andrew.pilsch.com

An assertion: white teenagers continue to listen Led Zeppelin and feel
subversive, as they have for the last 40 years. Why?

Largely, I’m interested, here, in addressing the continuance of
classic rock as a radio
format and a viable musical option when other (arguably better) forms
of music have dropped out of the popular teenage imagination (think
punk, disco, post punk, new wave, and hair metal (although I wouldn’t
argue that as better (although Quiet Riot is more fun)).
Specifically, though, I’m interested in why one band, Led Zeppelin, is
regarded as the paragon of artistic craft, rock&roll rebellion, raw
sexuality, and unassailable anti-commercialism when there are other
bands that are provably better at any of these features. Why Led
Zeppelin?

I should also point out that this post grew out of discussions with
Jeff Nealon
and Shawna Ross after Dr.
Nealon’s seminar on Fredric Jameson. Inevitably, I think Jameson’s
interest in the capitalist and Utopian valences of nostalgia, the
commodity, and cultural form drives such a conversation, especially
among people who care passionately about music. To continue …

I’m listening to I at the moment and, once again, I’d like to state
that I don’t get it. Why is this music regarded as unassailable? Why
is this the band that white teenagers glom onto when they enter
college. I could (but won’t) write a list of bands who are doing
similar things to Led Zeppelin and are doing it much better, but when
I’ve tried to interest some of my less musically obsessed friends in
bands like The Quicksilver Messenger Service or Television, they
aren’t interested. Yet, they continue to worship at the feet of Led
Zeppelin. Why?

This morning Shawna and I were talking about this issue again and
began to articulate the features of what makes Zeppelin so highly
regarded. We decided that it primarily revolves around three issues:
artistry, sexuality, and intellectuality. I think one could argue
that successful bands appeal to one of these three issues, but these
issues can also become detriments when pushed too far. Sexuality,
especially during the classic rock period, can easily become
homophobia inducing (think Bowie, Queen, or, even, Aerosmith).
Additionally, artistry can devolve into geeky guitar worship (think
King Crimson, or Yes (really all of prog rock)). Similarly,
intellectualism (which I think is tied to class issues) can become
problematic when pushed to far forward (prog rock again) or to far
into a working class esthetic (something like Thin Lizzy or even The
Rolling Stones). While one could argue for the popularity of all
these bands (and I would), I don’t think you could defensibly claim
that any of these bands are as universally regarded amongst people who
weren’t even born when they were doing their best work as Led
Zeppelin.

Why is this? Partly, I think it could be argued that Zeppelin more
than any other insanely popular classic rock band navigates these
three traits in a way that produces awesomeness and yet doesn’t
detract from the aura of the band. Zeppelin had raw sexuality and
yet, it isn’t in the same way as someone like Bowie or Freddie Mercury
or even Steven Tyler, where it becomes threatening to a perception of
masculinity.

Similarly, Led Zeppelin is as masturbatory as, if not more so than,
any of the great prog bands. The difference I think is that, for
Zeppelin, the point was largely not on the artistry qua artistry.
Even a song like “Moby Dick” (which is nothing but a really long drum
solo) still continues this esthetic. One can make this claim based on
what I know about the way Led Zeppelin and their fans talked about the
songs, and that Led Zeppelin articulated a position that was “all
about the music” that, ultimately, disarticulates the individual
artists as the producers of the music. In establishing the
transcendental nature of their music, Led Zeppelin de-emphasizes the
masturbatory nature of its performance in a way that someone like
Robert Fripp never did. Thus, Led Zeppelin-as-vessel escapes from the
geeky aura that often surrounds prog rock.

The same sort of operation can be seen at work in their articulation
of intellectualism. While clearly interested in mysticism, J.R.R.
Tolkein, and other esoteric topics, these subjects are integrated into
the music in a way that doesn’t overly emphasize them, as though you
don’t have to know anything about the topics to appreciate them. At
the same time, this application of highly intellectual topics doesn’t
come packaged in an intimidating fashion, as with some of the great
“concept” albums that demand close attention to the lyrics. What I
mean is that one doesn’t have to have read any Tolkein to enjoy “The
Battle of Evermore”, but if someone isn’t paying close attention to
every element of, say, The Wall or Tommy, the listener may miss
something. Similarly, Led Zeppelin’s intellectual lyrics escape the
obscurity of some of the more intellectual bands who would come later.

Also, almost as a side note: as I’ve been listening to Led Zeppelin’s
music, I’m really struck by how pop-oriented their albums are. While
Led Zeppelin never issued singles, preferring that their albums be
experienced as wholes, these songs are composed as stand-alone
singles. You don’t get the massive song cycles that Pink Floyd or the
Who were producing during this period. At the same time, though, the
music has the bombast and epic scope of these bands, albeit self
contained in individual mini-opuses. Even more, I would wager that
many people don’t listen to Led Zeppelin albums straight through,
instead preferring to focus on the “Whole Lotta Love”‘s of the corpus. I think this may also contribute to the successful negotiation of
being an intellectual rock band without being perceived as nerds: they
are producing hit pop singles that appear to transcend the usual
bubblegum lyrical fare of pop songwriting.

To reiterate, Led Zeppelin is so successful and long-lived because it
is able to successfully navigate sexuality, artistry, and
intellectuality without falling prey to the specters of homophobia,
geekiness, or nerdiness. While all of these elements may help to
explain Led Zeppelin’s longevity, they don’t ultimately get at the
reason for why so many of my students continue to listen to Led
Zeppelin and think that doing so makes them subversive.

One striking feature of Led Zeppelin that goes even further to
explaining this element of subversion has to deal with the way culture
of this period is absorbed by people my age and younger.
Specifically, the main way to experience classic rock at this moment
is to encounter it through commercials and film soundtracks or through
our parents. Exploring these two themes will, I think, go towards
explaining the reasoning for Led Zeppelin’s subversive appeal.

A feature that most may not know about Led Zeppelin is that, as a
band, they’ve refused, until very recently, to license their music for
use in commercials and films. According to this discussion,
they allowed Cameron Crowe to use their music in some of his films
because they were friends and there was a lot of money in the Cadillac
licensing deal. Apparently, this results from the band’s view that
such licensing would cheapen the music and soften it’s edge. By not
cheapening their music, the band has been able to preserve their image
as subversives and anti-capitalist renegades because they never “sold
out” where so many other classic rock bands sold out repeatedly.
Moreover, though, the lack of exposure on television and in films has
led to a mystique about the band. Whereas everyone has heard and seen
hundreds of pieces of film with Rolling Stones or Aerosmith songs
featured on the soundtrack, Led Zeppelin, despite being a heavily
commodified form, manages to remain above the taint of capital: it’s
almost as though the band really was doing it just for the music.

Additionally, this mystique is generational and mirrors generational
patterns of consumption. Just as my generation has experienced Led
Zeppelin without the taint of the commercial, the band’s refusal to
issue singles (as discussed above) reinforced this anti-commercial
stance in the minds of their original generation of fans: by not
issuing singles for ease of radio consumption, despite the fact that
there are very clear singles on each album, the band once again marked
themselves as being above and beyond the normal patterns of musical
consumption at the time. Rather than branding the band as elitists,
by casting this decision as being about not cheapening the music, Led
Zeppelin is, once again, able to establish themselves as vessels for
the music they produce and driven artistic geniuses with a clear and
formidable vision of rock & roll.

Finally, having mentioned generational patterns, I think the fact that
many people experience Led Zeppelin as an opportunity to bond with
their parents, which flips the nature of the way the music was
originally experienced (as part of a culture articulated through
resistance to parental authority). As such, I think we can see this
pattern of consumption as representing a shift in phallic authority
patterns within postmodern life. Alternately, I would suggest it has
to do with the shift in parental models brought about by Dr. Spock.
In any case, this aspect of Led Zeppelin’s music (originally consumed
as a means of subverting parental authority and now used a tool of
parental bonding) is perhaps the most troubling: why would something
our fathers were interested in be seen as a tool for further
subversion of The Man (who is a father, after all)?

I think part of this transformation in the reception of Led Zeppelin
ultimately forces us to confront the nature of subversion itself: if
the parental father figure no longer stands as the center of phallic
power (given that we now listen to our old man’s music to bond with
him) why do my students feel the need to be subversive at all? What
are you subverting by listening to Led Zeppelin. Possibly in this
transition of rebel music to bonding opportunity, we can see how
finally evacuated a concept such as subversion is.

Image Credit: Led Zeppelin by Dunechaser.