Posted on 08/05/2006 3:55:31 PM PDT by Drew68
Thirty-seven years after Led Zeppelin's debut, their albums continue to sell in the millions, while their music inspires everyone from Aussie metalheads to Nashville punks
BRIAN HIATT
The studded leather bracelets and Napoleon Dynamite merchandise at Hot Topic target customers between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two—kids who weren't born when Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980.
Nonetheless, the all-time top-selling band T-shirt at the chain's 700-plus mall stores is Zep's Swan Song tee—the one bearing the image of a naked, winged Apollo.
"It's not like with the CBGB or Ramones T-shirts, where it was a fashion trend," says Cindy Levitt, vice president of music and marketing for Hot Topic. "Kids appreciate the music."
According to Nielsen Soundscan, Led Zeppelin have sold 20.2 million albums since 1990 alone. In the last four years, thirty-eight percent of all Zep sales were to fans under the age of twenty-five, according to the research firm NPD.
"There's almost a religious thing about Zeppelin—I got obsessed really badly when I was in high school," says Matthew Himes, a twenty-year-old college student from Los Angeles who has the four symbols from Led Zeppelin IV tattooed vertically along his right shoulder.
"By my age, everyone has gone through their Zeppelin phase," adds twenty-one-year-old fan Dan Teicher, who credits the band with helping to lead him to major in music at Brown University.
Thirty-seven years after the release of Led Zeppelin I, the band also continues to inspire generations of musicians.
"Led Zeppelin—I think that's the band we always looked toward," says Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament. The hot Australian trio Wolfmother draw on Seventies sources from Sabbath to the Stooges, but Andrew Stockdale's banshee vocals and the band's chordal riffs clearly pay tribute to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.
At age thirteen, before Stockdale had even heard of the band, he used to wear a tie-dyed Zep T-shirt to junior-high dances to impress girls. Then, when he was eighteen, Stockdale got into Led Zeppelin III.
"I said, 'If someone started a band now that was just like this, it would f---ing go off,' " says the frontman, now twenty-eight.
Stockdale, who sings about unicorns and carnivals on his band's debut, was especially intrigued by Plant's lyrical approach.
"People go onstage and pour their hearts out and no one wants to hear it—why not sing about 'Gollum and his evil ways' instead?"
Even Nashville punks Be Your Own Pet, whose squawky teenage riot couldn't sound less like Houses of the Holy, credit Zep as a touchstone and titled a song on their debut album "Stairway to Heaven."
"Everyone I know in music is into Zeppelin—they're just such a necessary band to know about," says eighteen-year-old BYOP guitarist Jonas Stein. And while the original punks saw Zeppelin as irrelevant dinosaurs (Clash bassist Paul Simonon once said, "I don't have to hear Led Zeppelin—just looking at their record covers makes me want to throw up"), Stein finds that hard to understand.
"If no one had told me otherwise, I would have thought that some of the punk stuff is sort of influenced by Zeppelin," he says. "They're solid, they're concrete. Zep's music will last forever."
It's Icarus, not Apollo. Ignorant morons.
Rare indeed. Fender currently has two hardtails in production; An American Standard with a maple board and a Robert Cray Signature with rosewood. Both Alder.
Looks like you might have to make one yourself.
LOL! When I was a kid I always thought it was Robert Plant with wings!
It was definitely modeled after Robert Plant, but it's supposed to be Icarus plummeting to his death.
I can't believe that Rolling Stone can call itself a music magazine and screw up something so elementary.
But nobody touches the late 60s/early 70s The Who. The Isle of Wight show may be the greatest Rock and Roll performance ever.
But some came close: GFR, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top...
Led Zepplin is definately the greatest rock band ever, well I'd say hard rock band ever, but my quibble might reveal my ignorance.
"I can't believe that Rolling Stone can call itself a music magazine and screw up something so elementary."
LOL! I guess Led Zepplin is still popular, but the Greek myths have gone out of style. This ignorance is all due to the abysmal failures our schools have become.
BTTT
Zep IV is still my favorite. Not for Stairway, but for Battle of Evermore and When the Levee Breaks - with the most ripped-off drum riff of all time.
There used to be a little independent record store in my neighborhood that sold Zeppelin bootleg LPs behind the counter. This was in the early 1980s. It was like buying drugs. I was a 14 year-old kid and I'd look around and mumble under my breath to the hippie proprietor, "You got any Zeppelin?"
She'd pull out the ones she had that week --usually double and triple album live recordings and soon I amassed a nice collection of Zep bootlegs.
Some were better than others. But the one that blew me away was a concert recorded straight from the mixing board in 1969 or 70. The audio quality was awesome and the performance showcased a young, hungry band that was on the verge of superstardom.
Over the years my collection dwindled. Albums were loaned out to friends and never returned. Sadly, all I have now is a memory of what was the best Zeppelin bootleg I'd ever heard.
I use to see "The Song Remains the Same" almost every Saturday night at a midnight showing in Bronxville NY. Year after year it was always there to see especially when we had nothing to do! LOL This when I was in my early 20's.
Bellaire High School, Houston, Texas, 1968.
Billy's mom worked for the Atheletic Director at Rice University for many years. Great lady.
The name of his band in high school was "The Surf Knights".
A little FReeper trivia.
Good ol' RightOnline actually works directly for Jimmy Page's daughter. Fact. Truth.
Next time he comes here to visit his grandkids......I swear I'm gonna round up my Fender Twin, my Les Paul Custom and my Carvin DC-400A, head to my manager's lovely home.....and jam with Jimmy Page. It's gonna happen.
Now now...........
Some....quite a bit......of their stuff was self-indulgent nonsense, no doubt. Still.....when at their best, at their peak....NO one could hold a candle to Led Zeppelin.
I've been slinging rock guitar since about '68, so I think I'm qualified to say.
...and guess who did the producing of their albums that emphasized the rhythm section in, what was up til then, unprecedented ways?
Jimmy Page.
Give credit where credit is due. Page is an extraordinary guitarist.....but a genius as an arranger/producer. He was YEARS ahead of his time.
I've seen an awful lot of concerts in my day and I can honestly say LZ didn't even rank in the top ten. The only live bands I saw that were worse were the Grateful Dead or Aerosmith back when they were all still boozing.
Jeff Beck is a far better technical guitar player than Page could ever hope to be.
And that God awful movie they made......they could have at least picked some decent concert footage. Who knows maybe they didn't have any and that's why they had to fill it with those insipid fantasy sequences.
If you want to see a decent rock and roll movie, go rent The Last Waltz. Now those guys were musicians.
Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
L
You're confusing 'live' with 'studio'. Big difference. Led Zep had fabulous musicians. That is a fact. I could never believe they could pull off live what they did in the studio. That's not the point.
It's all about the songs..........period. That is why they endure, and Page had one hell of a lot to do with that.
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