Same question as on the tin.
Zeppelin came out with their debut and second album in 1969.
The Beatles broke up in 1970. I’ve read Zeppelin’s main competition in the States was the Stones. By what album did Zeppelin become a household name - the band most teenagers were listening to?
Also, were they still popular with teens when they embarked on their ill-fated '77 US tour?
They weren’t particularly popular with teens, but rather college-age fans. I’d guess that Led Zeppelin IV in 1971 was their breakthrough. I know one person who hated them until he heard “Stairway to Heaven,” and I think that song propelled them to superstardom.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Zep, but I saw them on both of their first two US tours. I was in my mid-teens and have to say that they were very popular with most of my friends prior to Led Zep IV. There was a big shift in the late 60s to AOR and Zep was there with two albums that made the grade. It was definitely “way cooler” to be shifting from singles to albums.
TL;DR: They were quite popular with teens (and older fans) within a year of their first two albums.
Actually they had a distinct “unpopularity” factor with college kids, and with the rock press. It was precisely the “teens,” the younger siblings who adopted first against a lot of pushback. But they weren’t even the first “high school rock” band. Iron Butterfly and Grand Funk came before them.
Where I was–in college–they became instantly recognized with their first album, it was everywhere. Even more popular with the second one, and with the third one we threw a big party to listen to it the day it came out. By this time some of us had seen them live (Dallas Pot Festival. Er, Pop Festival.)
I don’t remember the first one being played on the radio a lot, but everybody had a copy of the album. The second one had “Whole Lotta Love” which did get a whole lotta airplay. (And was not, IMO, the best piece on the album.) I would say that was their breakthrough.
Now I will say, they seemed to be more popular with guys than with gals. Possibly due to some sexist lyrics, which I acknowledge. But they were just so good.
They got big pretty fast. The first album peaked #10 in the US and #6 in the UK, then the second album was a #1 on both sides of the Atlantic.
If I may ask, when you had your third album release listening party, what was your reaction to it? I’ve always ready that a lot of Zep’s early fans were turned off by the mellower, folkie-type songs on Led Zeppelin III and that it got a lot of negative reviews by critics who said they were ‘wimping out.’ What did you and your friends think that first night?
From Mike Damone in FT@RH: “And five, now this is the most important, Rat. When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.” People finding this out could be a reason why they became popular.
Also, the fact their guitarist, Jimmy Page, was already known from The Yardbirds (the band was originally called The New Yardbirds) gave them an edge in terms of familiarity and fan interest that a band consisting of unknowns would not have had. At the time of their first album release, Led Zeppelin was one of the more notable “supergroups” (i.e., groups consisting of members from other well-known groups) formed during late 60s and early 70s. Other “supergroups” from this period included Blind Faith and CSN(& sometimes Y).
I don’t think kids even knew this. And Jimmy was the only one with a name in the band. And not a big name.
Well, most of us were kind of blown away, but in fairness most of us were also kind of baked. I personally thought “The Immigrant Song” was a little over the top and my favorite was “Bron-Y-[something] Stomp” but the group I was with was completely enraptured by the first song (Immigrant) and didn’t really object to any of it. Keep in mind, this was on the day of release and we hadn’t seen what the critics said, and didn’t care anyway. I did hear some of that negative stuff later.
When Zeppelin played Tampa, Florida in 1973 they broke the all-time rock attendance record set by the Beatles at their '65 Shea Stadium show. Zeppelin brought in 56,800 that day.
In 1977 when Zeppelin returned to Tampa their show attracted an estimated 70-72,000.
Don’t know how many of these were teens, but I’m sure a lot. Zeppelin were still hugely popular with teens in the early '80s when I was one.
I was a teenager in Cleveland in the 1970s, when WMMS was regularly voted the Best Rock Radio Station in the US. I could never stand to listen to it because they gave heavy airplay to Led Zep and similar bands my friends and I considered “Rock and Roll for the Stupid People.”
“Rock and Roll for the Smart People” was, for us, an eclectic group including Dylan, the Kinks, the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Hot Tuna, Brian Eno, John Lennon, Laura Nyro, the Fugs, David Bowie, Taj Mahal, and so on…
I turned 15 in 1980. Pretty much every high school dance until I graduated ended with either Stairway to Heaven or Free Bird, but otherwise the Zeppelin crowd tended to be the stoners and drinkers. Of course I went to a small high school, and there was considerable overlap between the stoners and everybody else. There was a whole lotta love…
They became big despite turning down an invitation to play at Woodstock. “Black Dog” was a popular hit on AM top 40 stations in 1971. But they, and their manager Peter Grant, really didn’t court the press. Someone (maybe the "Hammer of the Gods"biography) pointed out that in 1975 the Rolling Stones tour was big media news yet Zeppelin out grossed them to little publicity
I was a teenager in the mid seventies and never heard anybody claim Zeppelin was the most popular rock band.
Not even close. They were very rarely heard on the local rock stations. Other than Stairway which got played to death. I know they had their fans.
Around here Southern Rock was huge. Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers were the biggest rock bands.
CCR and The Who were very popular too.
Zeppelin was a good band but I didn’t even own one of their albums in high school. I bought all of CCR’s, and several albums by the other groups I mentioned.
Soft Rock was extremely popular too. I remember buying all three Croce Albums, five albums by Bread, and a couple Rod Stewart album’s.
I had a fairly large album collection in high school.
Zep came along at a time when college kids were moving toward a softer sound. Led Zeppelin IV never got to #1. It was released in late 1971. The first six months of 1972 it lost to Carole King, Don McLean, Neil Young’s Harvest, America, and Roberta Flack.
Zep created their own audience of younger kids who hadn’t been through the 60’s experience and wanted headbanging, as seen in the several million groups that imitated them. They were perfect for the harder drug era that appeared in the 70s. I think their career became so dominant that it overshadows how out of step they were until they established the new now.
Their first two albums were fantastic, nevertheless. Nothing in metal ever came close to Zeppelin for me. They were so good they ruined the genre. But I’m obviously an outlier.
That was true for the Zeppelin fans who discovered them during the 70s and afterward. I was referring to when the band’s first couple albums were released in 1969. The Yardbirds (Page’s old band) had notable following and no doubt many in that group’s fanbase carried their interest over to the successor band.
The Yardbirds were old news. Zeps fan base didn’t remember them. They were in high school. It was good for a little word of mouth. But the press hated zep. There were no rock historians who were zep fans in the early days.
In the 70’s rock was a hegemony. It was huge so it had a lot of arms. Zep were not as important a fish as it looks from here. Wings, Elton, Chicago, CSNY, and just Y were big too. Soft rock was big, white people bought black records believe it or not. Hard rock didn’t make you the most popular band in america. Just the most popular hard rock band.
Eric Clapton’s journey from Cream (three top 5 US albums) to Blind Faith (#1) to Derek and the Dominos was by far more important to American audiences than the fates of Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck, his Yardbirds successors.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, the most career-defining album in the history of the world or so we remember it, went all the way to #16 in the U.S. I can’t explain that at all. It appealed to exactly the audience that made number ones of Zeppelin, Santana, CCR, Blood, Sweat & Tears, The Beatles, and *Woodstock *in 1970, followed by George Harrison, Janis Joplin and the Stones in early 1971. Even Simon & Garfunkel fans (10 weeks for Bridge over Troubled Water) listened to all that music. Clapton also toured the U.S. for all of November, when the album was released. Double album problem? *Woodstock *and Harrison were triple albums. History is weird to those who lived through it.