LED ZEPPELIN: COUCHED WITH INDIFFERENCE

This is supposed to be a “critical analysis” of Led Zeppelin. We at CREEM suddenly found ourselves close to deadline and stuck with a blocked writer. So we took our critic to an analyst, and got the story.

The Doc: Lie down, young woman. You look exhausted.

The Crit: Robert Plant is who I look like —bags under my eyes bigger than backpacks and hair like a drying brush at a car wash. I’ve got to write something critical and analytical about Led Zeppelin for a deadline that was yesterday and I’m not doing anything more, so far, than putting on “No Quarter” and staring into space.

The Doc: Are you subconsciously looking for a failure by taking an assignment on a group of which you are neither an expert nor a big fan?

Crit: (Hand over eyes, curling snake-like on the couch) Because they’re everywhere, Doc. They’re everywhere, still. It’s been almost 14 years since their first album and about two since their last. Their peak was in, what, 1974 or so? And yet they are still the kings of rock radio, practically—go to anyplace where quote-unquote-young people gather and you will hear “Kashmir” coming from car windows and dorm doorways. I mean, really — kids who were still shitting in unsocial places when Zep just started think these guys are God, in 1982! Fourteen-year-olds buy Robert Plant’s first solo LP because Plant was in Zep, a band that is older than they are. It’s as endless as the Who and the Stones—but are Zep in that league of seminal excellence...pardon my adjective there. Look, I came up as a critic at the beginning of New Wave. I am a product of my era. I think Elvis Costello is extremely sexy and poker-faced people singing in Debbie Harry monotones ring my bell more often than they should. Get it? I can no longer ignore my prejudice against Led Zeppelin and the musical and personal stasis they supposedly cause and represent. They are one of those sociological phenomenons— whether you dig them or detest them immediately reveals your stance and persona and ideological allegiance in pop culture!!!

Doc: And the Plasmatics or Crosby, Stills and Nash don’t?

Crit: Not to this extent. And here’s something that should embarrass the chic—Plasmatics are supposed to be New Wave. Is she so much more couth and artistic than Robert Plant doing “Whole Lotta Love” on Led Zeppelin II? Whatever ^he answer there, Ms. Williams will never be so ubiquitous as to become part of the collective primitive memory and genetic code of the Western World. Who does not feel tapped into something large and powerful when their conditioned responses are roused by key moments of the Zep discography? And on a less significant level—what lead singer in the last 14 years hasn’t been doing some sort of Robert Plant schtick? What rock guitarist hasn’t been doing some sort of Jimmy Page? (Hands over face) They’re everywhere I turn...

Doc: Sounds like you’re dealing with a band that’s become an archetype. Everyone can find their personal dreams or nightmares in archetypes, dear...This Plant fellow is probably the sort of sex god I always have sneered at myself...I’ve always wondered what the point was...

Crit: (Sits up suddenly, finger in air) Like, for instance, the end of “You Shook Me” on Led Zeppelin I —there’s a collective stimulus!

Doc: (gazing at photo of Arthur Janov) The primal scream...

Crit: Yeah! When Plant goes “ah-ahahhhh-AH!!!!” And punks think they're raw! Or the way Plant hits the high note at the end of the chorus of “Communication Breakdown” (Jumps up) How’s this—the “Oh Roooosieee; OOOOOOOHHHH GUUUURRRRLLL” at that break part in “How Many More Times” (Hands over face, sways and hums) How in hell is anyone supposed to write about the goddamn music when it’s inseparable from the time and place and fans, and the personas of the musiciand?

Doc: Sounds like you’ve taken some psych classes.

Crit: Shit yeah, how do you think so many critics come up with such convoluted armchair analyses of rock ’n’ roll that barely talk about rock ’n’ roll? It’s an art. But this time, Doc, this time, I wanna, I wanna...

Doc: That’s it, get those feelings out!

Crit: (Lies on floor, humming the opening vocal riff from the “Immigrant Song”) No, ah, no, wait. I’ve got to talk about the music. There’s got to be some explanation in there, why people either hate Zep or love them. Both take phenomenal amounts of energy!

Doc: Well, so, love ’em or hate ’em— were they good!

Crit: Well, Jimmy Page must be, because from the day he joined the Yardbirds in the mid-’60s or even before that doing solos on Kinks records—he’s practically invented the techniques for playing hard-rock guitar. I was listening to a mess of Zep discs last night—God, it’s outrageous how many Page riffs and sonics have been done by so many guitarists over the years—Jimmy Page almost sounds like a parody of Jimmy Page, for God’s sake! But to hate him for that is like hating Bruce Springsteen because of John Cougar! Ann Wilson and Freddie Mercury are NOT Led Zeppelin’s fault. God, what a fuckin’ down-on-thefloor-and drool blues guitarist Page is! (Clutches face) Like, it’s X-rated noise, it’s so physical! Those Dixon numbers on the first record or “Since I’ve Been Loving You” on Zep 111—or the rhythm guitar on “The Crunge” from Houses Of The Holy— it’s all pure soul, pure face-on-the-floor, nose-in-the-carpet boogie. Fuck if I know if he was the fastest or the cleanest or (makes a prancing move) the prettiest player in rock ’n’ roll.

Doc: Making those kind of public judgements gives you anxiety?

Crit: (obviously feeling more assertive) Hey, yes—1 feel anxiety because it’s bullshit! Let some 80-year-old genius make the pronouncement on Page’s gifts and historical import. 1 just know that Page makes people act like animals. That’s all.

Doc: So his playing taps the collective unconscious?

Crit: Taps? This is forced entry, honey. Like “Hot Dog” from In Through The Out Door— no pass key, no warranty, no mother-may-I!!!! And then there’s the acoustic stuff—an incredible contrast, strictly structured chordings and reticent formalism, with elements of old English folk and madrigal structures and far eastern harmonics. Beautiful, and dignified, in the midst of all this primalism.

Doc: The completion of the personal, the flip side...

Crit: Well to put it in the language of Joyce Brothers, they each made the other more exciting by contrast. “Stairway To Heaven” has a full-fist assault lurking around every corner, and “Dazed And Confused” had a certain delicacy and control. Page was also an innovative producer—the records sound Hue and full and powerful, all these years later! He gave the band a range of complexity and expression that twelve billion rock bands have since utterly shamed themselves trying to achieve.

Doc: You seem to be free-associating pretty well here...If you have any dreams or childhood experiences that might apply to Mr. Plant or Mr. Page...

Crit: (grins) Let’s not get into the smarmy stuff, hey? God, Doc, you know, all those years, hating heavy metal bands...There is no castrati that measures up to Robert Plant! None! No drummer beating the shit out of his snare and cymbal can crunch out like Bonham—God rest his soul. No band since has done bombast the same way! None!

Doc: Yes, you were certainly trying to blame the parents for what their children became.

Crit: I just have to keep reminding myself—Uriah Heep is not Zep’s fault. Jeez, Zep was sort of wonderful, weren’t they? (Lies back on couch with strange grin) Every song had a bottom like two city blocks of solid lead and a top like feathers oh pajamas from Fredrick’s of Hollywood — well, not every song, but damn close. Expecially on Zep IV, which was the musical turning point, and the LPs thereafter, more or less. Side one of Zep IV is the hard rock glory road—“Black Dog,” “Rock And Roll,” “The Battle Of Evermore” and “Stairway To Heaven.” Yeeeeooowwww! (Her fist shoots into the air, the other one juts up with a Bic lighter) Doc: What are you feeling now?

Crit: I wanna get, uh, a little out of control, Doc (wipes sweat off forehead) — um, I wanna put on “The Crunge” and then “The Ocean” and then I want to^ust wiggle around and, uh. ..

Doc: Have you ever thought that maybe

Jimmy

Page practically invented the techniques for playing hard-rock guitar.

being a critic is, in essence, a repressive activity? That your healthiest and most open reactions to the music are, ah, (wipes forehead) a little more spontaneous...

Crit: (Grips couch) But wait—I haven’t said anything significant about Plant. Let’s see...Basically he was a spacehead misogynist as a lyricist, but that didn’t matter too much, except of course if you look at the destructive misogyny that has really gotten super sick among his descendants. I just have to keep remembering that Ted Nugent is not Led Zep’s fault... As a singer, Plant was a natural, one-in-ageneration phenomenon. No one who’s tried has managed to sound as sensual or psychotic. I always wondered what he cured his throat tissue with to get that sound... What a sense of excess and overstatement and abandon!!! He almost made cock-rock tenors into a national religion.

Doc: What about the accusation that their music encouraged indulgence in dangerous and sometimes illegal substances?

Crit: I dunno. But I’m straighter than Debby Boone and this revisit to Zep-land has been perfectly weird anyway. I think the loadies might even be missing some of the fine points. I must admit, though, if anything could make an intellectual adult like myself yearn for loss of more control, it’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” from Presence. Or “Living Loving Maid...”

Doc: Everybody has some yearning for visits to primordial states. Even critics. (Small twitch) Even doctors.

Crit: (Hopping up, grabbing a tablet and pencil) Primordial can wait. How ’bout this theory—that rock and roll has ebbs and flows, just like life!

Doc: Wow.

Crit: No, really, listen. Zeppelin came along when the boundaries of rock ’n’ roll’s capacities for sheer noise, and lyrical abstractions, and self-importance all needed to be stretched. The Beatles started the process with Sgt. Pepper, see? So here comes this band that does a little of everything that’s been done in rock’s perameters so far—bread-and-butter blues, le pop song, jazz in terms of harmonic dissonance and polyrhythmic experimentation, folk, and whatever else. But. They did it all with BOOM. THUNK. By the very force with which everything in their music was done, the entire affair became a psychological fortissimo. Rock needed that at the time—to mirror the general importance it was finding in itself to things cosmic like other art forms? Yet, could it also become even more visceral? Could it become the most physical experience to be found in any art form extant? Could anyone avoid being trapped by hearing (starts to sing “Over The Hills And Far Away”) ‘heyyyy layyydeee, you got the love I need...’

Doc: (Heading for the couch, looking a little shaken and breathing a little hard) Really, the breakthroughs and resolutions of key issues just exhaust me every time— all the energy unlocked by the cessation of a major conflict...

Crit: (singing loudly now, and dancing with pelvis like a sail in a big wind) ‘OOOOOooh, you got so much, so much, soooo muuccchhhh...’ Here comes the drum and the bass—grimaces, fist swinging in the air) AAAAAHHHHHHOOOOOO!

Doc: (face down on the floor) Cured. Cured.