Is it performed by Rockapella? Good stuff.

Zeppelin, hands down. I love Pink Floyd and would miss them if I never heard another song of theirs again. I would die if I never heard another LZ song again.

Blasphemy.


LZ1 is my all time favorite album.

I enjoy it too, but what you quoted is pretty much truth.

It's a good album, probably not my favorite Zeppelin album. And it was influential. It just gets way more credit than it deserves.

Sure, but the same could be said for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Or nearly any blues based rock band coming from the UK in the early to mid-60s. Most of them will readily admit to being influenced by blues artists. Robert Plant was singing in blues clubs from the time he was 16.

I agree with those who are saying comparing these bands is like comparing apples and oranges.

jspchief-
 

Absolutely you could say that about the Beatles and Stones. It's not about how they started, it's about when they broke out of their roots and started innovating. The Beatles, for instance, changed all of music when they did Sgt. Pepper. Yes, their roots were in copying American 50's rock-and-roll. Pepper was the pinnacle of the evolutionary process for the Beatles.

For Zeppelin, the pinnacle of that evolutionary process was likely Led Zeppelin 4, not Led Zeppelin 1. The clear beginnings of the process were first heard in Led Zeppelin 2 and really cemented in Led Zeppelin 3.

And that takes us back to the orginal argument - the progenesis of Heavy Metal music. By the time Led Zeppelin was recording genuinely "heavy" music, there were many, many other bands doing it.

i agree...but prefer the Who to both of them

Well, I tend to bristle at the notion that they are 'heavy metal' to begin with. They are NOT a heavy metal band. Neither is Pink Floyd for that matter. I tend to think of heavy metal bands as Judas Priest or Metallica.

Yeah, I don't really consider them metal either. I tend to bristle at the notion that MOTORHEAD is a metal band, so... :D

When I think of early metal I think of Sabbath and Deep Purple primarily.

When it comes to Zeppelin, I tend to blame the whole mid-to-late-80's "hair band" phenomenon on them. Whitesnake, Skid Row, etc. Blech.

On the bright side, the late-80's/early-90's Seattle scene was also heavily influenced by Zep according to Chris Cornell and Jerry Cantrell.

Led Zeppelin. since I like Blues based rock.

Pink Floyd is a not the same type of music.

Apples and oranges comparison.

"Dub Side Of The Moon"...

I was very pleasantly surprised. I've tested many PF 'tribute' albums in my time. Most are snorefests--the kind you listen to once and throw in the back of your collection to gather dust. But "Dub" is worthy of repeated listenings...

As for Pachelbel...have you had a chance to sample
this one?...

I think Zep is the best rock band in history.

I've always given the credit to some of the later-era Beatles material for actually starting heavy metal. Stuff like "Revolution," "Get Back," and so on. I think that distorted guitar and heavy riffing style that typifies heavy metal started there. I'm not sure what years those came out, though, so I don't know if Sabbath's heavy metal phase (they started as accoustic folk, didn't they?) or Zeppelin came first or not.

As to the original question, it's impossible to answer. First, it depends on what dimensions you consider when deciding what is "better" than another thing. There has to be a common dimension that can be more narrowly defined than simply that they're both "rock and roll" bands. As others have noted, they're both rock, but they are very dissimilar in the kind of rock they play. It would be equally hard to answer which was more influential. Influential on what subgenre? The only answer I can give is that both of them were great bands, both were very influential in their own ways, both were talented and innovative in their own ways, and if I had to choose one that I liked more than the other, I would probably have to lean slightly to Pink Floyd, probably for no better reason than that Zeppelin (as someone noted) is very blues-based, and I don't like blues all that much.