Exile on Main Street vs. Physical Graffiti

[Guest Len B'stard]

In the England of the time I was a teenager it was all, Human Traffic and the last vestiges of the rave scene. And the black American artists were also making a huge impact. The girls, then as now, also liked the cheesy pop. I wish it wasn't the case and my teenage years were like 'Dazed and Confused' - more dope fueled keg party, less ecstacy fueled rave - but that is the way it was! If I was to split the musical tastes of my teenage contemporaries (1995-98), of the big comprehensive working class High School I attended, I would say that...

- 80% were into hardcore techno, cheesy pop, rave, rap and hip hop. The girls tended to like the pop. The boys, the others.

- 15% were into BritPop which became big, 1995 onwards (Oasis, Blur, Manics).

- 5% were into Heavy Metal,(Metallica were the dominant force here), Grunge and Guns N' Roses who deserve their own category as a sort of, 'Classic Rock Band' only recent. You have to remember that there were people in High School who had worshipped GN'R in Middle School when they were the biggest band in the world during the Illusion Tour - I am one of them.

So you are probably only disccusing 20% who had a potential pathway into the byways of classic rock n' roll bands. The BritPoppers first port of call was The Beatles (The Anthology 1 dropped in the same year that Oasis and Blur exploded) and the Metalheads/Grungers/GN'R fans might have access to Zep and Sabbath first.

I tended to head for the metalhead group even though I was more, 'the classic rock/GN'R stuff guy'. I seemed to have the most in common with that group although I despised some of the Metalhead bands (Slayer and Sepultura). I actually saw a lot of merit in Brit Pop but I didn't head in that direction for some reason; you have to remember that classroom politics also played a part in what scene you chose.

So that was what happened when I grew up.

Have you noticed, nobody liked Classical Music (which I love)? Maybe one or two of the wealthier 'horsey' set liked it - girls? Who knows? Classical Music is in an even worse position for discovery than Classic Rock so perhaps we should be grateful.

See now mine was EXACTLY like that almost....and thats all i'm saying, people invent this shit in their head based on statistics or what have you and, y'know, certain bands are hugely popular and they do have a huge following but don't fuckin' delude yourself and re-write your own history into something it's not.

Ravers up, Metallers down, kick those bastards out of town, anyone remember that?

No one fuckin' liked metallers when i was a lad and this was over a decade ago. To suggest that, in this day and age, 15 years since i've been to fuckin' school, that Zeppelin are as universally loved as 'hugs and chocolate' it's simply not true and just a totally inaccurate representation of reality.

And like you're sayin' Diesel, even Guns n Roses, i got the fuckin' piss taken out of me in school for liking them, even by the 8 or 9 metallers that existed there, even THEY thought it was a load of bollocks, no one rated you for liking that stuff, it weren't like, the universal standard against which a few curmudeonly people that hate whats popular types were kicking against, people found the whole thing ridiculous.

And this deep down is what bothers a lot of metallers, the fact that, actually, what they are into isn't hated, it isn't even regarded enough to be hated, it's just considered laughable, poodle haircuts and screeching voices and poofy little waistcoats over naked hairy chests, it's little more than something someone would stop and take the piss out of for 10 seconds then get on with their life.

I ain't saying it's right or wrong, i'm just talkin' about fuckin' reality here. Even the magazines that sing these bands up, the ones that rate em, even in their descriptions of it and praise of it, there is a vein of piss-taking there, of taking the mickey out of them and the image.

I can see how the delusion begins, you leave school out of your 5 man clique of rock fans and then you go out into the world and find people with common interests and watch reunion shows with thousands of thousands of people attended and then you click a few wiki quotes and see 'WOW...5th highest selling artist of ALL TIME?!?! Wow...EVERYBODY must love Led Zeppelin' and it's like, uh, actually, no they don't

Edited May 10, 2013 by sugaraylen

[Randy Lahey]

It was more like Dazed and Confused here. There would be all kinds of music being played at outdoor parties.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[wasted]

Nothing has Universal appeal but Call of Duty sell 8 million copies the first week.

[Guest Len B'stard]

It was more like Dazed and Confused here. There would be all kinds of music being played at outdoor parties.

Not saying anything one way another about this particular assertion Randy but i tend to find in this life, when people say that their life was like a highly stylised Hollywood film about youth culture starring the beautiful people, they're talking out of their fuckin' arse Sorry!

[DieselDaisy]

It was not poodle-headed so much now though. Grunge had killed the poodle-haired bands. For the Metalheads in my school, read 'Thrash' Metalheads. It was you big macho speed-freaks, Metallica (they were kings) followed-up by, Slayer, Pantera, Sepultura, Megadeth, Anthrax. This was until, the arrival of Nu-Metal but that was just beginning to explode (Freak on A Leash is, 1998?) when I was about to leave High School so I cannot really comment on that scene.

I was a bit of a oddity as I had been listening to The Beatles, Stones and Hendrix since I was about 11 or 12. When I entered high school I could have headed in either direction, the BritPop scene or, the Metalhead scene. Perhaps unwisely I slipped into the Metalhead scene but I did - and still do like - Metallica so there was some common ground. In hindsight BritPop was the most credible of all of the musical genres at that time.

From experience, Metalheads are very, elitist: every music is considered 'shite' compared to their bands.

GN'R went from being the biggest band in the world (93) to being completely unpopular (94) almost overnight.

Nothing has Universal appeal but Call of Duty sell 8 million copies the first week.

That is a good point actually. Computer Games were shoving music aside (I was at school during the Playstation One and the beginnings of 'adult' gaming, stuff like Tekken). The kids in my high schooloften paid £40 for a game as opposed to £10 for a CD.

[Randy Lahey]

It was more like Dazed and Confused here. There would be all kinds of music being played at outdoor parties.

Not saying anything one way another about this particular assertion Randy but i tend to find in this life, when people say that their life was like a highly stylised Hollywood film about youth culture starring the beautiful people, they're talking out of their fuckin' arse Sorry!

Everybody would get together on Friday night for an outdoor party somewhere and there would be all kinds of music playing.

[Dazey]

In the England of the time I was a teenager it was all, Human Traffic and the last vestiges of the rave scene. And the black American artists were also making a huge impact. The girls, then as now, also liked the cheesy pop. I wish it wasn't the case and my teenage years were like 'Dazed and Confused' - more dope fueled keg party, less ecstacy fueled rave - but that is the way it was! If I was to split the musical tastes of my teenage contemporaries (1995-98), of the big comprehensive working class High School I attended, I would say that...

- 80% were into hardcore techno, cheesy pop, rave, rap and hip hop. The girls tended to like the pop. The boys, the others.

- 15% were into BritPop which became big, 1995 onwards (Oasis, Blur, Manics).

- 5% were into Heavy Metal,(Metallica were the dominant force here), Grunge and Guns N' Roses who deserve their own category as a sort of, 'Classic Rock Band' only recent. You have to remember that there were people in High School who had worshipped GN'R in Middle School when they were the biggest band in the world during the Illusion Tour - I am one of them.

So you are probably only disccusing 20% who had a potential pathway into the byways of classic rock n' roll bands. The BritPoppers first port of call was The Beatles (The Anthology 1 dropped in the same year that Oasis and Blur exploded) and the Metalheads/Grungers/GN'R fans might have access to Zep and Sabbath first.

I tended to head for the metalhead group even though I was more, 'the classic rock/GN'R stuff guy'. I seemed to have the most in common with that group although I despised some of the Metalhead bands (Slayer and Sepultura). I actually saw a lot of merit in Brit Pop but I didn't head in that direction for some reason; you have to remember that classroom politics also played a part in what scene you chose.

So that was what happened when I grew up.

Have you noticed, nobody liked Classical Music (which I love)? Maybe one or two of the wealthier 'horsey' set liked it - girls? Who knows? Classical Music is in an even worse position for discovery than Classic Rock so perhaps we should be grateful.

See now mine was EXACTLY like that almost....and thats all i'm saying, people invent this shit in their head based on statistics or what have you and, y'know, certain bands are hugely popular and they do have a huge following but don't fuckin' delude yourself and re-write your own history into something it's not.

Ravers up, Metallers down, kick those bastards out of town, anyone remember that?

No one fuckin' liked metallers when i was a lad and this was over a decade ago. To suggest that, in this day and age, 15 years since i've been to fuckin' school, that Zeppelin are as universally loved as 'hugs and chocolate' it's simply not true and just a totally inaccurate representation of reality.

And like you're sayin' Diesel, even Guns n Roses, i got the fuckin' piss taken out of me in school for liking them, even by the 8 or 9 metallers that existed there, even THEY thought it was a load of bollocks, no one rated you for liking that stuff, it weren't like, the universal standard against which a few curmudeonly people that hate whats popular types were kicking against, people found the whole thing ridiculous.

And this deep down is what bothers a lot of metallers, the fact that, actually, what they are into isn't hated, it isn't even regarded enough to be hated, it's just considered laughable, poodle haircuts and screeching voices and poofy little waistcoats over naked hairy chests, it's little more than something someone would stop and take the piss out of for 10 seconds then get on with their life.

I ain't saying it's right or wrong, i'm just talkin' about fuckin' reality here. Even the magazines that sing these bands up, the ones that rate em, even in their descriptions of it and praise of it, there is a vein of piss-taking there, of taking the mickey out of them and the image.

I can see how the delusion begins, you leave school out of your 5 man clique of rock fans and then you go out into the world and find people with common interests and watch reunion shows with thousands of thousands of people attended and then you click a few wiki quotes and see 'WOW...5th highest selling artist of ALL TIME?!?! Wow...EVERYBODY must love Led Zeppelin' and it's like, uh, actually, no they don't

Another difference today and in more recent times is the proliferation of the internet. I mean my first computer with net access was around 96/97 and that was around the time that Napster was starting to blow up. The start of the file sharing revolution and all that basically meant that anybody with a computer could "get into" any band at the stroke of a few keys.

Back when I was at school these choices were so much more limited as in you had to know somebody who owned the records or save your money and buy 'em. I don't know personally of any kids I was at school with who were into anything other than shit pop and rave music because that's really all they had access to. Before file sharing hit it big there really wasn't the opportunity for kids to get into a wide range of music in the same way there is now and Zep certainly weren't universally loved at all in my experience.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Dazey

[wasted]

The people in music industry with money all shifted to games and imax movies. All theyve done with movies is change the format. Same with music the innovation has been the technology. Most bands are recycling 60s-90s.

00s was the peak of gaming. Why buy the Apocalypse now OST or Platoon on blu ray when you can virtually become a real soldier for $30.

[Guest Len B'stard]

In the England of the time I was a teenager it was all, Human Traffic and the last vestiges of the rave scene. And the black American artists were also making a huge impact. The girls, then as now, also liked the cheesy pop. I wish it wasn't the case and my teenage years were like 'Dazed and Confused' - more dope fueled keg party, less ecstacy fueled rave - but that is the way it was! If I was to split the musical tastes of my teenage contemporaries (1995-98), of the big comprehensive working class High School I attended, I would say that...

- 80% were into hardcore techno, cheesy pop, rave, rap and hip hop. The girls tended to like the pop. The boys, the others.

- 15% were into BritPop which became big, 1995 onwards (Oasis, Blur, Manics).

- 5% were into Heavy Metal,(Metallica were the dominant force here), Grunge and Guns N' Roses who deserve their own category as a sort of, 'Classic Rock Band' only recent. You have to remember that there were people in High School who had worshipped GN'R in Middle School when they were the biggest band in the world during the Illusion Tour - I am one of them.

So you are probably only disccusing 20% who had a potential pathway into the byways of classic rock n' roll bands. The BritPoppers first port of call was The Beatles (The Anthology 1 dropped in the same year that Oasis and Blur exploded) and the Metalheads/Grungers/GN'R fans might have access to Zep and Sabbath first.

I tended to head for the metalhead group even though I was more, 'the classic rock/GN'R stuff guy'. I seemed to have the most in common with that group although I despised some of the Metalhead bands (Slayer and Sepultura). I actually saw a lot of merit in Brit Pop but I didn't head in that direction for some reason; you have to remember that classroom politics also played a part in what scene you chose.

So that was what happened when I grew up.

Have you noticed, nobody liked Classical Music (which I love)? Maybe one or two of the wealthier 'horsey' set liked it - girls? Who knows? Classical Music is in an even worse position for discovery than Classic Rock so perhaps we should be grateful.

See now mine was EXACTLY like that almost....and thats all i'm saying, people invent this shit in their head based on statistics or what have you and, y'know, certain bands are hugely popular and they do have a huge following but don't fuckin' delude yourself and re-write your own history into something it's not.

Ravers up, Metallers down, kick those bastards out of town, anyone remember that?

No one fuckin' liked metallers when i was a lad and this was over a decade ago. To suggest that, in this day and age, 15 years since i've been to fuckin' school, that Zeppelin are as universally loved as 'hugs and chocolate' it's simply not true and just a totally inaccurate representation of reality.

And like you're sayin' Diesel, even Guns n Roses, i got the fuckin' piss taken out of me in school for liking them, even by the 8 or 9 metallers that existed there, even THEY thought it was a load of bollocks, no one rated you for liking that stuff, it weren't like, the universal standard against which a few curmudeonly people that hate whats popular types were kicking against, people found the whole thing ridiculous.

And this deep down is what bothers a lot of metallers, the fact that, actually, what they are into isn't hated, it isn't even regarded enough to be hated, it's just considered laughable, poodle haircuts and screeching voices and poofy little waistcoats over naked hairy chests, it's little more than something someone would stop and take the piss out of for 10 seconds then get on with their life.

I ain't saying it's right or wrong, i'm just talkin' about fuckin' reality here. Even the magazines that sing these bands up, the ones that rate em, even in their descriptions of it and praise of it, there is a vein of piss-taking there, of taking the mickey out of them and the image.

I can see how the delusion begins, you leave school out of your 5 man clique of rock fans and then you go out into the world and find people with common interests and watch reunion shows with thousands of thousands of people attended and then you click a few wiki quotes and see 'WOW...5th highest selling artist of ALL TIME?!?! Wow...EVERYBODY must love Led Zeppelin' and it's like, uh, actually, no they don't

Another difference today and in more recent times is the proliferation of the internet. I mean my first computer with net access was around 96/97 and that was around the time that Napster was starting to blow up. The start of the file sharing revolution and all that basically meant that anybody with a computer could "get into" any band at the stroke of a few keys.

Back when I was at school these choices were so much more limited as in you had to know somebody who owned the records or save your money and buy 'em. I don't know personally of any kids I was at school with who were into anything other than shit pop and rave music because that's really all they had access to. Before file sharing hit it big there really wasn't the opportunity for kids to get into a wide range of music in the same way there is now and Zep certainly weren't universally loved at all in my experience.

Oh they had access alright, record stores, the library, magazines singing em up, they just weren't the thing...

[wasted]

Classic rock or punk wasnt the thing. There Stone roses and chart music and people who fancied themselves as underground ravers. I always used to go to the rock after i got thrown out of Ritzys.

[Randy Lahey]

I mainly listened to 70's rock and gangster rap when I was in school. You guys had a different scene in the UK.

[Dazey]

Oh they had access alright, record stores, the library, magazines singing em up, they just weren't the thing...

Not on a tenner a week pocket money we fuckin' didn't! At least not when new CDs would go for £15 a pop and there was no easy way of telling what was shit and what wasn't. Especially with some of the old stuff back then how was a 13 year old kid supposed to get into Led Zeppelin when he'd never even heard a song of their's before? Think about it honestly though. The stuff I had access too mostly was Mother's old mowtown records and luckily my dad's rock music collection but apart from that where do you start when a single CD costs more than you get in a week?

[Aaron_H]

Physical Graffiti. </thread>

[Randy Lahey]

Didn't they play Led Zeppelin on the radio?

[Guest Len B'stard]

Your lucky mate, i didnt even get the tenner

[wasted]

Didn't they play Led Zeppelin on the radio?

Not in the UK. There was The Rock show on friday night at midnight. That played hard rock and heavy metal. Other than that only Guns, Maiden or Metallica would break into the pop charts.

But me and couple others liked Zepp. After GNR. I were semi outcasts. So you rejected the charts and even the stone roses and ended up at some pub that had back room where local bands would play and the jukebox had metal. And the cider was strong.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Didn't they play Led Zeppelin on the radio?

No not really, except on Capital Gold which is an oldies station and even then, they didn't so much lean on the side of your Zeppelins, more like 60s pop music like Lulu and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and at that. No one really listens to the radio much here, haven't for most of my lifetime at least.

And as for your previous post, see, there you go, Gangsta Rap, thats a more accurate reflection of what i remember SOME people listening to but even that hadn't really taken off HUGELY til i left school and also, it's interesting that you made a post asking earlier if anyone got called a wigger in their youth, from that i can gather that, at least outwardly, your appearance of demeanour reflected more that of someone into hip hop than 70s rock...out of curiosity, how outwardly apparent was your fondness for 70s rock? Did you talk about it, did you have a lot of mates that were into it, were that group of mates reflective of the majority where you're from?

[Randy Lahey]

It was completely different here. We had/have different stations for each genre. The Classic Rock stations even have blocks of time where they only play Led Zeppelin music for an hour.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[wasted]

I used to tape Tommy Vances Rock Show lol

Thats how i got music. Well Saxon songs. But thats why AFD was so good it was much better than the stuff on the rock show.

[Guest Len B'stard]

All in all though, i'd say some of the responses in this thread have illustrated my point admirably, this notion that Led Zeppelin are a universally loved standard to the point of being comparable to "hugs and chocolate" is an absolute load of bollocks and goes back to what i was saying about this idea of people thinking the world is limited to what happens in their town or among their group of friend, the world is a bigger round bastard than some people give it credit for, clearly.

PERHAPS, shock horror, it's only America and that end of the world that have these things as like, universally loved standards and yous lot reckon that goes for the rest of the world too, well lemme tel ya, it don't and hasn't for many many years.

And even then, not calling anyone a liar or anything but i find it hard to believe that America, the home of hip hop which has been THE popular music of the last 20 years plus and is basically the popular music of our times, still holds Zeppelin in a regard so high that their appeal can be equated to that of hugs and chocolate.

Edited May 10, 2013 by sugaraylen

[Randy Lahey]

out of curiosity, how outwardly apparent was your fondness for 70s rock? Did you talk about it, did you have a lot of mates that were into it, were that group of mates reflective of the majority where you're from?

You had people who would only listen to rap or only listen to metal, but most people listened to a variety of stuff. There wasn't as much division here.

[wasted]

It was completely different here. We had/have different stations for each genre. The Classic Rock stations even have blocks of time where they only play Led Zeppelin music for an hour.

It's still the same in the UK. there's still one Rock show on radio 1. But Virgin and internet radio may have opened things up now.

But basically to get Zeppelin you had to buy it. I bought the Remasters. I copied Beatles records on to tape. Didn't you tape YCBM off the radio?

[Guest Len B'stard]

out of curiosity, how outwardly apparent was your fondness for 70s rock? Did you talk about it, did you have a lot of mates that were into it, were that group of mates reflective of the majority where you're from?

You had people who would only listen to rap or only listen to metal, but most people listened to a variety of stuff. There wasn't as much division here.

You kinda didn't answer my question there fella.

[wasted]

All in all though, i'd say some of the responses in this thread have illustrated my point admirably, this notion that Led Zeppelin are a universally loved standard to the point of being comparable to "hugs and chocolate" is an absolute load of bollocks and goes back to what i was saying about this idea of people thinking the world is limited to what happens in their town or among their group of friend, the world is a bigger round bastard than some people give it credit for, clearly.

to be fair American rock radio has canonized British rock like Zepp and Sabbath and made them demi gods. Look at Ozzy, Ozzfest. The Stones rammed the US like a $5000 dollar call girl. There was much less of an indie scene, until Nirvana in the mainstream and even then in the end Pearl Jam, basically a big rock band wins long terms.

I don't want to offend anyone, but if you see some guy in the UK all in denim standing next to a suzuki motorbike sans mustache he's probably not a charismatic bad ass but his record collection is full of Stones and Zepp.

Whereas American guys who like the Stones seem like regular guys. They pay thousands of dollars to do coke in the front row.

I'm veering off into the plot for my next script now.

Edited May 10, 2013 by wasted

[Randy Lahey]

You only really had to buy rap here.