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Cliches



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