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Cliches
- Subject: Cliches
- Date: 03 Jul 96 10:18 PST
From: calbears@batnet.com (Jon Karesh)
>>>
Without trying to offend any of the Zep fans on the Digest, I think that
for at least the last 20 years, Robert Plant has sounded like nothing
more
than one of the biggest overblown rock cliches in history.
<<<
No offense taken, but that's because a style he pioneered (that high,
screeching, Voice Of Satan that could lower the blood temperature of
parents across an entire state in less than a second) was so heavily
copied and homogenized by Big Hair/Spandex "metal" bands (this process
continues even today). This happens a lot to people who excel,
especially in music. Paul McCartney gets a lot of flack about writing
sappy pop songs, but he practically invented modern pop music form.
Jagger gets reamed for continuing to strut around like a rooster, but
he's been doin' it for 30+ years (too bad he lost his voice for the last
15). My point is that while Plant may sound cliche' now, you have to
place his sound in context to the time it happened, and what has happened
*since then*. When Whole Lotta Love first came out, Zep didn't have
15,000 other bands with singers like that around.
The rest you can blame on overplay (and Zep is THE biggest victim of
overplay in rock history). Hell, we even talk on this list about how
disappointed we are of the prospect of getting yet *another* live version
of Behind Blue Eyes... Imagine if you had heard *any* Who song on the
radio as many times as you've heard Stairway To Heaven. Nothing can take
that kind of pounding and not sound cliche'.
OK,
KLW