The Heart of Rock and Soul Poll Part 40 #1-25

As someone who grew up in the '70s and '80s, it took me a long time to appreciate '50s rock - in fact, I've only really started to enjoy it in the past couple of years. I never had any trouble appreciating the Beatles though - I liked them a lot in high school, whereas something like Elvis just sounded corny. There does seem to be some kind of divide in music history right around the Beatles - stuff before that is kind of antediluvian - whereas the Beatles still sound kind of contemporary. I'm not sure exactly why that is - I guess it's lots of things - the production, arrangements, more overt blues and country influence, the vocal styles, a kind of unironic innocence and enthusiasm. However, I think it's really worth trying to get through that mental block, because lots of '50s rock is actually a blast. I think I actually developed a taste for things like Chicago blues, Frank Sinatra, and Hank Williams first, but once I'd gotten into that stuff, it wasn't too hard to find lots to appreciate in Elvis, Ricky Nelson, the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Little Richard, etc.

Well, Jack White's definitely listened to his share of Zeppelin (who had their big nostalgia moment in the late '80s: Cult, Beasties, Whitesnake, Kingdom Come, Soundgarden, Golden Palominos, etc). But I'd say White Stripes are an anomaly in the indie and even commercial hard rock world now (Drive By Truckers and Hold Steady too, plus probably a couple stray stoner metal bands, and all of Nashville if that counts) inasmuch as still acknowledging blues-based hard rock at all.

some hip-hoppers have listened to their share of zeppelin too. as has fergie to take one random pop example, of which i'm sure there are many others.

xp And okay, there's hack bands like Jet and Wolfmother and Buckcherry (as far as blues-based hard rock if not necessarily Zep goes), plus AC/DC and Black Crowes and Slash and Axl are still around. And I'm sure even Nickelback type bands have listened to lots of Zeppelin, even if they've never absorbed it successfully into their sound. Just saying the numbers are dwindling, and the sound may still be on its way out.

(but right, iatee said "outside of hard rock." Those are all hard rock obv.)

I hear tons of Zep in contemporary indie stuff - freak folk stuff can be pretty easily tied back to Zep III for ex.

but yeah, the 50s are disappearing. the 20s and 30s are already gone from contemporary memories, by and large.

that being said it was only this year that I really started to dig Little Richard. haha part of which grew out of noticing that Zep quotes the drum intro to "Keep a Knockin'" on "Rock n Roll"

xp Yeah, freak folk makes sense, I guess, as far as Zep's Celtic side. And early Chicago house music producers actually used to cite Zep's wide-screen expansive and epic approach to space, noise, and rhythm as an influence pretty often, but that was in the mid/late '80s again; not sure whether dance music has retained the influence since. (Well, big beat maybe -- I could see it in, say, Prodigy. Beyond that, who knows.)