Greta Van Fleet

starcastle is one of the most underrated 70s american prog bands (along with like ETHOS, LIFT, YEZDA URFA, and CATHEDRAL). so glad overplay hasn't worn out their charm

xxxpostsss

honestly i have never had a Zep phase

Take two Carouselambras and call me in the morning.

weren't the cult the successful band that was like the doors? or are they different?

Astbury wanted to be Jim Morrison (and actully got to be him with that Doors reunion), which eventually was counterbalanced by his band wanting to be AC/DC.

I cant think of any wannabe arena-sized Doors knockoffs that actually sounded like them ie. with the Manzarek keys and the Krieger jazzy flourishes

(Any that were were nowhere near as successful as the original)

i dunno the early cult/southern death cult was way more goth of that time, the doors obv are an influence on goth as as whole but the vibe is closer to echo & the bunnymen

then they kinda moved into some mix of u2 and hard rock then just hard rock/metal

his vox can be pretty morrison and also just the way he looked and dressed

xpost agree, no one really sounds like The Doors

the closest modern-ish dude to early Morrison in terms of looks and frontman vibe was maybe Hutchence, though his thing was less shaman rock sex god and more pure urbane rock sex god.

the Doors were a very weird band
the only band that I can think of sometimes sounds like the Doors is Stranglers...they have prominent organ/keys like that...that's the thing the Doors their darkness and image and vibe is big but not many bands were like them...like they *feel* heavy but the guitar is generally pretty clean and it's so organ driven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFeykueEZNI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHnK7m2PNVI

The Cult's Electric seemed to kick off this 3 or 4 year cycle of some relatively rookie band getting a big push as the next Zeppelin. Soundgarden's Louder than Love was marketed that way, stuff like Wolfmother as mentioned elsewhere. GVF biggest failing is that there's nothing sinister about them.

Robert Plant in RS in 1988:

Frike: What’s your opinion of the current reincarnations of Led Zeppelin – bands like the Cult, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and the Mission U.K.?

Plant: They’re all different, aren’t they? I can’t tell you honestly whether Bon Jovi is better than anybody else. I know that the success ratio is fantastic. And I think that’s what counts to them. The aesthetics of the thing have nothing to do with it.

Frike: So are they just imitating Zeppelin or are they getting it right, the whole package with the risks as well as the noise and the strut?

Plant: The Mission are getting it right to me. The Sisters of Mercy too. They’re trying it, and they mean it. It’s not just a parody of a pastiche of a parody. If they nick a few chord shapes, that’s okay. But at least they’re doing it in the spirit of it. I prefer that to the pretty-boy-wailing department.

Didn't Plant also refer to David Coverdale as "David CoverVersion" around that time?

Kingdom Come was nicknamed Kingdom Clone, iirc.

Said it before, but the best Zep imitator was Billy Squier, but he never gets dismissed outright, because he and his songs were good.

Yes, as a novice to hard rock radio circa 1981, I thought "My Kinda Lover" and "In the Dark" were LZ songs, as "Fool in the Rain" and "All of My Love" were still in very heavy rotation at the time.

John Paul Jones was asked on MTV around 1989 or so about Kingdom Come and other bands who claimed a Zep influence. He said that these bands' rhythm sections were all (in his words) "BOOM. BASH. BOOM. BASH." He stressed that he and Bonham were James Brown fanatics, and that that element was completely missed/missing from the new bands' approach.

Wow that anyone heard Bon Jovi as a Led Zeppelin reincarnation at any point!

I love posting this, because this Squier is the best Zep rip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKlu3A3BBgE

Shit, now I'm gonna spend the afternoon listening to the first four Squier albums. (Until today, I thought he was Canadian for some reason.)

Billy Squier rules

also, like Zeppelin (When the Levee Breaks) also was funky enough to have an iconic hip hop breakbeat (The Big Beat), more popular than Zep's

RS review: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-greta-van-fleet-and-the-struts-revel-in-the-reliable-power-of-classic-rock-744694/

Greta Van Fleet seem like they lept fully-formed from the skull of a rock critic in 1975. Three brothers and a bud from a tourist town near Saginaw, Michigan, they come bearing shamelessly recycled Zeppelin-isms with a frontman who seems to have heard Rush’s “2112” a few times.

lol contemporary critics HATED Zep

I don't really care about this band one way or another but I am a bit surprised at their ubiquity - my wife reported seeing them on the in-store media system at Target yesterday

Waiting for a review that doesn't name their hometown.

in 7th grade I tried to do a history fair project about Led Zeppelin

this owns

did their dad play them Stooges or MC5 records? Seger? the Gories? Furthermore, I want to know what exactly constitutes the hollow, manufactured crap that their courageous, authentic music is the corrective to.

I assume everything else on their label: http://www.republicrecords.com/artists

('Cept maybe Jack Johnson, John Mellencamp, Pearl Jam, and ZZ Top?)

Hold on a second, these guys are 16-18 years old??? That puts a whole different spin on the Pitchfork trashing and everything else.

OK, I had the dates wrong. Looks like they are currently about 19-21 years old.

xp That Billy Squier song played in my head several times in the past 2-3 days after skimming thru the p4k & ringer articles and imagining GVF sounding this way, but also I mistakenly forgot that it's not a Led Zep track.

Listened to their first album on the way home and noticed a part of one solo that quoted Page from rock and roll, and the opening of another track that sounded like the opening of Candy Store Rock. But melodically the songs didn’t grab me.

whatever their age they should be tried as adults

LMAO

I had two weeks in September where I just played either Achilles or In My Time of Dying on repeat for my entire commute.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive

yeah i have a ten minute commute too

I'm more than a little surprised that the Pitchfork review of the album didn't come up here (though maybe it did elsewhere on ILM).

It's been highly publicized though among the rock critic intelligentsia on my Facebook feed, the commentary has been less about white knighting the record as much as rolling eyes at Pitchfork (which to be fair is just as much of a tradition as ripping off Led Zeppelin) for complaints about the "streaming and algorithm economy" as well as genuine surprise at a negative review of anything.

"genuine surprise at a negative review of anything"

y'all know that ed sheeran got a 3 or whatever last year right

and charlie puth earned a 2.6 two years ago

wow how surprising they published a takedown of a popular group

It was discussed a lot on "What Is Rockism?".

yeah the algo streaming economy angle was imo the most predictable rmde aspect of the piece, 'oh of course this review is an excuse for a Point about spotify'

xpost Greta Van Fleet thread sounds EXACTLY like What is Rockism? thread

To me they sound like Rush before Neil arrived, though there's nothing as strong as Working Man.

If it pushes some Lumineers and Avett Brothers out of the background music at Starbucks and supermarkets, I'm for it.

y'all know that ed sheeran got a 3 or whatever last year right

and charlie puth earned a 2.6 two years ago

But thanks for pointing out that one negative review a year can be expected. Glad GVF got the 2018 entry out of the way.

... ok man

To me they sound like Rush before Neil arrived, though there's nothing as strong as Working Man.

― dinnerboat, Thursday, October 25, 2018 10:46 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i said that upthread just the riffs and musical structures feel way more rush than zep to me (at least on the new album that i listened to)

that Rolling Stone review is classic bet-hedging hackwork, "these guys might be big so let's just mention certain songs, say something neither here nor there about them, throw in a mild dissent about the lyrics, and end on something about how they show promise. 3 stars."

To me they sound like Rush before Neil arrived, though there's nothing as strong as Working Man.

― dinnerboat

ok now i'm curious as to what greta van fleet sounds like slowed down to sludge metal speeds. can anyone comment?

And Greta Van Fleet are not the usual type of target for a negative review in a prominent publication

this band isn't a past-their-prime easy target but they're certainly an easy target

Omar OTM re: the RS review. I also noted the slight of not even reviewing the LP on its own, but combining it in a “twofer” review (or does RS do that a lot now)?

totally w/in the wheelhouse of pitchfork target bands, cf jet

personally as a fan of music i think if the just had a singer who didn't sound like he was trying so hard to be robert plant & just had his own personality/persona this whole thing would go down a lot easier, but it does feel like cosplay at this point...maybe hes a star tho & his personality will come to the forefront by the time they've got records in top 40... young thug was a wayne biter until he wasnt, uzi was a keef biter til he wasnt, etc.

I really can't particularly hate or like these guys, it just feels like they're never quite sure why they're doing what they're doing - musically, performatively, and in that publicity shot. What are they going for? How does it fit into the band's ethos? Does the band have an ethos?

Like they have the received trappings of decadence, but they don't actually seem decadent? They're like an America's Got Talent act.

Yeah my impression of seeing a live video was 'sexless.' Led Zeppelin 1970 but all wearing purity rings.

Hopefully that means they’ll be less likely to reproduce.