Beatles vs. Led Zeppelin

 

They meant different things to me ... albeit as I get older they seem only to differ ... in the sense that I am having a much easier time remembering and appreciating Led Zeppelin 1 or 2 ... than I am any of the Beatles albums other than the WHITE ALBUM and ABBEY ROAD.

 

The Beatles, if they did anything, from my days in Brazil and later in America (arrived in '66) ... was that they elevated the realm of Popular music ... up until then a lot of it was not considered important or well written and often easily dismissed by more intelectual types that knew a bit more about music. In general, all of a sudden you were seeing musical conventions changed and structured quite differently (if not just personal and eccentric, really) ... you should have seen the article duplicated thousands of times about talking about the Beatles and Mozart and how there were so many similarities in their compositional structures ... it was ... getting boring after a while ... and it helped the Beatles go their different ways and into here, there and everywhere for more inspiration.

 

Led Zeppelin, specially when it appeared (my junior and senior year in high school) was, like The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin ... a whole new world ... it was an expression that we could relate to and understand. The Beatles had gone a bit far off ... too hard to relate to. But all of a sudden you saw on a guitar the virtuosity that they used to apply to Paganini's and Mozart's ... not "popular musicians" ... and the music they did became what helped define what they did.

 

I really think that what broke The Beatles down was that they were stuck in a "song" and there was no freedom to get out of it. The newer ones didn't care about "songs" and wanted to get "into the vibes of the music" (as the drug guru used to say) ... and few EVER ... did so any more than these 3. The rest were just sellers of nice music.

 

One gave her voice and died for it.

 

One played his guitar and died for it ... he was not allowed to free float on it in other forms and get it recorded.

 

The other had the visionary poetry for his film-centric music ... but he could not grow past his own addiction for a non-existant dream!

 

But in the meantime, they gave us their soul. And .. to my heart an expression that makes sense and defines a lot of us ... not an idea, mind you ... a real expression that in many ways we have glorified, and are not capable of expressing day to day with our loved ones or work.

 

It's all about an inner honesty and care ... that seems like is not politically correct anymore ... it seems ok to use rap and a basssynth and say a 4 letter word ... but not ok to writhe on the stage and sing about every bit of my love ... or perhaps they took it so literally that they lost their own source ... I don't think so ... but they lost the one person that made their music shine more than they did individually ... Bonzo!

 

Making a comparison of the two ... only matters to those counting dollars in heaven ... but if I have to tell you which I appreciated more with a girlfriend at home having some sexy fun ... I can easily tell you that Led Zepellin wins ... and one lady I was with always said that there was something about the beat that had sex spelled all over it ... and it died when Bonzo died. The Beatles were nice, but they are way more mental for me than they are "physical" ...

 

Unffortunately, the majority of the Led Zep fans only know one song ...