
fills his victims full of dread
running as fast as they can
iron man lives again!"

-- which are either the SILLIEST lyrics evah AND/OR the GREATEST lyrics evah!

Well, maybe he was a crafty wizard, UNBELIEVER.

my heart says sabbath, but my head says zeppelin. if zeppelin were hippy-romanticists deep down -- content to smoke their pot and bang hippie chicks while grooving to joni mitchell songs -- then sabbath were their acid-licking evil cousins. except that they really weren't -- it's just that the studio boffins (page and jones) called the shots for zeppelin, whilst sabbath all were bar-band beer-guzzlers. (i know that this leaves plant as the odd man out, that bonham by himself could outdrink ALL of sabbath [except maybe ozzy], and that iommi later became something of a studio hobbit himself, but allow me to indulge anyway).

-- sabbath hired rick wakeman for an album. does that change yer mind a little bit wr2 them, ned?

-- for a band that many rather lazily assume to have been "stupid," sabbath actually seem in retrospect to be a helluva lot smarter than given credit for. it may've been inevitable that someone would have taken the heavy 60s rock-blues of cream or blue cheer (or zeppelin) to their logical ends, but it's also true that the band that did that WAS sabbath -- and that doing so showed both musical sophistication AND commercial savvy. a better adjective for sabbath, instead of "stupid," would probably be "crass" -- clapton and jones were clearly too constrained by "good taste" and notions of how to "properly" play the blues to go whole-hog into the ultra-heavy riffage or proto-gothy lyrics/image of classic sabbath. (blue cheer, on the other hand, now THEY were truly just a bunch of dumb-asses who got lucky -- which is why we are talking here about sabbath and not them).

-- wakeman and crassness notwithstanding, sabbath never did -- and probably couldn't -- go full-out prog. while zeppelin could've easily out-yessed yes if they were ever so inclined. (goodly portions of, say, tales from topographic oceans sound to my ears VERY similar to certain musical tropes used by zeppelin from time to time). on the other hand, genesis-era peter gabriel probably out-gothed ozzy -- as could've jimmy "i love aleister crowley, smack, and barely-pubescent teens" page if he wasn't so full of himself (and into said barely-pubescent teens).

Eisbar's right - Sabb weren't stupid, they were unconstrained by musicianly ideas of how to play the blues properly, and therefore were more free to push into more extreme territory. After all, what has Gothic horror got to do with good manners and paying one's dues?

Hey, so did Bowie. Sometimes all that's needed is the right context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThU9BOWcmjM&

That's pretty damn great. Thanks!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Is that Led Sabbath or Black Zeppelin?

I remember buying Heaven and Hell when it came out. I was very pleasantly surprised. It still holds up OK. Mob Rules is forgettable other than the title track. The rest . . . meh. 13 was surprisingly good, if only because it sounds like a Sabbath album, albeit a very tired one.

To his credit, Dio, unlike, say, Sammy Hagar, did not try to overshadow or denigrate his predecessor. He seemed like a solid dude and a really good singer. I saw him with his own band once at the state fairgrounds and it was a decent show. At least they didn't open for a puppet show.

Great Sabbath albums:

s/t
Paranoid
Master of Reality
Vol. 4
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Sabotage
Heaven and Hell
Mob Rules
The Devil You Know

Great Led Zeppelin albums:
II
IV
Disc 1 of Physical Graffiti

Good lord

yeah gun to my head it’s prob Zep, even if I kind of overdid it with them in hs & college