I can probably see where someone might say that, Bev. Zep made some great hard rock songs...Dazed & Confused, Whole Lotta Love, In The Evening, and Stairway To Heaven to name a few. Those songs have dark, heavy guitars, great riffs, and provided bands that came after them with an incredible influence on their playing. Still not heavy metal.
It's not just what the guitars, bass and drums sound like, a lot of it has to do with the subject matter and how it's presented by the artist as well. Sabbath were masters of this (Sabbra Cadabra anyone?). Alice Cooper too (Under My Wheels came to mind first). Alice's songs were dark and heavy, but to me, his constant use of horns keeps him in the Hard Rock genre with Aerosmith, DP, Zep and Kiss. Kiss in the 70s isn't metal, but they had the same ingredients I mentioned with Led Zeppelin, and their image/stage show is something no one else can duplicate or match without coming off like a bunch of posers. Deep Purple were awesome, but outside of the Machine Head album, you can't say they were metal in any sense of the word. The closest Deep Purple came to the heavy sound of Machine Head was with Perfect Strangers. They are literally in the same boat that Kiss and Zep were in back in the 70's musically. Kiss' sound got bigger and darker in 81/82, when they replaced drummer Peter Criss with Eric Carr. It's Eric's double bass technique and superior drumming that kept Kiss' sound fresh. If you listen or even watch Peter Criss playing say, Detroit Rock City or Love Gun, and then watch footage of Eric Carr playing those same songs on the Unmasked Tour. The drums have a bigger sound. Not just because of the double bass, but b/c his overall playing style lent itself to taking those songs and the band's overall sound to the next level. If Gene & Paul had been smarter back in '77 when they were wooing Eddie Van Halen, they should've taken Alex Van Halen and replaced Peter Criss. Kiss' sound would've (presumably) soared to those sonic heights that didn't come until after Ace & Peter were replaced by Vinnie Vincent and Eric Carr.
[Show/Hide Quoted Message] (Quoting Message by Bev from Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:13:42 AM)| |  | Bev wrote: | | | I just finished a semester of rock & roll history. Turns out, from the perspective of rock & roll historians, Zep and some of the other bands, in question, form the foundation of "heavy metal." Ah, the past ... |
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