Who was a better representative of Rock & Roll? Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Stones no doubt. They are the archetypal rock band.
I’m with you, but I think the are both THE archetypal rock band. To qualify you have to tour, so the The Beatles can pound sand.
If touring is the qualifying factor, how can you not mention the Grateful Dead as the penultimate rock & roll band? {g} Also the blues band, the country band, the ….. You get the idea… I don’t care what type of music I’m in the mood for – even (groan) disco on Shakedown Street – it’s on one album or another.
Two very different kinds of music. Keef is definitely my favorite guitarist.
Foofighters.
The streak from Beggars Banquet to Exile will stand up above most other rock bands, for sure.
Zeppelin is probably my favorite band of all time. I just about wore the grooves right out of my copy of the Stairway to Heaven album back in my college days. That one album still has more of my favorite songs than just about any album I know.
That said, I think the Stones stayed closer to the roots of Rock & Roll. I think of Zeppelin as the first, or one of the first, heavy metal bands. They went their own way and a lot of what they did was not really Rock & Roll, at least not what I think of as Rock & Roll.
Zep was more hard rock than metal. Too cheery and hippy dippy and danceable.
Early metal was more like Black Sabbath. That’s some sludgy-ass metal, right there.
That’s why Zep was named the #1 most influential Metal Band?
I’d have to agree with you there — Led Zeppelin is an offshoot from the main stream of rock. Mind you, I prefer Zeppelin to the Stones any day of the week, but the Stones’ roots are deeper and their influence far wider than Zeppelin’s.
Is Zeppelin proto-metal? Maybe, but if so, they were also proto-progressive.
The Stones , all day long. They have been for over 50 years.
Led who? Hey I like the Zeppelin, but where are they now.
I know, I know.
On a stairway to heaven.
I was never a Stones fan when I was a kid, so I would say Zeppelin. But, I like the Stones a LOT now, and they are so fucking rock-n-roll it hurts. So I can’t answer that.
Other real rock-n-roll bands include the Fleshtones, the The Bags, and the Lyres. Great rock-n-roll.
And here’s a fantastic rant by the Lyres’ Jeff Connolly.
Neither.
The Who.
Speaker Pelosi has said that impeachment is off the table, contrary to the wishes of many Democrats and almost certainly the majority of her district.
This raises the question: what is the procedure for removing the existing speaker and appointing a new one?
Blue Oyster Cult..do you fear the Reaper
OMG. I bet nobody is reading this thread any more, but one of my most disturbing college memories happened while hanging out at a diner one night with a friend. We were eating our fries and drinking our coffee and realized that the muzak sounded ….. familiar. We listened closely and realized that the song was “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”
It was profoundly disquieting.
well now…….
LZ is better if you are on a lot of drugs.
stones are better if you feel like dancing.
got to do a lot of drugs to dance to LZ.
dancing is its own drug…..dont need any additional drugs if you have good music to dance to.
do you think rock and roll is dead?
im on a lot of drugs right now.
I’m listening to And One.
and munching on buttered popcorn jelly beans.
Zep? Stones? Who? I dunno…
But these guys are semi-legendary:
The question was not “which band do you like better” It was “which is a better representative of rock and roll?” I’ m not a huge Stones fan, but they did put out a number of real rockers like “Brown Sugar.” Songs like that represent classic rock and roll. If you think the answer is Zeppelin, you must be one of the younger crowd who don’t realize that Heavy Metal actually changed the definition of rock and roll. For many the two have become synonymous. Old guys like me just don’t understand that. I think we have some say in the matter since we remember when it all started.
The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.
Who said that?
Muddy Waters, according to Joe Perry.
McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters
lTMF’sA
Just thought I’d share…
Demetrius and I spent the evening watching the entire Series 3 of Rough Science, which I picked up from the library earlier this week. Neat show–sort of a combination of Myth Busters and some sort of reality survival show, but without the mean-spiritedness a lot of those shows seem to have.
I only heard of it when I was looking online for some information related to some science tests I was scoring. And I found the page that told how to make your own hand warmers like the Rough Science crew did in New Zealand. Then a few weeks later, I saw that DVD on the shelf at our local library, and decided to check it out. Over the past couple days, Son in Ohio and I have been working our way through Series 4, which was set in Death Valley.
Our library system, by the way, totally rocks.