When Led Zeppelin overtook The Beatles

Rabs

from 1970

(not that I think that they actually did overtake The Beatles, as far as musical influence is concerned anyway, but I do love Zep).

Schnozz

And yet neither were as good as Jethro Tull...

Fretwired

Check the stats .. Deep Purple were bigger than Zep in the early 70s until they fell apart. DP's early albums were better than Zep's.

Strat_a_tat_tat

Schnozz said:

And yet neither were as good as Jethro Tull...

You do have a point.... when it comes to agricultural innovations.

ICBM

Fretwired said:

Check the stats .. Deep Purple were bigger than Zep in the early 70s until they fell apart. DP's early albums were better than Zep's.

I always preferred Purple. Never quite got the hype about Zep, although I liked them.

prowla

I was never into the either/or; I like Purple, Zep and Tull...

It is a fact that Deep Purple MK II only came about because Blackmore went to see Led Zep, but apart from that, there's no hierarchy or anything.

prowla

My bad - The Led Zeppelin"

english_bob

Fretwired said:

Check the stats .. Deep Purple were bigger than Zep in the early 70s until they fell apart. DP's early albums were better than Zep's.

Which early albums? Are you talking about "Mark 1" DP, or the "Mark 2" run of In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head and Who Do We Think We Are?

If the former, I can't disagree as I haven't heard them. If the latter, and you're claiming they're better than Led Zep I-IV then I want some of what you're schmoking.

There's some great tunes on those DP albums, but there's some right old shite (Someone's Daughter) and they feel less coherent as albums. But then I reckon LZ IV is just about perfect.

My real sticking point with Purple has always been their lyrics though. Sure, neither of them are Dylanesque lyrical geniuses- Plant's are mostly double-entendres, sex noises and cosmic bollocks, but Gillan's are pure weaponized fuckawfulness.

And the squealing.

Sweet Mary mother of God the squealing.

victorludorum

I'm not really a fan of Deep Purple because of the dire lyrics, but I've always loved Child In Time, although I was utterly gutted to learn that the music was a complete rip off from something else.

Fretwired

english_bob said:

Fretwired said:

Check the stats .. Deep Purple were bigger than Zep in the early 70s until they fell apart. DP's early albums were better than Zep's.

Which early albums? Are you talking about "Mark 1" DP, or the "Mark 2" run of In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head and Who Do We Think We Are?

It was the MK II version. I was at school when Deep Purple in Rock was released in 1970 and it was a groundbreaking album - may not sound like it today. DP were suddenly a top draw band and went on a mammoth 15 month tour of the world. At this point they were a bigger draw than Zeppelin live. DP had a string of hit albums which culminated with Machine Head in 1972 which stayed on the Billboard charts for 120 odd weeks.

Led Zep released Led Zeppelin III in late 1970 to mixed reviews. It eventually sold well, but there were duff tracks on the album. Led Zep IV was a classic and Zep got better as DP went into decline.

If you created a greatest hits package you'd see they are both great bands. Saw them both live in the 70s .. very different beasts.

Jalapeno

Always had more mystery surrounding Led Zeppelin - coming from what was known as "Underground", and that they really didn't get that much in the way of radio play - conversely Deep Purple were on Top Of The Pops.   LZ2 & LZ4 were my youth, before I even heard of (Gabriel era) Genesis. Much more meaning to me than The Beatles - they were over before I left primary school.

Danny1969

Led Zep for me but to say anything about them overtaking the Beatles is insane. 

As for Purple, I'm still fond of some of it, as for their lyrics who can resist a bit of knocking at your back door ?

Fretwired

What's not to like about DP ... :-)

english_bob

victorludorum said:

I'm not really a fan of Deep Purple because of the dire lyrics, but I've always loved Child In Time, although I was utterly gutted to learn that the music was a complete rip off from something else.

Bombay Calling by It's A Beautiful Day, apparently.

Shame. It's one of their least awful lyrics. Not that I'd ever have guessed it was supposed to be an anti-war song.

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

Always had more mystery surrounding Led Zeppelin - coming from what was known as "Underground", and that they really didn't get that much in the way of radio play - conversely Deep Purple were on Top Of The Pops.   LZ2 & LZ4 were my youth, before I even heard of (Gabriel era) Genesis. Much more meaning to me than The Beatles - they were over before I left primary school.

Zeppelin wouldn't release singles as they wanted people to buy albums. Radios wouldn't play tracks over three minutes ..

Jalapeno

Fretwired said:

Jalapeno said:

Always had more mystery surrounding Led Zeppelin - coming from what was known as "Underground", and that they really didn't get that much in the way of radio play - conversely Deep Purple were on Top Of The Pops.   LZ2 & LZ4 were my youth, before I even heard of (Gabriel era) Genesis. Much more meaning to me than The Beatles - they were over before I left primary school.

Zeppelin wouldn't release singles as they wanted people to buy albums. Radios wouldn't play tracks over three minutes ..

Yep, I remember. Irony being that Whole Lotta Love (covered by CCS) was the ToTP theme tune

english_bob

Fretwired said:

It was the MK II version. I was at school when Deep Purple in Rock was released in 1970 and it was a groundbreaking album - may not sound like it today. DP were suddenly a top draw band and went on a mammoth 15 month tour of the world. At this point they were a bigger draw than Zeppelin live. DP had a string of hit albums which culminated with Machine Head in 1972 which stayed on the Billboard charts for 120 odd weeks.

If record and concert ticket sales were the only yardstick, sure, DP may have "won" those years, but follow that logic and you end up with some very questionable "winners".

Led Zep released Led Zeppelin III in late 1970 to mixed reviews. It eventually sold well, but there were duff tracks on the album. Led Zep IV was a classic and Zep got better as DP went into decline. 

The music press were famously lukewarm during the 70s about pretty much everything Zeppelin did. As with financial measures, you're probably going to end up with some very odd "best" artists if you rate bands only by what music journalists thought of them in their own era.

If you created a greatest hits package you'd see they are both great bands. 

Can't disagree. Both had some great material. It's just my opinion that Led Zep managed to channel that material in to better albums than Purple did, and that the gulf between their best stuff and their worst is narrower. 

I always get this odd vibe from Deep Purple- Ritchie Blackmore is a self-obsessed knobber, and the whole band have always seemed a little too pleased with themselves in interviews for my liking, and I swear I can hear that in their music. It sounds pompous and self-congratulatory.

That said, one of the things I really love about rock music of the late 60s and early 70s is that bands were getting signed that you could really have an opinion about. Bands with glaring flaws. Bands whose songs probably would have been conventionally "better" with a bit more pre-production, some input from a rent-a-writer and a few focus groups*. Bands you could bloody love, or really fucking hate. Or both at the same time. I don't hear that in many modern mainstream acts.

* I've talked about it on here before, but if any of you nerdy classic rock fans get a chance to hear the remixed (not just remastered) 1991 The Best of Free: All Right Now  album Bob Clearmountain did (currently from 24p used on Amazon), it's a really interesting experience once you get over your initial urge to throw the CD out the window, then go find it and stamp on it. 

Basically, super-slick 80s producer (Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, Springsteen) gets free reign over barely-produced blues-rock minimalists' multitracks (nobody from the band was involved in the remix), adds a shit ton of reverb and drum samples but also edits out superfluous guitar solos and man-groans, beefs up the sound and "fixes" arrangements- basically all the stuff a producer would have done to their albums when they were recorded/mixed/mastered if they'd been around in 1991 instead of 1971. I've owned that album for 20-something years and I still can't decide if it's sacrilege or brilliant audacity.

ESBlonde

I was going to mention Free as a worthy contender, very influential and commercially succesful for such a short lived career.
The fact that a lot of Zepp is now discredited as being 'reworked' is something against thier being wholly original, however the fact that they are influential (and look so rock n' roll) cannot be denied.

Axe_meister

I could not get on with either. For me it was free or Wishbone ash

hywelg

Free is the band I keep going back to. Their songs have soul. I'm over led Zeppelin. Deep purple are great in parts but you can easily have too much of them 

english_bob

ESBlonde said:

The fact that a lot of Zepp is now discredited as being 'reworked' is something against thier being wholly original

Nobody's wholly original. I think it's right that LZ were challenged for using other people's songs without credit or compensation, but their argument (not an unreasonable one) was that those songs were no more the original work of Memphis Minnie or Muddy Waters than they were Led Zep's- the "original" artists weren't actually the writers of those songs, which had existed in the tradition of American blues music for some time. The artists Zeppelin "stole" from were just the first to record those songs. 

Listen to these and tell me Led Zeppelin's versions aren't significantly different.







Oh wait. Or did they steal it from...