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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
i think you're wrong because they're on a different scale. it's not an issue of taste. if you were to have said bowie i'd accept the difference as a matter of aesthetic preferences. shit, bowie defined the era and then the era to come--where zep was a kind of apotheosis of the 60s legacy bowie was leaping ahead to the future. but joy division as much as one might like them or as much as they might have influenced its successors is not in the same league as either of them.
eta: same goes for the white stripes who had 3 decades to come up with their own minor variation. and while that's not my scene google just showed me that lately jack white has been covering the lemon song w/ a spent plant as guest vocalist lolol.
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Oh, shit I totally should have said Bowie!
I wasn't arguing that the 70s were defined by Led Zeppelin. I was saying that *my* rock and roll history (that is, the part of the story that is connected to the music I care about, and the bands and artists that had a direct influence on the music of *my* 80's and 90's) had nothing to do with Zeppelin.
But you're right that they were the biggest band of the decade... or one of them. I'm not arguing that Joy Division, the Stooges, Lou Reed, etc. were more popular or more iconic than Zeppelin. I'm just saying they defined the parts of the '70s that were significant to me.
But sure- David Bowie! Station to Station! Low! Diamond Dogs! Aladdin Sane! Whatever! It's all great. But still, Bowie didn't sell a fraction of the albums that Zeppelin did. He's never been that big on paper, just in life.
Also, I think American Beauty by the Grateful Dead might be, if not my favorite, then one of my favorite albums of that decade. Yet another band that had a massive, immeasurable impact on music and culture, but who were just a little too weird to sell 20 million (or 10, or 5 million) copies of any individual albums.
But if Bowie works for you, use Bowie. There's also Television, Talking Heads, the Clash, Elvis Costello... but let's face it, none of these bands equal Zepp's commercial success. Not if you combined them all.
I just don't swing that way pal. Big ass rock music is something I can only enjoy when it's steeped in irony or humor. I do however enjoy reading reviews of early Zeppelin albums, from Rolling Stone and wherever else. They are almost uniformly scathing, and really goddamn funny.