Are "Dazed and Confused" and "Whole Lotta Love" prog rock?

Just an idle question. I was watching Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters the other day, and as they were doing "Whole Lotta Love", it occurred to me that the treatment of the original was pretty unconventional in 1970. Maybe it's just psychedelic more than anything, but I think of prog rock at that time as cutting edge and not mainstream, and it fits that description. The same for "Dazed and Confused". (Led Zeppelin I was my first post-British Invasion rock record.)

So what are your thoughts?

 

Err.... "maybe". Their live versions are certainly the closest Led Zeppelin ever was to prog-rock.

 

Fundamentally it's blues. You can tart it up all you want but blues is blues.

 

No, not at all.

Possibly The Song Remains The Same but I think I would vote No on that as well.

 

The only one I could conceivably label as prog would be Carouselambra. That would have been a showstopper in concert.

 

No quarter maybe

 

Yeah, some of that later stuff like "The Song Remains The Same", "Achilles Last Stand" and even "Carouselambra" comes close to prog territory, but these earlier tracks were too blues based to fit the bill, IMO.

 

Kashmir, No Quarter, Achilles' Last Stand, Carouselambra, Four Sticks = maybe.

 

Well that theory didn't fly very far, did it? (I'm the OP) I don't really see the presentation of those two songs as blues, but I wanted to see what others thought.

 

Heavy Psychedelic Rock.

 

Nope.
I love prog - but it doesn't come from the groin - and Whole Lotta Love absolutely is generated from that area.

 

Zep's Dazed and Confused live is prog IMO.

 

No, but two great songs.

 

I think a lot of Led Zep's later material can be considered a mutant form of prog. Easy to imagine a King Crimson version of something like "Trampled Underfoot".

 

No . . . but also, both are awful songs. Can't make it past a minute of each (although the Whole Lotta Love riff is fun for about 10 seconds).

 

Nope. Didn't feel that way to me at the time or now.

 

Now that I would like to hear!

 

Stairway To Heaven is definitely the blueprint for a lot of prog music, if more in terms of influence than originality.

 

Side 1 of Houses of the Holy seems prog influenced.
Progressive rock was so popular by 1972, that Led Zeppelin sounded quite influenced by it.

 

Maybe it depends on how you're defining prog music. Care to name some examples?

 

I didn't say STH was necessarily prog rock, I said it was influential on prog rock. Same thing as Communication Breakdown being an influence on speed metal.

Long songs with multiple sections to them with quieter and louder sections. By early 70s it became quite twiddly with classical influences and what not.

Genesis, King Crimson and Yes being three popular examples of prog.

 

I don't think any of those bands was directly influenced by "Stairway to Heaven" or Led Zeppelin. King Crimson was already doing long songs with multiple sections in 1969. If anything, the other two were influenced by King Crimson, as I believe they've acknowledged. Yes nailed down their initial blueprint with The Yes Album in the early part of '71 before Led Zeppelin IV came out (in November of '71). Genesis fleshed out their signature sound with Trespass (1970) and Nursery Cryme (1971).

 

ha, poll is unanimous.

 

No.

 

No, but stuff like No Quarter and Kashmir are pretty damn close.