"THEREWALKSALADYWEALLKNOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!"Because I don't have original thoughts, I have to steal/critique other peoples' (what part of "blog" didn't you understand?), so I figure I'd give a few inches...ha ha...to Sasha Frere-Jones' telegraphed punch in the pages of the New Yorker this week, his ruminations on Led Zeppelin circa 2007. Led Zep, or at least the remaining members thereof - Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones - and late drummer John Bonham's son, Jason, played their first show under the "Zeppelin" banner since 1985 at London's O2 Arena last week. The arena holds roughly 22,000; 20 million people applied for the presale ticket lottery.
The critical story on Led Zeppelin is thus: panned initially for being faux-bluesman cave dwelling sexist guitar wankery of the first order; they sell a bazillion records and after 1971's Led Zeppelin IV (that's what I'm calling it) they become the biggest band in the world; critics reassess Zeppelin and hail them as visionary rock gods; critics brought up in the '70s and '80s anti-commercial DIY punk and indie scenes pan them again as embarrassing classic rock dinosaurs (stories about violating nubile groupies with mud sharks surely didn't help); anti-rockists do the same, for completely different reasons; presently an uneasy balance exists, though Zep's place in the rock and roll pantheon is secured by their enduring popularity with, ya know, actual people, which by this point is probably second only to The Beatles. And I guess that's why I question the need for a quote-unquote reevaluation of Led Zeppelin. Sure, it's opportune as the band has finally dangled the prospect of cashing in on their formidable legacy (highest ratio of great songs per album ever?) with a full-blown reunion tour, but what can Frere-Jones tell us that we haven't heard a million times before?
Part of the problem inevitably is that Zeppelin is one of the least difficult bands to decode in rock and roll. New thoughts cannot be provoked by outside interlocutors; new perspectives are wholly unnecessary. John Bonham hits hard, Jimmy Page shreds insanely, Robert Plant voice is simply improbable, and John Paul Jones is a pretty fucking good bass player. They electrified the blues (outright stealing them in some cases), mixed in the English folk that had been resurgent in the late '60s, and heaped on the blink-and-how-
could-you-possibly-miss-them Tolkein references. Oh, and "Kashmir" displays "Eastern" influences. This isn't to say that Zeppelin are shallow, but they are definitely accessible in ways that require little higher brain function to appreciate. In essence they're archetypally "rock and roll", which is to say they're positively fucking great.
Frere-Jones says old things in new ways: Bonham "played the drums as if the fate of the universe depended on how hard he could hit them"; Page's guitar was "simultaneously nasty, small, and big, as though a tornado was happening inside a tin can"; Plant's "cackles and screeches don't belong to any particular pop tradition"; we learn that Jones - a giant, it always seems, among gods, whenever the Zeppelin story gets exhumed - "was especially skilled on keyboards." Sure, it's a more erudite perspective, but let's face it: Led Zeppelin represent Led Zeppelin, a monolithic...monolith. And seeing as they've sold more records than Jesus Christ will when He finally gets around to that sophomore effort we've all been waiting on (presently slated to drop the week before Chinese Democracy, wakka wakka), and virtually everyone in the Western world has become regrettably familiar with at least four of their songs ("Stairway to Heaven", "Rock and Roll", "Whole Lotta Love", "Kashmir") before exiting their teens, it's not exactly clear what restating the facts does, other than affirm that a super cool real live professional rock critic concurs with what every 16 year old with a blacklight and a bong already has etched in his DNA.
As for the show, it was a competition between old age and Led Zeppelin's incredible catalogue, and the audience won.
The critical story on Led Zeppelin is thus: panned initially for being faux-bluesman cave dwelling sexist guitar wankery of the first order; they sell a bazillion records and after 1971's Led Zeppelin IV (that's what I'm calling it) they become the biggest band in the world; critics reassess Zeppelin and hail them as visionary rock gods; critics brought up in the '70s and '80s anti-commercial DIY punk and indie scenes pan them again as embarrassing classic rock dinosaurs (stories about violating nubile groupies with mud sharks surely didn't help); anti-rockists do the same, for completely different reasons; presently an uneasy balance exists, though Zep's place in the rock and roll pantheon is secured by their enduring popularity with, ya know, actual people, which by this point is probably second only to The Beatles. And I guess that's why I question the need for a quote-unquote reevaluation of Led Zeppelin. Sure, it's opportune as the band has finally dangled the prospect of cashing in on their formidable legacy (highest ratio of great songs per album ever?) with a full-blown reunion tour, but what can Frere-Jones tell us that we haven't heard a million times before?
Part of the problem inevitably is that Zeppelin is one of the least difficult bands to decode in rock and roll. New thoughts cannot be provoked by outside interlocutors; new perspectives are wholly unnecessary. John Bonham hits hard, Jimmy Page shreds insanely, Robert Plant voice is simply improbable, and John Paul Jones is a pretty fucking good bass player. They electrified the blues (outright stealing them in some cases), mixed in the English folk that had been resurgent in the late '60s, and heaped on the blink-and-how-
could-you-possibly-miss-them Tolkein references. Oh, and "Kashmir" displays "Eastern" influences. This isn't to say that Zeppelin are shallow, but they are definitely accessible in ways that require little higher brain function to appreciate. In essence they're archetypally "rock and roll", which is to say they're positively fucking great.
Frere-Jones says old things in new ways: Bonham "played the drums as if the fate of the universe depended on how hard he could hit them"; Page's guitar was "simultaneously nasty, small, and big, as though a tornado was happening inside a tin can"; Plant's "cackles and screeches don't belong to any particular pop tradition"; we learn that Jones - a giant, it always seems, among gods, whenever the Zeppelin story gets exhumed - "was especially skilled on keyboards." Sure, it's a more erudite perspective, but let's face it: Led Zeppelin represent Led Zeppelin, a monolithic...monolith. And seeing as they've sold more records than Jesus Christ will when He finally gets around to that sophomore effort we've all been waiting on (presently slated to drop the week before Chinese Democracy, wakka wakka), and virtually everyone in the Western world has become regrettably familiar with at least four of their songs ("Stairway to Heaven", "Rock and Roll", "Whole Lotta Love", "Kashmir") before exiting their teens, it's not exactly clear what restating the facts does, other than affirm that a super cool real live professional rock critic concurs with what every 16 year old with a blacklight and a bong already has etched in his DNA.
As for the show, it was a competition between old age and Led Zeppelin's incredible catalogue, and the audience won.
