Re: led zeppelin
I love Zeppelin. IV is obviously the most consistent album, but everyone has personal favourites. Like Houses of the Holy. Physical Graffiti is incredible for the most part, too.
Bonham is, for me, one of the most entertaining musicians alive or dead to listen to, no doubt. His swing was pretty seamless, and unorthodox. I like how they wrote Black Dog to have an un-danceable rhythm; it just made it even funkier.
Page getting hooked on junk is what started the end of it, though. Credit to Bonzo for bringing the later-era stuff to life, and Jonesy for stepping up, but it was never the same band once Jimmy became a smackhead.
Like Presence. Amazing in parts, but you can tell he spent two days awake doing the overdubs. It was raw but it lacked that methodical approach to production which he brought to earlier albums. By In Through the Out Door he'd plain lost his chops, and the mix on his guitar was pretty rough. Still, it's not like it's a terrible album.
I think also Jimmy Page was a visionary producer, with a few excellent solos, but I never considered him the upper echelon of guitarists. On a similar tip, I love Zeppelin's music but I don't think it transcends in the same way the Beatles (who owned the decade prior), Stones, Hendrix, Kinks, Beach Boys, D12 etc sorta do.
Completely agree with the imagined 80s slump into the 90s renaissance. I always thought Aerosmith's Pump sounded sorta like something you could imagine Zep doing after having a shit decade. Which by all indications, it would have been. Except that it was, anyway.
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