Let’s give the guy a break. It’s his parents’ fault.
Yeah, I would definitely say some of the later stuff, especially, had prog elements to it, maybe even being prog songs, but until this thread, I had never heard anyone refer to them as prog rock or include them alongside King Crimson or Rush. Blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal, yes. But prog? That said, I don’t really listen to Zep past their first five albums, probably because they did start incorporating some of those proggy elements I wasn’t too fond of. (Don’t get me wrong, I like some prog, like early Genesis and King Crimson, but for the most part, the genre rubs me the wrong way.)
Led Zepp so lucky Puffy worked with them.
I would like to point out, in the strongest possible terms, that Jedward are in fact Irish. 
(Although I do have a soft spot for the pair of eedjits/genius surrealist performance artists)
I think you’d be surprised at the London scene and the people who auditioned for what slot in what band in those years, and the way things might have played out if… I don’t think the labels and partitions occurred until people started pontificating about it way later on. They were just young dudes trying to get heard and ganging up.
I loaded up on Zep Tull Floyd, Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant et al at the same time and I never thought it was different genres of music.
Amen. 
Interesting. I find those all quite different. Never could get into Tull or Floyd. Zep was just blues-based hard rock to me, more-or-less, with a bit of English folk experimentation thrown in. Now, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so historical genres were a bit more defined by then, but in discussion of prog acts among various circles of friends, Zep never entered the discussion. I’m just really surprised to hear them described as a prog rock band. I have literally never heard that before this thread.
Me neither. Prog heads I knew often liked Zep, Queen, Deep Purple and a few other bands while laughing at Bad Company, say, and giving grudging respect to Eddie Van Halen.
Zep back in the day was “heavy metal.” When Thrash and the whole splintering of metal happened in the 80’s, Zep was lumped with hard rock, and Sabbath was anointed the true godfathers of metal. Been fascinating to watch. But Prog has never come up.
When my daughter was much younger, I convinced her that “Kashmir” was Led Zep’s “Doctor Who” song, solely on the line “I’m a traveler of both time and space”, and that the song was based on a lost episode where the Doctor went to India to fight alien rug merchants.
She bought it, until her mother had to remind her that I was the one who convinced her color didn’t exist until the 1960s.
To me all those bands have elements of folk, classical, hard rock, 50s rock N Roll, R and B, and psych, just in different measures. I don’t see the typological differences, but then I grew up in the 70s. So the type distinctions for me have to do with when the thing jumped the shark, which was, um, before Van Halen, shall we say?
I never thought of Zep as prog, but the connections are much stronger than the distinctions, to my ears. They are all part of the same era, industry, peer group, and contemporary discoveries in music and technology. They are cousins, IOW, both personnel wise and music wise. The differences: Like someone (Armstrong?) said: there’s only two kinds of music…
“there’s only two kinds of music…”
Pete Seeger said folk music was “all music not made by cows.”
Forgot to mention an important point: Jazz was also an influence on British rock.
Take these people: Fairport Convention, steeleye span, pentangle, the pink fairies, hawkwind, cat stevens, Rennaissance, Gryphon, Nick Drake, Van Der Graaf Generator, Twink, Syd Barrett, Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Nico. Would you want to try and categorize all these people? I haven’t done a search but I feel fairly certain that they are all no more than one or two degrees of separation from each other and from the prog and rock acts of the 70s already mentioned.
You might have a good handle on genrefying music from the 50s, 80s, 90s, but in the 70s this approach is difficult to make work, frankly because of the high quality and classification-defying work being done.
The reason prog comes up with zep is that all the listeners of Yes and King Crimson dug zeppelin too, on the same doobie, and never felt like classification was a priority.
For me, prog was much more musically complex to the point of being unlistenable much of the time. And, thematically, Led Zep was much more rooted to sex, drugs, rocknroll, than the acts I associate with prog rock. When I think prog, I generally think non-conventional lyrical themes, extended orchestrated instrumental sections (not just improvised solos), complex time signatures (yes, Zep had a few of these, but mostly stuck to 4/4), a move away from blues-based and major pentatonic improvisation, entire albums that explore one theme or a set of related themes (aka “concept albums”), that sort of stuff. I just find prog, in general, much more cerebral than the bulk of Led Zeppelin’s work. A band like Metallica, to me, is a much closer example to prog rock, but nobody would call them prog, either.
Well, I got, “DING DING DING Da-da DING DING” and Queen/Vanilla Ice, but I had no freakin’ idea what a “Jedward” was. Googled before posting before. STILL have no freakin’ idea. Think I might be happier that way
/old
//Screw Vanilla Ice
///RIP Freddie & David
OK. But I urge you to listen to some of the prog you have not paid attention to. A lot of this material (At least the passages and ideas) could appear on a zep or sabbath LP very easily, and vice versa. So making rules for what it is and isn’t seems like an excuse to not hear what’s on the record. The guys in Yes, Crimson, Gentle Giant, even Genesis, and many others, had a luminous brilliance in their writing. I can’t imagine liking zep and not ever listening to that stuff as part of a larger musical moment. These guys are arguably as talented as or even better than zep or the others. Might depend on what kind of day you’re having. Their songs are brilliant and unique.
Here’s a question: You have outlined the limits of what prog is to your ears so far. Why do you think you don’t want to hear something that you haven’t internalized the melodies of yet? What if you needed to hear it but didn’t know it? It might be a message from the past to the youtube generation, waiting for their song to end in 4 minutes and go on to the next. Just a question(;0)
Please don’t lop me in with “the Youtube generation.” I’m over 40.
I’ve already said I like Crimson and Peter Garbriel-era Genesis. The other stuff doesn’t move me. What’s more to say? It’s not like I haven’t tried. As a keyboard player, I had to idolize people like Wakeman and Emerson and Banks but, at the end of the day, only one of those keyboardists and bands spoke to me. It’s not like I didn’t give them a shot. It’s just not music that moves me. It may move others, but not me.
In the 80’s Goth clubs I used to frequent it wasn’t unusual for some Zep to get played: often Kashmir, but When the Levee Breaks or something stompier like Black Dog often got a runout too.
(Also The Doors, Stones, Beatles, VU, Stooges, MC5, Floyd you see where UK 80’s Goths were coming from really)
Hahahaha, I went to Youtube in search of the video where Page explains the origin of Kashmir (“It Might Get Loud” documentary) and stumbled upon this along the way (Six-year old girl drums and sings Black Dog…on a Frozen drum set no less, and at one point sings and drums at the same time. Pretty cool). I know the Dope generally eschews cute and sweet but this is too good to miss. Her face during the guitar solo really shows how much she’s lovin’ it.
Here's Page on Kashmir: I like what one of the commenters said:“My friend told me jimmy copied this from a puff daddy song…I’m writing this from jail cause I almost murdered him”
Sorry i wasn’t specifically citing you at the end of my post. Just getting reflective.
That’s cool. I had the impression from your broad terms that you hadn’t ever listened to it. Now that I know you’re a musician it’s even less comprehensible. But perfectly acceptable.
She is cute and does a great job, but a six-year old girl singing those lyrics…dunno about that.
(ad me to the list of old people in this thread)