There's not much to be said about Led Zeppelin that hasn't already been said elsewhere, so I'm not really going to try. (Although I am fighting the temptation to expound upon one of my pet theories, which I call "The bifurcation of the stream of heavy metal at the nexus of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin", in which I posit (here in a very truncated form) that, post-Sabbath/Zeppelin, heavy metal developed in two distinct directions, each heavily influenced by one or the other of Sabbath and Zeppelin. One stream, influenced primarily (but not exclusively) by Zeppelin, saw the rise of what I call "classico-hair/prog metal". The other stream, with Sabbath as the primary (but not exclusive) influence, gave rise to what I call "alterno-death/doom/prog metal". Although I've thought about little else since graduating university, now is perhaps not the time for such deep philosophical musings...)I am of the opinion that Led Zeppelin's fourth album (untitled, but generally referred to as IV) presented the band at the pinnacle of its musical creativity (although, certainly, there are many who would disagree with me). I don't necessarily dislike later albums, but it seems to me that later efforts began to sound a bit "plodding" (the main culprit being, in my estimation, production techniques in the studio). By now everyone has heard the song "Stairway to Heaven" (probably about a half million times), a song that continues to be rated among "the greatest rock tunes of all-time". Whatever you may think of that particular song now, there's a very good chance that you at least used to like it and the album from whence it came. This leads us to our great drum fill:
Drummer: John Bonham
Group: Led Zeppelin
Album: Led Zeppelin IV
Great Drum Fill: "Misty Mountain Hop"; If you've been paying attention to the items in this series (and I have serious doubts about this), you've probably noticed that I'm not overly interested in technical virtuosity in deciding what constitutes a "great drum fill". Rather, I'm interested in the "right lick in the right place" (so to speak). There's no doubting, however, that John Bonham had a pretty mean set of "chops". "Misty Mountain Hop" reminds me of Joni Mitchell on steroids and acid. It has a straight-forward, driving rock beat, made slightly funky by some clever keyboards and the train-like chug-a-chug of Bonham's high-hats. At about the 3 minute 55 second mark, just coming off the bridge, Bonham gives us a brief press roll followed by an almost laughably simple bar and a half of straight 8's on the snare and toms, and back into the song. I almost fall out of my chair every time I hear it. The right lick in the right place...
Yeah.
[Updated 10/4/13: You'll find the drum fill at the 3:55 mark of the clip below.]
If I could analyze books the way you analyze music, I would be the richest person in the world. That degree of abstraction is so difficult to achieve. I'm only another drop of water in an ocean of people who just sit down and listen to music without thinking too much =(
ReplyDeleteI think you have about about the origin of the diverging streams in metal. And I think John Bonham was a powerful artist, in theat, like you say, he drummed exactly the right beat at the right moment.
ReplyDeleteUsual Stuff, please remember that most of the time I'm usually only half-serious. The rest of the time I'm hal-joking...
ReplyDeleteDaniel, although I was mostly kidding around with the heavy metal stuff, I do in fact think there something to my "theory". And of course I completely agree about Bonham.