Posted on 08/17/2006 8:20:27 PM PDT by Mr. Blonde
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
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 fucking 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."
I remember finding it in my sister's record collection and playing it non-stop after that.
My 2-cents: I think kids, especially boys and young men, might be re-discovering rock after being subjected to so much musical crap for the last 7 or 8 years. The primal sound of Zep is definitely a guy thing.
I used to clean buildings for landlords when their tenants split when I was like 11 or 12. I found the "Brown Bomber" album while cleaning and took it home and was amazed.
I took my pay from that job and bought a bunch more of their albums. Know I listen to Zep tunes with my kids.
I think some of it is the bands like Wolfmother who wear the Zep influence much more clearly than 90's bands did. Bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains were certainly influenced by Zeppelin but it wasn't as clear. Mostly because their lyrics were a lot darker and introspective than "squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg". Not that that particular line isn't profound. :)
My dad was the reason for me making the trip to get the album. He guaranteed I would love it. After that I pretty much trusted his word about music.
Ummm..... it's "Gollum, and the evil one..."
Always good for a chuckle when we were teenagers.
A woman told me once that her young daughter liked the Led Zep "Ice Cream Cone" song. I searched my memory banks for a Zep ice cream cone reference, and when I came up empty handed, she said, "You know the song--'I come from the land of the ice cream cone...'"!!
That's not Zeppelin, that's Robert Johnson.
Thought the same thing when I read it, but I'm not going to knock the guy too much. He does a pretty impressive Robert Plant impression.
LOL!
That's right up there with "excuse me while I kiss this guy".
I thought that, but reading all these articles in RS got me in the mood to get the Led out, and that song was playing while I was typing and illustrated my point. I would say most people are far more familiar with the Zep version anyway.
I love the scene in School of Rock where they play Immigrant Song with Jack Black doing his schtick. But even better than that is in the bonus features on the DVD where Black and all the extras for the battle of the bands beg Zeppelin to let them use it.
I still like to pull out some Zeppelin when I'm in the mood for good old rock and roll. Jimmy Page is awesome. My favorites range from the old time blues numbers off their first album along with those on III to "Nobody's Fault But Mine" and "Achilles Last Stand" off of Presence. Phyiscal Graffiti is just sublime.
Indeed, but in addition to borrowing the verse for their own song, Zep did do a most excellent cover of "Travelling Riverside Blues" :)
Yeah, most of their first album, like many other artist in the late 60's (including the Beatles in the early 60's) stole lots of music for the old black blues and R&B artist.
Let's not forget the many awful bands who believe faster=better.
My favorites range from the old time blues numbers off their first album
I really love the blue inspired stuff with the heavy baseline. The more mellow "California sound" songs fall far short of the bluesy songs.
I love that "loose tuning" guitar sound on that one.
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