I Can't Quit You Baby

As they celebrate 50 years, what is it about Led Zeppelin that makes most rock fans go weak at the knees?

There are literally libraries written about the eight-legged legend that tore up the 70s – tales where everything is gargantuan: record sales, tour profits, egos, Jimmy Page’s double-neck, Bonzo’s drinking, groupie numbers, that aircraft – even their manager’s girth. Much of which has grown from tale to myth to legend. As Robert Plant once said “I wish everything that’s been written about us had actually been true”. 


However, when looked at with a slightly cynical eye, there’s much to empathise with people who’ve never understood what the fuss was about. They didn’t have ‘hits’ like their contemporaries; many of their tunes weren’t exactly easy to sing along to; they were all over the place in terms of style (certainly from Led Zep III onwards); they had a singer who looked the part but had a divisive sounding voice; the guitarist had a great tone but wasn’t overly technically gifted (compared to the likes of Hendrix, Richie Blackmore or Eric Clapton) and seemed extremely aloof; the bass player was – well – just another boring bass player; and the drummer was incredibly powerful but looked like he wanted to punch everyone, all of the time (which to be fair was probably true). Above all, they were riding a wave of popularity seemingly based on a song about a woman going shopping and the theme tune to Top of the Pops.  

So on the face of it, understanding why someone wouldn’t like the Zep isn’t too difficult. But of course we know different, so let’s examine what keeps the Zep flame burning…

1.       The Mystery

It’s difficult to name another band who so consciously went out of their way to portray themselves as an enigma. A decision not to release singles (Page and manager Peter Grant were convinced singles would negatively affect album sales) was at the time seen as commercial suicide, but it had the opposite effect, driving album sales through the metaphoric roof. So confident were they of this approach that when it came to releasing the fourth album, the outer cover contained no mention of the band, had no title and no wording on the spine. Nothing but a decrepit picture of a decrepit old man; Andy Warhol it certainly wasn’t. From a distance it does appear much of this came from Page and manager Peter Grant. One gets the impression that Percy, Bonzo & JPJ were mostly along for the ride when it came to these decisions, content to let Jimmy & Peter deal with all ‘that stuff’. This is also borne out by Page’s apparent reluctance to talk about his private life (which is still the case), leading to not unfounded rumours of his obsession with the occult, Aleister Crowley and his alleged relationship with a minor in the US. In the end the level of fame and success they achieved afforded Page exactly what he wanted – millions of adoring fans who loved them for the music and couldn’t give two hoots about what they did behind closed doors. The one thing they were masters of – one could argue they created the model – was an innate understanding of marketing the brand.  It’s a curious thing to imagine Zep being at their peak now, and how they would handle the glare of social media etc. I’d like to think they’d milk it for all it’s worth without giving away anything significant – and they would be bigger than ever as a result.

2.       The Reunion (of lack thereof)

2007. I remember it clearly. The gig was announced, over twenty million people applied for twenty thousand tickets, and no, I wasn’t successful. But I worked with a guy who was. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to punch someone in the face as much as him when he told me. Why? Well, along with the Beatles reforming, this was the other thing that was never going to happen. Plant had said so on, oh, about four thousand occasions since Live Aid. Yes, he’d dropped the most subtle of hints that he might think about it, but then in almost every case had immediately contradicted himself and denied any such thing. Yes there was the Page thing in the mid 90s – Walking Into Clarksdale has its moments, and the No Quarter live album is sublime, but without JPJ and John's son Jason sitting in for his father it was never going to be Zeppelin. (I actually have a theory about the Page/Plant thing; I’m convinced Plant was so incensed about the Coverdale/Page project in ‘93 that it fired him up to show Little David who was the real love in James Page’s life. I’m probably wrong but it’s a fun train of thought).

             3.       Bonzo

There’s a line in the Dream Theater song ‘Just Let Me Breathe’ – “The big machines take care of you until you kill yourself and the sales go through the roof”. Now in the case of Zep that’s not strictly true as they’d already sold gazillions by the time John Henry Bonham drank himself to death in 1980; but it's played a huge part in maintaining the Zep legacy, and sales have indeed continued to rise in no small part due to Bonzo’s demise. As time has gone on – as with many dead rock stars – his own legend has grown, and he continues to be cited as either the greatest rock drummer ever or the most influential (and not just by other drummers). Is the hype justified? Quite often death is the best advert, so it becomes less objective comparing the dead to the still living – particularly as the longer the career, the more likely there are blots on the copybook. In Bonzo’s case, in my humble opinion, the answer is categorically yes. I would point to Bonham’s playing on the softer Zep tracks as the key to his greatness; his sensitivity to the song, regardless of the tempo or style, was always – without exception – spot on. Epics like 'No Quarter', 'Ten Years Gone' or 'Since I've Been Loving You' would not have the same impact had he played them with the same intensity as 'Rock and Roll' or 'When The Levee Breaks', and man could he play hard when he needed to. Legendry status? In the bag.

4.       The Influence

Name a band - any band – that have found success in the rock / blues / hard rock, modern folk, and - to a degree - metal genres over the last forty years, and there is a high probability that they have cited Zeppelin as a key pillar of their direction, writing, sound or a combination of all three. It’s difficult to understate what impact Zep has had – and continues to have. The sheer breadth of their styles across the catalogue ensured their feelers would stretch out far and wide. The legend has inevitably grown way beyond the norm, but the waves created as a result of everything previously mentioned show no sign of abating – and why should they?

5.       The Money Tree

Given that the Zeppelin organisation pretty much created the marketing model that many bands have used since, you’d expect them to be masters of keeping the money rolling in. And how. Between 2011 – 2016 it’s estimated they earned over $60 million; not bad for a band that disbanded 38 years ago. That figure is unlikely to drop off anytime soon, with new box sets out annually, a coffee table book that’s just hit, and Jimmy Page’s seemingly inexhaustible archives. It makes one wonder when the well will run dry – but it’s been running very well for almost 40 years thank you very much, so  let's look forward to the next set of ‘archives’ and to hell with the overdraft.

6.       The Music

If you really want to know why Zeppelin will always be held in a similar bracket to the Beatles & Stones, it’s simple. It’s the songs. If you put everything else to one side (and there’s a lot of it – the level of musicianship, the arranging, the stylistic changes, the blistering live performances etc), it comes back to the fact that Led Zeppelin wrote a shitload of great – not just good – songs. What makes a great song is a highly subjective subject, but there are some basic ground rules most agree on: It needs a highly memorable melody (or melodies); it needs either a chorus you can sing along to or at worst sections that send shivers up your spine; and it should connect with the listener on some emotional level. There are a wealth of Zeppelin tracks that tick all of those boxes – one could argue the vast majority of their material achieves this. Yes, there are a bunch of throwaway songs – but even the Beatles had a bucketload of those. There are even albums that may not be worthy of their name (I’m looking at you, In Through The Out Door). But the simple truth is, their musical legacy is undimmed by time because it is so rich in depth, colour, savagery and beauty. It’s a combination that few have ever matched.