Rock Band

[Who is the greatest rock band?]

Who is the greatest rock band?

AC/DC

0 (0%)

Led Zeppelin

3 (23.1%)

Guns N' Roses

2 (15.4%)

The Rolling Stones

5 (38.5%)

KISS

0 (0%)

Eagles

0 (0%)

Pink Floyd

2 (15.4%)

Queen

1 (7.7%)

Total Members Voted: 11

[Doug]

The Beatles and then Zed Zeppelin.  After that it varies for me.  

And as a side note, the term "classic rock" is only useful in defining an era that a particular rock band existed  (basically mid sixties through the seventies), and it is not in anyway a classification of the type of music they played.  Black Sabbath and Steely Dan are both classic rock.  Hardly much of a similarity there.  And you will hear plenty of The Beatles on any classic rock station you turn to.  They are a rock band.  Listen for example to the album The Beatles 1962 to 1966, and you can see they are a rock band.  Maybe rock songs have grown longer and louder and raunchier since that time (their own did), but there exists the foundation for all rock music to follow right there on that compilation album.  You then compare that to the "pop" music of that time frame and you will see the difference.  The Beatles had a huge number of #1 singles and they wrote ballads, but at their core (meaning the majority of their music) they were clearly a rock band.   Sgt. Pepper, which is more pop sounding than probably any other record of theirs, had no songs released as singles off of that album.  The White Album technically doesn't either, unless you want to count the completely different version of Revolution that was released as a single.  (The single version being as hard rocking as anything most hard rock bands put out.)  This was an example that Zed Zeppelin and Black Sabbath would follow, putting the emphasis on the whole album rather than singles for mass radio consumption.

Anyway, I just felt like talking.  

[Matt]

Great points, Doug.  

I've always said the Beatles were an album-oriented band... you can't just listen to the "hits" or compilation albums to get a feel for them as a band. For that reason, I have mixed feelings about the "The Beatles 1" CD. While it did attract a new generation to The Beatles, it doesn't begin to hit on what the band was about... and how awesome they were. I'd much rather for someone who wanted to know about The Beatles to buy Abbey Road, or Revolver, or really any of their studio albums--there's not a single throwaway song on any of them (although I suppose I could live without Revolution 9 if I had to, but I had fun spinning it backwards when I was a kid).  

The White Album technically doesn't either, unless you want to count the completely different version of Revolution that was released as a single.  (The single version being as hard rocking as anything most hard rock bands put out.)  

And just because I love sharing their music, I've uploaded that single version of Revolution to a website for anyone who wants to hear it. As always, the webspace is free, but they only allow a download of a file this size about once an hour, so if it doesn't work, try back soon.)

http://www.geocities.com/agreatsong4u/Revolution.html

[Brendan]

Where's The Who?! I just looked again and they aren't even on the list. The Who are one of the greatest rock bands ever!!

[Matt]

Agreed on The Who. The Doors should be there too.

[Fr@mus]

Agreed on The Who. The Doors should be there too.

Yes, I think so too
And where 's CCR?
In my opinion and remembering my teen years, Led Zep was Hard Rock, si, if you have Zep in the list, we should add Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, because heavy metal category and name come later

[Matt]

In my opinion and remembering my teen years, Led Zep was Hard Rock, si, if you have Zep in the list, we should add Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, because heavy metal category and name come later

As the article I linked to explains, "heavy metal" actually came out in the late 60's..Led Zeppelin was possibly the first band that was actually categorized as a heavy metal band.

Heavy metal is a development of blues music and blues rock and pop. Its first wave, between 1967 and 1974, was a hybrid of pop and blues. By approximately 1991 most heavy metal had evolved into other hard rock genres, notably grunge.

The article also includes the two bands you listed, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, as two of the earliest heavy metal bands.

The earliest music commonly identified as heavy metal came out of the Birmingham area of the United Kingdom in the late 1960s when bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath applied an overtly non-traditional approach to blues standards and created new music often based on blues scales and arrangements.

The Jeff Beck Group's album Truth (late 1968) was an important and influential hard-rock album released just before Led Zeppelin's first album, leading some (especially British blues fans) to argue that Truth was the first heavy-metal album. However, it was the release of Led Zeppelin in 1969 that brought worldwide notice of the formation of a new genre.

Regardless of its origin, heavy metal may have been used as a jibe initially but was quickly adopted by its adherents. Other, already-established bands, such as Deep Purple, who had origins in pop or progressive rock, immediately took on the heavy metal mantle, adding distortion and additional amplification in a more aggressive approach.

(all quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_music)

I'm not just spouting off from an internet article ... these are just how the bands were classified in all the books I've read, and by radio and television programs, and also what we called the bands in the 70s. The term was definitely around back then and used to describe all these bands.

This list of the best Heavy Metal albums was published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1974:

http://www.superseventies.com/heavymtl.html

[Fr@mus]

I agree with you Matt....but term or category heavy Metal come later in time:
Hard Rock is precursor to Heavy metal. It was pioneered in the mid to late 1960s by artist such as Jimi Hendrix and Steppenwolf, with bands such as Led Zeppelin, Cream, Sabbath, Purple and Free developing it further.
Now, since late 1960 these bands become Heavy Metal. I think is a matter of term and wich one come first.
And now, they are classic rock

By the way, there was a mumbled phrase in the 1968 Steppenwolf song, "Born To Be Wild" that went "I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder."

John Kay, the group's founder, lead singer, and songwriter has claimed credit for the phrase (although the song is actually about the motorcycle culture).

[Gant]

Saw a great band in London last week.. The Zutons... anyone heard of em ?  Reminded me a little of the Kinks.... I'm big into The Faces at the moment...

[Matt]

I agree with you Matt....but term or category heavy Metal come later in time:
Hard Rock is precursor to Heavy metal. It was pioneered in the mid to late 1960s by artist such as Jimi Hendrix and Steppenwolf, with bands such as Led Zeppelin, Cream, Sabbath, Purple and Free developing it further.
Now, since late 1960 these bands become Heavy Metal. I think is a matter of term and wich one come first.
And now, they are classic rock

By the way, there was a mumbled phrase in the 1968 Steppenwolf song, "Born To Be Wild" that went "I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder."

John Kay, the group's founder, lead singer, and songwriter has claimed credit for the phrase (although the song is actually about the motorcycle culture).

Yup, I agree with all of the above. And Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" is one of my favorite songs of all time.  

I'm still not sure what you mean by "term or category heavy Metal come later in time", since the term was being used from the time of Led Zeppelin's first recordings. But, in any case, we all agree that, as Doug said, all these bands are now in the "classic rock" category because of the era they recorded in (mid 60's to late 70's) not due to what subgenre of rock they performed.

The real point that I was making here, and I think we all can agree, is that although the Beatles don't sound like the other bands on this poll (except for the Rolling Stones) it's not because they weren't a rock band. And they weren't a "soft rock" band either. The reason the Beatles music doesn't sound like most of the other bands on this poll is because most of these bands are heavy metal bands, not simply "rock" bands. Bands like Metallica, KISS, GNR were a different style of metal than bands like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin because heavy metal has subcategories too.... hair metal, thrash metal, etc., and the sounds and styles changed over the years from these earliest heavy metal bands in the late 60's and early 70's to the metal bands of the 80's and 90's. But they all are in the heavy metal genre, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm getting the feeling that it's somehow insulting to call these bands heavy metal, but it's really not. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc. were pioneers of a new style of rock music. They should be given that recognition and credit... they were trend-setting bands.

[Doug]

It can be noted that Jimmy Page has said numerous times he does not consider Led Zeppelin a heavy metal band, but a hard rock band.  But it's just a label anyway, and Page might not be the best one to decide the issue.  I, personally, would not consider them a heavy metal band because they were so much more than that, but for their time they were the loudest, rauchiest band around.  Black Sabbath is more a true heavy metal band, I think, the ultimate heavy metal band.  Led Zeppelin's range was just so great, and extended beyond loud guitars and heavy riffs.  However, Physical Graffitti is as much a heavy metal album as any put out.  I'd put Zed Zeppelin in the same category as Jimi Hendrix, and both showed what hard rock could be and should be, but unfortunately no one since has been able to really showcase hard rock as its own distinct artform.  Now, too often, heavy metal music is basically mindless, and only concerned with the heavy side of music, forgetting that you need balance, you need the light along with the dark.  Aerosmith, at one time, was a pretty awesome band, but they never had the sheer talent of Hendrix or Zeppelin, and at their height never quite achieved the same grandeur.   Guns N' Roses always struck me as a so-so copy of Aerosmith, performing their version of pop-metal.

I think it's worth saying that the label heavy metal has bad connotations and implicitly contains its own restrictions, and that's too bad, because it can limit what a band puts out.  Just think if Led Zeppelin had felt they could only put out heavy sounding music, and had left all their great accoustic and lighter blues songs in some studio vault.  

[Matt]

I think it's the "negative connotations" toward the phrase "Heavy Metal" that have made some of the posters in this thread cringe and swear that Led Zeppelin wasn't a heavy metal band. But, that's just not the case. Led Zeppelin has always been considered a heavy metal band. When I was buying their albums in the 70s, before the second wave of heavy metal in the 1980s, they were considered a heavy metal band. And back in those days, especially because of the disco phase, those of us who were 'headbangers' 'potheads', or whatever you wanted to call us, knew our rock music... we lived for it. We read all the magazines of the day, bought all the music, listened to only the hardest rock stations, and remember... this was well before Metallica or Guns n Roses were even on the radar. Led Zeppelin was THE heavy metal band. They were IT.  And there was absolutely nothing shameful about it.  Now that bands like Poison, Ratt, etc. came out with their new breed of heavy metal, it's all of a sudden a case of "Led Zeppelin wasn't a heavy metal band." Well, they were.  Read any book, any magazine on the history of rock music, and you'll see it's a fact.  I've already posted some great links in this thread, don't know if anyone has bothered reading them. But, there's a history of rock and heavy metal in those threads that reads exactly as I remember it growing up in the 1970s.

I typed in a google search "First heavy metal band" and this link came up:  http://www.rarevinyl.net/heavy_punk.htm

According to most metal annals, the first outbursts came from the Kinks with 'You Really Got Me' and the Who with 'My Generation' around 1964. As for the first heavy metal artist, that position arguably belongs to Alice Cooper, whose band was founded in 1965 under the name The Spiders (that means the Coop has been at it for 33 years!). However, HEAVY METAL was not to truly flourish until the year of 1967 and Alice Cooper was to become embedded in the collective mind of the world until 1971 with the classic Love It To Death. During 1967, the rock world was still absorbed by the Summer of Love, but it was about to witness one of its most important revolutions; bands like Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, Uriah Heep, Black Widow and Atomic Rooster came to being between 1966 and 1970, and struck the world with what Steppenwolf would call in one of its songs 'heavy metal thunder" (the first time the term was ever used; originally used to describe the sound of a motorcycle).

A new type of music, which borrowed heavily from rock and roll, was gaining influence on the youth of those times, which was already getting tired of the stagnant Summer of Love scene. Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were the first bands to give (hard) rock a high commercial profile. Several new bands were spawned by the growing heavy metal explosion, while others like Status Quo hardened their sound; but until 1973 the kings of heavy metal were undoubtedly Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. During the mid-Seventies, six new bands were to also walk into the spotlight: the Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Queen, Aerosmith, and Kiss.

If it's still in question, I'll dig out my copy of Rolling Stone Magazines History of Rock Music encyclopedia... but at this point, I think it doesn't matter what proof I come up with... the idea of Led Zeppelin being in the same basic category as some of the defilers of the heavy metal genre is too distasteful to accept.

Anyway, I agree with Doug on what he's saying of Led Zeppelin's music. It's important to realize, though, that this first wave of heavy metal music wasn't mindless, and it wasn't just about screaming guitars and no melodies:

Heavy metal is a development of blues music and blues rock and pop. Its first wave, between 1967 and 1974, was a hybrid of pop and blues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_music

As I said above, there's subcategories of heavy metal that the later metal bands of the 1980's fit into that separates them from the earliest heavy metal bands of the 60s and 70s. But Led Zeppelin was one of the first bands that was considered a heavy metal band.

[Matt]

Here's a quote from another site that says it well:

Led Zeppelin was the definitive heavy metal band. It wasn't just their crushingly loud interpretation of the blues -- it was how they incorporated mythology, mysticism, and a variety of other genres (most notably world music and British folk) -- into their sound. Led Zeppelin had mystique. They rarely gave interviews, since the music press detested the band. Consequently, the only connection the audience had with the band was through the records and the concerts. More than any other band, Led Zeppelin established the concept of album-oriented rock, refusing to release popular songs from their albums as singles. In doing so, they established the dominant format for heavy metal, as well as the genre's actual sound.

http://www.mtv.com/bands/az/led_zeppelin/bio.jhtml

What the heck, here's another:

Led Zeppelin, popular British rock band, which pioneered the development of heavy-metal rock music. The group was started in 1968 by guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. Its first album, Led Zeppelin (1969), introduced a blues-based guitar style much like that of other 1960s rock music, but louder and wilder than any of its predecessors.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579371/Led_Zeppelin.html

And another:

Which brings us to Led Zeppelin II, a Page-riff-driven, hard rocking album that established Zep as the kings of heavy metal.

http://classicrock.about.com/library/weekly/aatp_ledzeppelincds.htm

Another:

Led Zep defined stadium rock in the seventies. They invented heavy metal - but were always more than happy to have a pint down the local folk club. One of the most influential bands of the twentieth century.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/profiles/ledzeppelin.shtml

One more:

Led Zeppelin defined what has become heavy metal and hard rock, earning themselves a place in music history as one of the greatest bands ever. Coming up in Britain at the same time the Bay Area was busting with psychedelia, Led Zeppelin would move to break all boundaries known to traditional rock.

http://www.allperson.com/allperson/legend/0000000081.asp

[Doug]

Great quotes and great links, Matt.  I hope you don't think I was debating with you, only pointing out what Page has said in interviews.  And heavy metal music and rock music in general is so different now from what it was thirty-five years ago, it means seeing things now with a different perspective.  (Even for someone like Page, who saw things from the inside out.)  And the heavy blues influence has mostly evolved out of heavy metal music, for the worse.  

[Matt]

It's cool, Doug.

It's funny... I really don't care if someone doesn't like The Beatles, or The Stones, or any other of my favorite bands. But it really gets my goat to have bands that actually created and defined rock and heavy metal music being stripped of their accomplishments by saying they weren't a rock band or weren't a heavy metal band because those genres have changed in the ensuing decades. That's not any different from someone saying that Alfred Hitchcock films weren't suspense films because the suspense genre has changed so much that now his films weren't at all suspenseful, so we'll just call them dramas. Okay, maybe that's not exactly true of Hitchcock, but I think you see the correlation here. It would be blasphemous to say that since he was the "master of suspense", and if he didn't create the genre, he certainly took it to the next level.

Anyway, I don't know nearly as much about movies as I do rock music, but I was trying to make some kind of correlation to show why I'm so annoyed by the idea of the Beatles not being a rock band, or that Led Zeppelin wasn't a heavy metal band. You can't change history like that just because new artists take that genre further, or in a different direction, or even flood the genre with inferior product. Instead, you create subgenres for the newer artists' works.  (Besides, I still think the Beatles sound as much like a rock band as any other non-heavy metal rock band... take U2 for instance.)

Anyway, it's all classic rock now. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Doors, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Blind Faith, etc.  All great rock artists.

[Matt]

More great music for anyone interested (click on the link inside each of the following links):

Gimme Shelter  One of the greatest songs by the Rolling Stones.

Helter Skelter  Since I compared the sound of U2 to The Beatles, I'm posting U2's live version of "Helter Skelter". I posted a link for the original Beatles version on the first page of this thread. I think the Beatles outrock U2 here, but it's such a great song only Motley Crue could ruin it (and they did).

A Gallon of Gas I struggled between posting "You Really Got Me", "All Day and All of the Night", "Lola", "Destroyer" and this song. This may be the lesser known of all these Kinks songs, but I love it. Gant, I put this one up for you, since I remember you saying you'd recently gotten into the Kinks, and didn't know if you'd heard this one yet.

(Usual disclaimer:  These songs are all on different websites, so they shouldn't all be down at the same time, but since Geocities only allows large files of this size to be downloaded about once an hour, if the link you click on doesn't work, try again later.)

[Hemlock]

I´m quite big fan of Mötley Crüe but I got to agree with you Matt.Sixx,Neil,Lee and Mars did rape the Helter Skelter  

That version sucks.No doubt.

Btw Matt how do you like Aerosmith`s version of Come Together

[Matt]

I´m quite big fan of Mötley Crüe but I got to agree with you Matt.Sixx,Neil,Lee and Mars did rape the Helter Skelter  

That version sucks.No doubt.

I'm actually feeling a little bad over here for beating up on one of your favorite bands, Hemlock. But, you do have me laughing at your opinion of their version of Helter Skelter.

Btw Matt how do you like Aerosmith`s version of Come Together

I've been a fan of Aerosmith almost as long as I've been a Beatles fan. At the tender age of eleven, I went to my first rock concert, and it was Aerosmith. I thought I remembered it as the "Toys in the Attic" tour, but it may have been the "Rocks" tour. In any case, Iron Butterfly opened up, then out came Aerosmith. They played "Sweet Emotion" then "10 Inch Record", and before they could play their third song, some jerk threw a bottle onstage and managed to hit Steven Tyler squarely on the forehead. The band walked off the stage, and Steven said they'd never play in Philadelphia again. That was the end of my first rock concert, and that was the last Philly saw of Aerosmith for probably close to 20 years.

I still loved the band, though, and so I've always liked their version of "Come Together". However... I don't like it nearly as much as the original by The Beatles. Aerosmith's version has a heavier sound, but it doesn't seem to be a more rocking version--it just sounds heavier to me. Plus, John Lennon has one of the greatest voices in rock music (as much as The Beatles are respected, I think his singing voice is pretty underrated.)  Steven Tyler sounds good here, but Lennon, in my opinion, sounds phenomenal. So, all in all, I'd say Aerosmith's is a respectable cover, but doesn't touch the genius of the original.

Anyway, I'm having fun sharing music today, so here are the two versions. I'd like to hear other opinions from anyone who'd care to listen to both.

The Beatles - Come Together

Aerosmith -  Come Together

(The usual boring disclaimer...  if the links inside the above links are down, try back again in about an hour... Geocities limits how often huge files like this can be downloaded.)

[Christopher]

I like both of those versions of "Come Together" too. But I think I heard Aerosmith's version first. I think the song might have been playing when I found out it was originally a Beatles song. My mom said something to me about it.

[Hemlock]

I also heard Aerosmith`s version of Come Together first and used to think that it was an original Aerosmith song

I was very much into hardrock when I was younger..hell I still am but anyway when I got a bit older I started to listen diffrent kind of music as well.

I was surprised to learn that Beatles had songs like Come Together and Helter Skelter.Those songs really rocks.

Anyway I like both of those Come Together versions but if I´ll have to pick one it would be Aerosmith`s version

By the way I saw Aerosmith when they were on Nine Lives tour.Great show.Much better than Paul MacCartney`s concert last summer which was only pretty good.

Oh and Matt you can say anything you want about the Mötley Crüe.I don`t take these things as personal as I used to do when I was teenager...and I´m pretty sure that Sixx and the boys don`t care either

[Matt]

Yes, I'm sure Mötley Crüe hasn't missed the bit of pocket change they would have gotten from me if I had bought any of their records.  

Who knows... maybe if I had heard Aerosmith's version of "Come Together" first, and really liked it, the Beatles' version of it would have never sounded right, or as good.