Of course, you can either be a mongoose or a cobra, you have to choose sides!
I can't bear pretentiousness and Zeppelin are to me the epitome of that. And I never grew attached to their music because:
- I don't like heavy-handed drumming behind the beat, unless you play with Bob Marley.
- Their music sounds cluttered to me and not "
ordentlich" engineered/constructed. I don't hear neat compositional structure in most of what they do.
- Page's playing is a sonic mess.
- I can't stand their production values, nothing ever sounds direct and in your face.
- To this day I have a hard time picking out what the bass does in their mixes.
- Plant's singing made the lyrics incomprehensible and when you did understand them you automatically winced. Fantasy crap, abstract hippie musings or phoney blues lyric clichés. No Zep lyric has ever raised any emotion with me - or cerebral interest. To this day I don't get what Hairwave to Heaven is about. (And I hate that twee intro they swiped.)
- In their grotesque self-importance, they are a humorless bunch and Plant was an aloof poser, but never an interesting enigma like David Bowie.
So yes, I think they are vastly overrated and unjustly revered. But I do love Boogie With Stu!
But of course it is also good fun to be against the grain and defy expectations. Because people seem to automatically assume that if you are fond of harder music - as I have been, still am and always will be - you have Led Zep on a pedestal. Well, I don't, even though - out of scientific interest - I have all their recorded work; I'm an informed hater so to say.
(Hell, I even went to a Greta Van Fleet gig only recently - my son dragged me. It was a good show if you ignore that they picked the wrong role models.)Is there a connection to my love for Purple other than incredulous jealousy because their stature is not anywhere near? Well, if you go through the above bullet points, you'll notice that DP is in all cases on the other side of the scale. They are in many ways the musical antidote to how Zep go about things. I guess you could say that to me Purple's music is much more relatable. Perhaps that is because I heard DP first and their music formed my expectations. I remember having a hard time wrapping my head around Led Zep, I found nothing immediately appealing about their music. Listening to Led Zep is for me a bit of an unpleasant cerebral experience, I listen to and analyze what they all do, but fail to hear any magic in it.
But it's ok, sweetie, I know that you have a secret adoration and deep respect for Zep (and most likely for exactly those traits that I despise about their music), and it's always nice that you stick up for them and seem genuinely puzzled how one cannot like them.