Sounds like you need a separate thread - but what is the most recent time frame, but where enough time has passed for at least a little reflection?
My fear about starting a whole new thread is that it’ll get inundated with people claiming bands I’ve never even heard of are today’s versions of The Who and Led Zeppelin, etc. Then I’ll feel really old…
But I would use a time frame of 1990 - present.
No, there isn’t, because nothing in the modern media world is as big as their previous-generation counterparts were.
For example, who is this generation’s Walter Cronkite? How about today’s Laugh-In? The big things of the past have been replaced by a myriad smaller things of the present, each of which command but a fraction of the audience.
Great point, I was just watching a special about 1968 recently and it made that point that the Smothers Brothers show was the hip, liberal, youth oriented, maverick of the time and compared it to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Jon Stewart then made a joke about how his 1.3 million viewers are the equivalent of the Smothers Brothers 20 million. No show, not even the Superbowl commands the audience of decades past. Too much competition.
Jim
Not only that, but the true megastars are not in rock music any more. I’d say that to be todays “equivalent” of Led Zeppelin or The Who you’d have to follow these guidelines:
- Play rock music,
- Be able to fill stadiums by yourself,
- First played medium-sized gigs or got a recording contract 1990 or later (per the requestor’s criterion.)
I’m not sure if there is any rock band left of this calibre. Certainly not any that make IMO good music.
Then again IMO since we have already restricted it to rock music, why not also add a clause that you have to at least have some Classic Rock sound? Oh, and Ludovic has to like it.
- Play rock music,
- Be able to fill stadiums by yourself,
- First played medium-sized gigs or got a recording contract 1990 or later (per the requestor’s criterion.)
- At least some Classic Rock sound (guitar soloes, clear vocals, etc.)
- Ludovic likes it.
The closest band to this is Coheed and Cambria, but they can’t consistently fill stadiums. (My Chemical Romance is slightly not classic rock enough to qualify for me, but if they had one or two more guitar soloes and another album or so more like The Black Parade under their belt rather than good-but-more-emo-than-classic-rock, they’d be the closest we have.)
Pearl Jam is the closest I can come up with.
I would have mentioned them except that it fails my fifth criteria 
They also don’t have a lot of guitar soloes, but then again not all mega-Classic Rock artists did.
I’d add Radiohead to this too. Maybe the Foo Fighters. I love C&C, but they are no way big enough to make the comparison.
Can you see a Radiohead vs. Pearl Jam thread 15 years from now? I don’t see it.
I think Ellis Dee is right. No band will be as big, because nothing is as big.
Also, as much as I admire them for it, their fight with Ticketmaster probably prevented them from touring the stadium circuit in their prime, had they wanted.
I call bullshit on this. How can you compare the Page’s so-called song-writing ability to Townsend’s? It’s already been shown that the lion’s share of Zep stuff were in reality re-interpretations of other writer’s materials; they’ve even had to change the writing credits on the newer Zep CDs.
You’re obviously a big Zep fan but please be realistic.
This seems out of nature with this thread and I do love both groups, I just love Zep more, but how many really bad and mediocre songs did Townsend write and produce compared to Zep. In my opinion, for every classic the Who had two duds.
So, I stand by my statement.
Jim
How can you call bullshit on someone’s opinion?? This is not GD or GQ so I won’t ask for a cite as to the “lion’s share” of Page’s writing being reinterpretations of other works. I know it’s commonly suggested he did a fair amount of borrowing, but they have far too large a catalogue to say none of it is original.
+1. I am stuck in a meeting all day and out on break, but dismissing Pagey/Zep on that basis just doesn’t make sense…and IMHO not what this thread is about.
I know what you mean vis a vis long term impact, but stylistically, Zep and the Who are as different as Radiohead and Pearl Jam, and that’s another reason this comparison wouldn’t be likely. In fact, I don’t think any of the top 10 Classic Rock bands – and The Who barely breaks this – are similar enough to do a side by side comparison. (This thread is somewhat okay cause it also asks for a comparison of each individual instrumentalist, but even then, if you’re not trying to break out new territory due to the restrictions of the niche you’ve carved for yourself, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a worse musician.)
Gee, thanks… 
It’s morphed a bit, but the original idea came about because both bands were from roughly the same era, the same fame level, and each was composed of four individuals who are all well-known (to music fans) and played the same roles (mostly.) It wasn’t about the bands’ music style or impact, just a head-to-head comparison of the members.
To me LZ always sounded for together. The Who always sounded much more random, more raw.
So does that mean LZ was a better group?
I dunno? I could fall asleep to LZ. The Who always keeps me attentive.
The Who outscore Zeppelin in rock operas, movies, and in Townshend’s case, Broadway hits and web presence.
I have to chime in on the songwriting discussion. Pete wrote practically every song for The Who. He created demos and presented them to the band as full-fledged compositions. Pete has a pretty respectable body of work apart from The Who as well. However skilled Jimmy is/was as songwriter, he never created anything like Tommy, Quadrophenia, or Lifehouse.
He never created art structured the same way - he never wrote “rock operas” or character-and-plot stories set to music, with a linear sequence and an arc - no.
But did he write big, ambitious works requiring musical and production innovation, intended to transport listeners to places - perhaps help them craft their own development arc? Hell yeah! I love be transported by Kashmir or even something as geeky cool as Ramble On.
Even while he was smashing instruments and hoping he died before he got old, Pete was a traditionalist: he embraced a solid literary tradition and quickly moved from simple pop songs to darkly introspective short stories and novellas of songs and song-cycles expressed using well-understood song structures. Rock opera indeed. That meant that Pete could use very familiar structures to explore feelings that seemed new and unfamiliar because they had been repressed until the emergence of the Teenager as a new segment of society in post-WW2 America in the 50’s and what became Swinging London in the 60’s. Old tools, new anger.
Page was not nearly so grounded in literary structures and traditions - he was much more focused on musical traditions, mainly from specific cultures. And yeah, yeah, yeah, he ripped people off, but nobody was fusing blues, rock, Celtic/folk, Middle Eastern and other influences and presenting that melange on as big a stage - and doing more ambitious things with it - than Jimmy Page.
There is room to respect both - and both deserve a lot of it. I mean - can you imagine if Jimmy Page tried to write some teenage coming-of-age tale of frustration? Or if Pete tried to apply his dark, sardonic sensibilities to a tale of new worlds and exotic landscapes? How self-consicious and silly would Pete look if he tried to slither through a greasy blues? (as a guitarist, he could do it cold; but it ain’t Pete, surely).
In baseball, the saying goes: Play the game within yourself. So junkballers shouldn’t try to overpower, and fastballers shouldn’t try to paint the corners. Pete and Jimmy each play their games very, very well…
Ok, I’ve tallied up the responses to the OP:
Moon v. Bonham: **Moon **5 votes, Bonham 3 votes, 2 draws
John Paul Jones v. John Entwistle: Entwistle 5 votes, JPJ 3 votes, 2 draws
Page v. Townshend: 4 votes each, 2 draws
Daltrey v. Plant: Daltrey 7 votes, Plant 2 votes, 1 draw
So The Who have more fans, anyway.