So, Led Zep? The World's Greatest Rock N' Roll Band? The Grandfathers of Heavy Metal, Heavy Rock, Post-Rock and all the other offshoots of my beloved Rock that make me ever more assured that no-one will ever make as good an album as Born To Run?
Erm...no.
I make no bones with their influence on music. I know that they broke barriers, helped create a genre and all that blah blah blah. There can also be no argument as to their technical skills. I cannot, nor will I ever, compare with Jimmy Page in the thrashing department.
What I cannot grasp is the level of reverence in which they are held because, in this most esteemed of books, they are alright. Just. They're not bad by any stretch but their popularity, a popularity that compelled giddy fans to fork out thousands of pounds for a ticket to their reformation gig last year (a gig where they were supported by Paolo Nutini remember, a disincentive if ever there was one), is nothing short of astounding.
Most surprising in my surmisal, is that this is not a snap judgement on my part. I'm terrible for writing bands off on the strength of a half-listen. I'm an archetypal judge-a-book-by-it's-cover-er. But I've tried to like Led Zep, I really have. I feel like I should like them, that by not doing so I'm somehow not that much of a music fan. I own the majority of their back catalogue, each purchase preceded by a belief-nay, a hope- that this will be the one that cracks them for me, that I will experience a Zeppelin epiphany and tearily denounce my former denouncements in a big, noisy, moist mess.
But it never happens. I never listen to either album more than 3 or 4 times, and each of those is forced and imbued with a knowledge that, deep down, I'm only doing this because I think that I should and that the millions of people out there who would happily take a Plant/Page facial are all getting something I don't. Yes there are some good riffs there, some interesting whig-outs, but the smack-fuelled mysticism is pure shite on a stick, and never less than grating. And sometimes I just want them to quiet down, smell the roses. Frankly (and the more I write the more my antipathy towards them seems to be growing) they fuck me off. They need to sit down, have a cup of tea, stick on the News and suck in a bit of realism.
Despite this I won't stop trying, because I do, I really weally do, want to be like all the other Zep Heads out there. I want to go krazy for Kashmir, mad for Moby Dick. But deep down, wayyyyyyy down, somewhere close to the stories I'll never tell and the non-cool songs I'll never admit to liking (certainly not here), I don't think I'll ever stop believing that, essentially, they are just. A bit.Shit.
Posted In I Just Don't Get, Aug 25 2008.
Words - David