A few days ago, my esteemed colleague Gene Glotzer wrote a post about his dislike for Led Zeppelin. We’d talked about it before, so it wasn’t news to me when he published it (what I actually learned was that none of you check the authors on these articles, based on how many people asked me how I could dislike Zeppelin). All of his reasons are completely valid, but I still can’t help it. I love Led Zeppelin. It may just be because Zeppelin was the first classic rock band I’d seriously listened to. I’d heard music from Journey and the Rolling Stones in commercials and stuff, but Physical Graffiti was the first classic rock album I listened to from beginning to end. I listened to Ten Year’s Gone when I was pining for high school crushes. I danced to Houses of the Holy.
The one critique that sticks with me the most are the charges of plagiarism. Those charges are 100% true, but I don’t really think about them. When I think about Robert Plant stealing Black people’s music, I think about Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley stealing Black people’s music, too. And I think about our music being stolen by clowns like Post Malone today. And I think about how white people have stolen from Black people in this land every single day for 399 years. So I conveniently forget those charges to spare myself that thought.
I openly admit that I don’t know enough about rock music to know if Zeppelin is objectively good- maybe the Ramones are more technically sound or something. But I like their music, and I think I’m overdue for another listening session of The Rain Song.
