You know why I’m a fan of Lester Bangs? Not because
he’s the greatest music journalist to ever have written, not
because he stuck it to Rolling Stone by getting fired and starting
his own magazine, and not because he was a cooler-than-cool
character in “Almost Famous.”
I love Lester Bangs because as far as I know, he’s the
only person with enough balls to talk trash about Led Zeppelin.
During my 19 years of existence, I’ve never heard anyone
say anything bad about Led Zeppelin. In fact, the vast majority of
Led Zeppelin-related comments and conversations I’ve had
involved the other person worshipping the 1970s rock group as if it
was the only band that ever mattered. Secretly, I never understood
their love, though for most of my life I pretended to be a Led
Zeppelin fan simply because there existed no plausible
alternative.
But when I read Lester Bangs’ opus of a Stooges review and
saw, in print, the words “lumbering sloths” and
“too accomplished and cocky to do anything but fuck up”
in reference to Led Zeppelin, my eyes were opened. This was the
sentiment I’d carried inside me for so long, deeply buried
beneath my need to listen to respectable music.
It’s true. I don’t like Led Zeppelin, and for a
number of reasons.
Firstly, Led Zeppelin is really just four absurdly talented
musicians trying to cram as much of their virtuosity into one song
as is humanly possible, making its music a sort of show-and-tell of
egomaniacal proportions.
Secondly, in presenting themselves as such godlike,
self-absorbed artists, the band members established a chasm between
them and their audience, making music something to be worshipped
rather than something to be shared.
Thirdly, its lyrics are, with only a few exceptions, insipid and
cliched, and no matter how much I may love pretentious imagery and
references to J.R.R. Tolkien, they act only as a means to show off
Robert Plant’s vocal melodies.
And lastly, claiming that Led Zeppelin is among your favorite
bands is probably the safest music-related assertion you could ever
make, prompting kids and adults with no opinions of their own to
endorse something that no one is going to oppose.
And so last year, with my eyes finally open, I began flippantly
remarking during conversations that “Led Zeppelin ruined
music,” a slightly exaggerated point of view intended to
incite some sort of reaction.
Within the first two weeks of my little experiment, I received a
string of verbal abuse, caused a girl at a party to leave the room
in anger, and was threatened live on the air on UCLAradio.com. But
that only proved my point: Most Led Zeppelin fans are simply
confusing good taste with the taste of the majority and can only
defend their opinion by praising Jimmy Page’s brilliant
guitar solos.
I’m not so pig-headed as to assume that all Led Zeppelin
fans are the same. I’m positive there are some out there who
could adequately defend the band if I were to claim again that it
ruined music. These people are not the problem.
The problem is that most Led Zeppelin “fans” are the
forefathers of a culture of people who wear T-shirts broadcasting
their love for The Clash, the Ramones and The Who when that love is
actually little more than a lack of opinion. The fact is that nine
out of every 10 Led Zeppelin shirts symbolize a mind that
isn’t thinking for itself.
But, as of now, it seems like it’s still Lester Bangs and
me against the world. And I’m OK with that. But hopefully now
you’ll think twice before getting those Led Zeppelin tattoos
you’ve been saving up for.
Next week: Duhamel takes on “Dark Side of the
Moon.” E-mail him at dduhamel@media.ucla.edu.