Great article on Led Zeppelin

[Disco Duck]

I stumbled across this article series, The Winners' History of Rock & Roll this weekend. I thought the author makes some excellent points about the inverse snobbishness of certain rock fans and music writiers. Enjoy!

http://grantland.com/features/the-winners-history-rock-roll-part-1-led-zeppelin/

[Charles J. White]

I stumbled across this article series, The Winners' History of Rock & Roll this weekend. I thought the author makes some excellent points about the inverse snobbishness of certain rock fans and music writiers. Enjoy!

http://grantland.com/features/the-winners-history-rock-roll-part-1-led-zeppelin/

Wow!!! If I ever meet the writer of this piece, I'm going to buy that person a meal because it was written in a such a way to exactly convey how I feel about Led Zeppelin. It clearly describes how Led Zeppelin kept pushing the boundaries and moving the goal post. The piece is the best written word of Zeppelin I have read at anytime. Thanks for bringing that to our attention!

[Disco Duck]

Wow!!! If I ever meet the writer of this piece, I'm going to buy that person a meal because it was written in a such a way to exactly convey how I feel about Led Zeppelin. It clearly describes how Led Zeppelin kept pushing the boundaries and moving the goal post. The piece is the best written word of Zeppelin I have read at anytime. Thanks for bringing that to our attention!

You're welcome. So far, this series is excellent. I finished reading Part 3, an article about Bon Jovi, last night.

[mstork]

You're welcome. So far, this series is excellent. I finished reading Part 3, an article about Bon Jovi, last night.

How do they shoehorn Bon Jovi into that pantheon? If you could save me from reading about that abomination of a band I'd be in your debt! :-D

[Strider]

In other words, as David Lee Roth astutely noted back in 1980, "the reason so many critics like Elvis Costello is because they look like Elvis Costello."

How do they shoehorn Bon Jovi into that pantheon? If you could save me from reading about that abomination of a band I'd be in your debt! :-D

At first I thought I was reading an Arcade Fire "think piece"...there seemed to be more column inches devoted to Arcade Fire than Led Zeppelin. I still think Chuck Klosterman's might be the best recent writing on Led Zeppelin.

[mstork]

In other words, as David Lee Roth astutely noted back in 1980, "the reason so many critics like Elvis Costello is because they look like Elvis Costello."

At first I thought I was reading an Arcade Fire "think piece"...there seemed to be more column inches devoted to Arcade Fire than Led Zeppelin. I still think Chuck Klosterman's might be the best recent writing on Led Zeppelin.

Agreed, Klosterman is an entertaining writer and he "gets it" where Zeppelin's concerned.

[Charles J. White]

How do they shoehorn Bon Jovi into that pantheon? If you could save me from reading about that abomination of a band I'd be in your debt! :-D

I just read part 3 I had stuff to do earlier in the afternoon.

• It clearly states that Bon Jovi filled a gap when Slippery When Wet was released, which is code words for: ‘Def Leppard were busy spending years in the studio…’ which for Leppard is par for the course, and Bon Jovi was able to put out 4 studio albums in a short amount of time 1985-1992
• Jon Bonjiovi embraced the media when the rock critics disagreed he should do so
• The New York media i.e. Rolling Stone Magazine had the band on the cover a bunch of times, helping make them bigger more ‘legitimate’ artists and Howard Stern embraced Bonjiovi, making him a ‘rock n roll version of Bruce Springsteen’, America’s star – ‘The Steel riding cow boy who works on the dock’ and all that crap, America loves that kind of thing.
• Basically Jon Bonjiovi owned the legal band, so there were no negotiations within the band itself. It came down to Jon and his management and they could make snap choices right away i.e when it came to what single to release, and they actually had management which cared about Europe and Canada and didn’t focus on just the United States early on, so when Pearl Jam were all of the rage in America, Bon Jovi was busy playing big gigs in Europe until it was safe to come home again.
• They crafted a formula that changed the population at gigs from being 90% male to 10% male ‘because you gotta have the chicks’
• Jon, his Record Label and band Management worked really hard to make “It’s My Life” a hit and now he and Bruce Springsteen are A-List stars in the minds of New York and Los Angeles media…

For the record, I don't own a single Bon Jovi album, I have tried to give them a listen, many times because all of the chicks I know love them - but there was always something about the band that bothered me that I could never put my finger on for some reason.

[mstork]

I just read part 3 I had stuff to do earlier in the afternoon.

• It clearly states that Bon Jovi filled a gap when Slippery When Wet was released, which is code words for: ‘Def Leppard were busy spending years in the studio…’ which for Leppard is par for the course, and Bon Jovi was able to put out 4 studio albums in a short amount of time 1985-1992
• Jon Bonjiovi embraced the media when the rock critics disagreed he should do so
• The New York media i.e. Rolling Stone Magazine had the band on the cover a bunch of times, helping make them bigger more ‘legitimate’ artists and Howard Stern embraced Bonjiovi, making him a ‘rock n roll version of Bruce Springsteen’, America’s star – ‘The Steel riding cow boy who works on the dock’ and all that crap, America loves that kind of thing.
• Basically Jon Bonjiovi owned the legal band, so there were no negotiations within the band itself. It came down to Jon and his management and they could make snap choices right away i.e when it came to what single to release, and they actually had management which cared about Europe and Canada and didn’t focus on just the United States early on, so when Pearl Jam were all of the rage in America, Bon Jovi was busy playing big gigs in Europe until it was safe to come home again.
• They crafted a formula that changed the population at gigs from being 90% male to 10% male ‘because you gotta have the chicks’
• Jon, his Record Label and band Management worked really hard to make “It’s My Life” a hit and now he and Bruce Springsteen are A-List stars in the minds of New York and Los Angeles media…

For the record, I don't own a single Bon Jovi album, I have tried to give them a listen, many times because all of the chicks I know love them - but there was always something about the band that bothered me that I could never put my finger on for some reason.

Thanks for the synopsis, Charles. This is doo doo in my opinion. Basically Bon Jovi is a shrewd corporation but lacking in the musicality to be in this company for sure, and I'm from NJ.

Also always thought it was funny that their first hit, Runaway, was very much the hair metal formula of the time. Then all of a sudden he was Bruce Light, "Johnny used to work on the dock," and all that faux populist crap. Fast forward 10 years and he's "country". Bleh.

[Disco Duck]

Thanks for the synopsis, Charles. This is doo doo in my opinion. Basically Bon Jovi is a shrewd corporation but lacking in the musicality to be in this company for sure, and I'm from NJ.

Also always thought it was funny that their first hit, Runaway, was very much the hair metal formula of the time. Then all of a sudden he was Bruce Light, "Johnny used to work on the dock," and all that faux populist crap. Fast forward 10 years and he's "country". Bleh.

All true but, the series title is The Winners' History of Rock & Roll. You can't deny that from the standpoint of longevity and earnings, Bon Jovi are rock's winners.