Four (or Five!) Reasons Why

…Led Zeppelin Is The Greatest Band Of All Time

1. Led Zeppelin consistently produced great music. Each one of their eight studio albums (which excludes the 1982 outtakes record, Coda) went multi-platinum. Find another band that can say the same! In the United Kingdom, only the band’s first album, Led Zeppelin, didn’t reach #1 on the charts, peaking at 6. In the US, Led Zeppelin (the album) reached #10, while Led Zeppelin IV peaked at #4 on the charts. All others hit #1.

2. Despite disbanding in 1980 following John Bonham’s death, Led Zeppelin has only grown in popularity. Unlike most superbands whose shooting stars eventually crash to earth, Zeppelin can still be heard on classic rock stations and blaring from teenagers iPods around the world. Current superbands, such as U2, have maintained their status by consistently releasing new music and even The Beatles can’t claim to have maintained, or grown, its fan base like Zep.

3. Each of the band’s four members were among the best in the business at what they did. To most music critics, John Bonham is the best drummer of all time. Jimmy Paige was only behind Jimi Hendrix in true rock guitar genious. John Paul Jones was only matched in skill by Paul McCartney. And Robert Plant’s voice was an instrument in itself and was the only one that could carry the band’s music and lyrics (and he wasn’t a bad song writer to boot).  Band chemistry is tough and Zep had chemistry.

4. After announcing its reunion concert and creating a lottery system for tickets, impressions on the registration site surged to over one billion. At one point, the site was receiving over five million hits per hour. One million people registered for the lottery’s 9,000 pairs of tickets. There are very few, if any other, bands that have retained this kind of fan loyalty. The concert saw fans travel from all parts of the world and one man paid US$170,000 at a charity auction for two tickets. Insanity.

5. Zeppelin cover bands suck - maybe with the exception of Dread Zeppelin just for pure fun. Every band has someone covering their tunes somewhere. And some of those covers are actually good. But nobody seems to have been able to do justice to Led Zeppelin’s song. No way. No how. And that is a sign of the greatest band ever.

Added bonus: YouTube video of Led Zeppelin playing Stairway to Heaven last night in London.