Greta Van Fleet

For a band so studious of the work of Led Zeppelin, they still haven't managed to totally ape their early release schedule.

Maybe they're changing their template to early Boston

I'm for it!

If this were the mid-90s they would be recording with Albini as we speak.

They're still played four times a day on mainstream bro rock radio.

I am counting the days (hours?) until their weak little bubble bursts.

Maybe they're changing their template to early Boston

Can't wait see how their third album poll gets derailed...

Amanda Van Fleet

ok thats epic

If this were the mid-90s they would be recording with Albini as we speak.

― Josh in Chicago

albini would still do it guys, give him a call

This is more accurate than they realize.

Greta Van Fleet on critics: ‘They’re pissed off that we’re doing something’ https://t.co/NtVRU9rXVF

— Guardian culture (@guardianculture) April 12, 2021

hope Lord Summerisle puts them in the Wicker Man soon

Josh Kiszka’s high and mighty voice – which, at full screech, can sound like an ejaculating hyena

Greta Van Skeet

welcoming to the stage Greta NirVan’ Fleet, here to perform their exciting breakthrough hit, “Sounds Like Ejaculating Hyena”!

Read that piece this morning and that line did indeed spurt out at me like a tumescent canine.

I have never heard a hyena ejaculate. Has Jim Farber? Has Josh Kiszka? Have you?

I have. Iirc it was actually a lot more chill than Greta Van Fleet.

is it sort of a husked tonal screech?

Can you guess which omnes ISN'T the sibling based on that picture in the Graun link? I assume it's dude far-right, as he has bare arms, and the drummer is not a sibling, and drummers always have bare arms. I cannot tell by their faces.

omnes = one, I think

hyena bit sounds like a derogatis line

Critics hate Greta Van Fleet because they're nostalgic for the wrong things. If they imitated Fleetwood Mac or any mid '90s Matador act, they'd be worshiped as gods. But Led Zeppelin (or, more accurately to my ear, the first Rush album)? Nope, stone them and banish them. It's such lazy horseshit.

They're a perfectly adequate, replacement level classic rock-ish act. Which is still 10,000 times better than the thrice-microwaved grunge that still makes up 95% of US radio rock.

It's such lazy horseshit.

Tbf, this also describes GVF. It's not that they're ripping off the wrong thing, it's that they're ripping off shit that's already been ripped off a million times, for decades and decades. Like, name a band that imitates Fleetwood Mac. There really aren't any, or many, and of those they're all pretty recent. But Zep? They've been a source of "inspiration" almost as long as the Beatles.

I disagree. Unoriginality is no crime with critics, as long as you're ripping off the "right" things. Led Zeppelin are not a critically favored source of inspiration this decade. If GVF's publicists were smart — or cared to get the critics on their side — they'd have the bandmembers talk about their love of early Rush. Rush have been 100% critically rehabbed and are now on the Approved Influence List next to King Crimson.

Imitating Zep feels more 'original' to me in 2021 than 1980s pop pastiche #25435832034242361.

There have been a ton of bands imitating Fleetwood Mac in recent years, maybe not always consistently or as successfully, but it definitely feels like Fleetwood Mac has been namechecked a ton in the last 10 years or so. Pom otm.

Also seems like bands imitating Zeppelin, going all the way back to the '90s, automatically get more shit for it than bands who ape, I don't know, Talking Heads. I've just assumed it goes back to critics originally despising Zep from the start.

I do think Zep actually *is* still a favored source of inspiration, but it's *aspects* of Zep - the drum sound, the exotica, the sprinklings of folk, etc.. (Same with Fleetwood Mac, probably.) I think in the end it might just boil down to the style of vocals. I think that was always the sticking point with Rush, and certainly the aspect of LZ many least want imitated. Shrieked male vocals have always been a point of contention/division, and in more recent years they've seemed more acceptable when they're arch or camp (White Stripes, the Darkness) than when they're po-faced.

I mean, as unperson hints at upthread, I'd rather hear a GVF single on rock radio than three-quarters of what passes for "modern rock" right now, even if it they are wholly indebted to Zep scraps.

Zeppelin is like the absolute worst band to try to copy. I have no idea how they work, the way they sound, there's some sort of feeling they give me it's hard to articulate, but it's not riffs or any stylistic thing you can copy

Drum sound aside.

I'd rather hear a GVF single on rock radio than three-quarters of what passes for "modern rock" right now,

I mean, what's the opposite of the "why not both?" meme? "Why not neither?"

but agreed how aping 80 sophisti-pop stuff the 10000 time is always seen as progressive as opposed to aping other styles from the past is regressive

I think it's more that it's really hard to imitate Zep well, and they really try hard and with his voice it gets into uncanny valley, off just enough to be offputting. It's viable to build your whole sound off the Ramones or Gang of Four, and change one little thing and it freshens it enough to kindle a familiar thrill. Actually I'd a say it's really hard to ape Talking Heads or Fleetwood Mac too, as they have a similar amount of odd ingredients and big personalities baked into their peak pop sound.

The Raveonettes went pretty far doing uncanny-valley Jesus and Mary Chain but as I recall they branched out some on later records

I can think of some great Zep rip offs (Billy Squier's "Lonely is the Night," Whitesnake's "Still of the Night") but in the end it's fun but pretty pointless, because yeah, there's really nowhere to go with it.

Do even Rush consider their first album to be one of their better ones?

I can think of some great Zep rip offs (Billy Squier's "Lonely is the Night," Whitesnake's "Still of the Night") but in the end it's fun but pretty pointless, because yeah, there's really nowhere to go with it.

Btw, a lot of mainstream MOR pop-rock from the last few decades sounds Fleetwood Mac-influenced to me, from Sheryl Crow to pre-Max Martin Taylor Swift. Wasn't Courtney Love attempting an explicit homage at one point.

Parts of Celebrity Skin were definitely Mac-influenced.

Fleetwood Mac as a hip musical crush goes back as far as The Dance.

xpost - to me the first Rush album is kind of it's own thing in terms of their history

but yeah for me personally it's fun but not in the top 10 or anything

Yeah, I've found I enjoy the Rush debut more when I pretend it's the only album from a one and done mid-70s power trio, not Rush.

This Ophelias obscurity is a great ersatz LZ III. A parallel naiveté to Plant's lyrics, and the unwieldy grafting of Appalachian folk to barroom slide guitar appropriately Page-like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCrA_a71n1Y

Yeah, I've found I enjoy the Rush debut more when I pretend it's the only album from a one and done mid-70s power trio, not Rush.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, April 13, 2021 10:03 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah totally if it were some obscure Sir Lord Baltimore or Dust type band from Cincinnati or something Numero Group would have re-released it

Also, re: Courtney Love & Fleetwood Mac, Hole covered "Gold Dust Woman" on the second Crow soundtrack in '96.

Zeppelin is like the absolute worst band to try to copy. I have no idea how they work, the way they sound, there's some sort of feeling they give me it's hard to articulate, but it's not riffs or any stylistic thing you can copy

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, April 13, 2021 10:36 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm.

It's the drums. It's the fucking drums. A band can have a singer with Plant's range, Page's riffs, some pseudo-mystical hippie sprinkles...but if the groove and swing (and sound -- Bonham didn't hit super hard, relatively speaking, and drew incredible tones out of his kit) aren't there, it will fall flat, and has always fallen flat. GvF are no exception to this. It's like I posted upthread about how JPJ complained that Zep ripoff bands completely miss what made Bonham great, and how he and Bonham were James Brown fanatics, and how that element is always absent from faux-Zep bands.

Anti-GVF sentiment seems less tied up in aping Zeppelin/classic rock dinosaurs and more in aping poorly. They’re completely sexless, lack the groove of Bonham/Jones or any of the quirks and rough edges of Cream or whomever.

GVF sound like generic radio rock of the last 20 years with someone screeching in a similar way to Plant.

Ok, I just listened to "Heat Above" and it does sound a bit like a Rush pastiche, albeit minus the rhythmic or compositional intricacy that usually makes Rush interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I'll probably listen to this before Robyn Murphy or whatever.

Only 332 messages itt so far? Huh, I was expecting at least twice that amount.

The vocalist sucks, he should feel bad for singing, his vocal cords should be seized

Finally found the JPJ interview bit I keep referring to, at 18:38 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI4tJlStEIg

Ophelias

Directly related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh9cPAXyEVg

BTW, I also agree that GVF sound closer to early Rush than LZ, but given that I rarely listen to early Rush, and that Rush itself was often pretty much trying to ape Zeppelin ... yeah that's a hard pass on GVF. It's like something I don't want to hear, several times removed.