Why do people like Led Zeppelin?

I was waiting for Houses of the Holy to come up in the Zeppelin ALBUM BY ALBUM thread so I could say something nice about a Led Zeppelin album. ZOSO was pretty good, but I got burned out on it by radio. A friend had Houses on 8 track, and we used to listen to it in his car all the time. I remember thinking at the time "Finally, a Led Zeppelin ALBUM I like."

I was going to post about how, although I liked a lot of Zeppelin SONGS, I never liked any of their ALBUMS as albums, until Houses. That got me thinking about Houses, and I pulled it out and listened to it over the weekend. Needless to say, I haven't listened to much Zeppelin in a LONG time.

Well, I guess I don't really like Houses, either. I listened to about half of it, then ran to put on something else. And felt a GREAT sense of relief.

The truth is, I don't really like Led Zeppelin very much. I KIND of felt that way back in the day, but there were always certain SONGS I liked, so I guess I was able to remain in denial about it, but after listening to Houses again, it brought back all the things I DIDN'T like about Zeppelin.

Maybe I just don't GET Zeppelin; I know they're considered gods or something by a lot of people, but their music tends to make me nervous in a VERY nerve-wracking kind of way. For all these years, more than a couple of Zeppelin songs in a row has had me running to the player to put on something else. I guess I just find the combination of Plan's wailing and Zeppelin's manic energy kind of grating. I can't get into it; I feel like I'm being assaulted.

I've never been able to put my finger on how I felt about Zeppelin, but this weekend I realized that their music flat out gives me the creeps. There's something kind of psychotic about it that I just don't like at ALL.

I remember a number of years ago I was selling CDs at an indoor flea market and a girl came up to the booth and started talking about being a witch and telling me all kinds of weird stories. I have nothing against witches, but after talking to this girl a few minutes I got this UNCOMFORTABLE feeling, and the thought flashed "I'm standing here talking to a crazy person." Even though I new nothing was going to happen, I wanted to get away from her, like maybe in the next few seconds she was going to pull out a huge knife and try to stab me through the heart or something. I felt a HUGE sense of relief when she was gone.

Zeppelin's music affects me that way. From a critical point of view, I realize Plant is probably a great singer, and that the band is really tight, but the combination of the voice and the beat puts me on edge, as if I'm always waiting for it to all break down. I always feel like in another second Plant is going to be screaming uncontrollably and the band is just going to be banging on their instruments with no thought of rhythm or tune, and it's all going to be uncontrollably LOUD.

I can't really explain it, other than to say that I always get the feeling that Zeppelin's music is probably as close as you can get to what it would sound like to live inside the mind of a borderline psychotic. I realized this weekend I'd probably rather listen to almost ANYTHING else.

I'm probably the only person in the UNIVERSE who feels this way about Zeppelin, but there you go. I wish I could understand what people find so appealing about this band, but I just don't get it.

Am I completely alone in feeling this way? Am I missing something here? WHY do people like Zeppelin????

 

You are not the only one, and I couldn't agree more with your feeling of their music being 'grating.' I can't stand Led Zeppelin!

 

I don't get how people don't like Zep. If you don't like the hard rock stuff, what about the acoustic stuff? That can't be grating, can it?

I guess any music can be grating to anyone really.

 

Are you sure you're not listening to Metallica or Venom by mistake?

Seriously - borderline PSYCHOTIC? Tuneless banging? I can think of about a hundred other bands who deserve that censure more than Zep.

 

Honest folks, I tried, I really tried. Back in high school and college, I had vinyl copies of every Zeppelin album. I even searched out a Japanese 45 of "Immigrant Song" to get a copy of "Hey Hey, What Can I Do," and attended a midnight showing of The Song Remains The Same with my buddies the night before I took my SAT's, smuggling a six pack of beer into the theater for the occasion. I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be like everybody else, I wanted to like Led Zeppelin.

It didn't happen. Okay, I respect Led Zeppelin and their fans, they were a great influential band, but as time goes by, they impress me less and less. I can listen to those same old Who albums time and time again all these years later, but Led Zeppelin holds no magic for me.

Sorry...

 

Just wondering what innovative rock bands you like??

 

Great! I always thought I am the only one who doesn´t like them.
Their harder stuff is annoying and the acoustic stuff is esoteric mumbo-jumbo (to me!) Although I respect them as musicians and like some of their songs. As they were/are the critics holy cow I never touched the subject.

 

Zeppelin had an element of danger in their music, a feeling that it might go off the rails at any time, especially during their concerts.

Part of the reason I love them...

 

Because they ****ing rock!

 

I suspect this boy didn't read nearly enough Aleister Crowley during his formative years.

Embrace the dark side, Luke. It's SO much more fun over here.

I GOTTA ask; didn't the 'Houses Of The Holy' album cover give you ANY idea what the band were on about?

 

I can understand not liking them, I remember listening to "How Many More Times" after several years of ignoring rock music and thinking, "Well, this is pretty much garbage, isn't it?" (I have since come around to liking it again. Rock music is a corrupting influence, aesthetically. )

What I can't understand is characterizing them as "banging on their instruments with no thought of rhythm or tune." And in an age when so much music is more deserving of depicting borderline psychosis (NIN, anyone? System of a Down, perhaps?), I can't see hanging Zeppelin with that tag. Everything said about the "assaulting" nature of Zeppelin could easily apply to every hard rock band from the 70's.

 

I suspect this boy didn't read nearly enough Aleister Crowley during his formative years.

Embrace the dark side, Luke. It's SO much more fun over here.

I GOTTA ask; didn't the 'Houses Of The Holy' album cover give you ANY idea what the band were on about?

 

Okay, so who's gonna be the first Zeppelin fan to start the inevitable retaliatory "Why do people like the Beatles" thread?

 

I'm creeped out by the Archies, so I simply listen to something else. What else is there to say? Maybe it's threads like this that's slowing everything down....

 

I like the Zep, just not all of their songs. I especially like early Zep, actually the first 2 albums more than the rest.

I guess whether or not you like them depends on whether or not you like hard rock.

A few weeks ago I tried listening to System of Down, Green Day and another forgettable group but couldn't put up with the neverendingheadbangin style they typify although I do like their lyrics and ideas. These boys rock harder than the Zep and pound you to death, IMHO, song after song after song.

 

Maybe, as a youngster, you got burnt out on them, and now your hearing aid is up too loud? That can be very disturbing.

 

Enough said.

 

If Led Zeppelin was a person and I were a psychiatrist and were attempting to analyze them, I'd probably say they were suffering from an extreme bipolar disorder - with the acoustic stuff written on the downside, and the heavy stuff written in a near-manic frenzy. Zeppelin is the ONLY band that has ever struck me that way. A lot of other bands have sounded like they were TRYING to come off that way, but none of them has ever really pulled it off. Zeppelin, however, sounds like they're about to become psychologically unraveled at any moment. There may be just "an element of danger" to their music, as one poster said, but to me it doesn't sound dangerous, just a bit unhinged.

Also, I didn't say Zepplin's music SOUNDED like tuneless banging. Their stuff is a lot more melodic and controlled than the music a lot of Zeppelin imitators and wannabes (and others) have put out. If I listen to ANY Zeppelin song, I hear a band that has it together and really knows what they are doing. (I like hearing Zeppelin on the radio, because it's usually just a song at a time.) However, listening to a bunch of Zeppelin music at once I always get the feeling the band is just seconds away from abandoning the music and just making noise. In fact, I always get the feeling that what these guys would REALLY like to do is just completely freak out and just start banging on their instruments and scream a lot. I know that isn't the case, but it seems that way. To me, Zeppelin's music IS the sound of borderline insanity. I guess that's the reason Zeppilin's music makes me so uncomfortable in large doses. Their music seems designed to reach into the darkest corners of the mind and touch the places in all of us that are essentially just plain crazy, like some weird tribal drumbeat. I just can't get into it.

 

Same reason I like hot genoa salami and pickled eggplant sandwiches. They make me feel good.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I guess the reason I asked about this is that Zeppelin is the ONLY band where I actually LIKE almost all of their songs individually and still can't stand listening to their albums. THAT'S what gets ME. If I just didn't like their music at ALL, I would just dismiss them and move on.

 

I like Led Zepplin because to me they are a very heavy-sounding blues-based music. Very soulful.

The many posts on this thread demonstrates how music affects each and every one of us differently.

Could it be that some of you who claim their music gives you the creeps had heard, or read something very negative about their music or Jimmy Page at some point in your life that has affected your subconcience, and ultimately, the way you feel? Remember that they did put backward satanic messages in "Stairway To Heaven", Page studies Alestier Crawley, and their songs' lyrics often appear to take on a dark tone of the underworld, or at least in title only.

I also once was creeped-out by thtir music upon reading all of this stuff in a Christian book in the early 80s. But, I got past that to enjoy the music.

 

Late Led Zeppelin got too pretentious for me. When they were the first ones fusing hard rock with the blues, I thought it was a match made in heaven. This means that Zep I, Zep II, and Zep III, to me, were great albums. I love every track on them. Everything from "Dazed and Confused" to "Immigrant Song" .. just influencial, genius classics. The lyrics were great and unique, too. Then you have later things that can't go un-noticed, like "Kashmir", some of the best drumming in a rock song, ever, EVER, to date. The real magic behind the band was not the singer (who, in later years over-sang every song and made the band, as you've described it, "grating"), nor the guitar player (who is incredibly overrated and was way too sloppy for my taste), but the drummer. John Bonham - he was a true innovator. As a drummer, I only like even the early Led Zeppelin due to Bonham. He sounds like a freakin' orchestra all by himself when he plays. If you don't believe me, listen to a few of the drum takes for their studio songs (some of which can be found at the John Bonham DrummerWorld page). It sounds as if you can hear the entire song just from his beats. And if you've ever watched a live, extended version of "Moby Dick", it, I would hope, starts to become apparent as to why Led Zeppelin was so successful. I, to this day, wholeheartedly believe that it was Bonham all along that made the group so great.

You can tell that once the other musicians began to act overly pompous all the time, thereby covering up Bonham's chops, the band got progressively worse.

 

Uh...rock has it's foundation in the blues. The two were never really seperated until the hair bands of the 80s came along. All most rock music that has ever been made is nothing more than the blues.

 

Well, when you have 4 guys that talented, its bound to happen. Throughout history, bands with so much individual talent eventually have some kind of power struggles, and inevitably the music goes downhill.

I, II, III, IV, HOTH all kick serious *** though. As for radio play and other media forms ruining it for people...Im sick and tired of hearing this!!!!!!!!! Its NOT the band's fault they were so damn good that the radio stations and TV commmercials couldnt keep their filthy hands off them!!!!!

So the songs have worn on you? So what! A lot of Beatles songs have worn on me too, but that doesnt mean they are deserving of some of the garbage I'm reading here. LZ was a groundbreaking group of 4 enormously talented , original musicians.

Why are they always taking the heat on here lately???? I find these negative threads to be worthless! All they do is provoke hate from both sides when it comes to a huge band like Led Zep.

 

Zeppelin rocks my world! They had everything I could want in a band: Kick *** riffs, powerful drums, super bass grooves, meaningless lyrics, since of mystery and magic. Some people grow out of it. I don't listen to often, but every once in a while i'll pop those DVDs in and just rock out for a whole afternoon. They rock, what else can you say.