Switched on Pop - Stairway To Hell: Greta Van Fleet’s Scorching Album Review That Went Viral

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

Classic rock climaxed a half century ago, yet it still survives in two places: FM radio & Greta Van Fleet. The later are an upstart of four boys from Michigan who have found stardom by dusting off the mantle of guitar driven rock. Their latest album, Anthem Of The Peaceful Army, bares an uncanny sonic resemblance to Led Zeppelin. Jeremy D. Larson, senior editor of Pitchfork, gave the album a 1.6 out of 10 calling it "stiff, hackneyed, overly precious retro-fetishism." His vicious and hilarious takedown went viral and caused a rift amongst music fans on the internet. We ask Jeremy to join us to reveal what it means to earn such a bad review. After, we do something we've never done before: a track-by-track album breakdown. In a game of musical Pictionary, Charlie challenges Nate to find every Led Zeppelin reference on the album to answer the question: is it a copy or an homage? We have a feeling this will be a divisive episode... Songs Discussed: Greta Van Fleet - Age of Man Led Zeppelin - Rain Song Led Zeppelin - In The Light Led Zeppelin - What Is And What Should Never Be Led Zeppelin - Your Time Is Gonna Come Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song Led Zeppelin - Kashmir Greta Van Fleet - The Cold Wind Led Zeppelin - Custard Pie Greta Van Fleet - When the Curtain Falls Led Zeppelin - Wanton Song Greta Van Fleet - Watching Over Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You Greta Van Fleet - Lover, Leaver Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love Spirit - Taurus Muddy Waters - You Need Love Small Faces - You Need Love Willie Dixon - I Can't Quit You Babe Greta Van Fleet - You're the One Led Zeppelin - What Is And What Should Never Be Greta Van Fleet - The New Day Led Zeppelin - Over The Hills And Far Away Greta Van Fleet - Mountain of the Sun Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day Greta Van Fleet - Brave New World Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand Greta Van Fleet - Anthem Led Zeppelin - Tangerine Lover Leaver (Taker, Believer) Read the Pitchfork review of Greta Van Fleet's Anthem Of A Peaceful Army Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Nate, we're going to attempt something today that we've never tried before. It's all inspired by an album release that has the internet in Tizzy. Greta Van Fleet has released Anthem of the Peaceful Army, and they've been accused of ripping off the entire catalog of Led Zeppelin.

And listeners are torn about if this is the so-called revival of authentic rock or simply a rebranding of the role of pop music. And so we're going to do a full album comparison to find out if this is a carbon copy of the original. But first, we're joined by Pitchfork Senior Editor Jeremy D. Larson, whose recent review of the album has broken the internet. He scored the record 1.6 out of 10, and it is trending everywhere. In our conversation, we break down the role of the critic in the age of streaming, the cultural politics of a negative review, and the unique relationship between critics and musicians. After the conversation, we'll listen to Greta Van Fleet and see if the copycat comparison holds. But first, here's Jeremy D. Larson with a selection from his review.

Greta Van Fleet sound like they did weed exactly once, called the cops, and tried to record a Led Zeppelin album before they arrested themselves. The poor kids from Frankenmuth, Michigan, don't even realize they're more of an algorithmic fever dream than an actual rock band. While they're selling out shows all over the world, somewhere in a boardroom, half a dozen people are figuring out just how exactly Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are supposed to fit into the SUV with the rest of the Greta Van Fleet Boys on Carpool karaoke. I don't know what's harsher. The whole reviewer that you left John Paul Jones out of the mix as he always gets left out. There was an earlier draft in there where it's like, I'm not even sure

if kids know what a John Paul Jones is. He was a pope, right? Yeah, I think so. One of them. Great. Okay, so this is a tough review. You've really skewered them. And I just have to ask, first of all, did you have fun writing this? I had about as much fun writing this as I have writing a lot of other reviews. I wouldn't say that this is necessarily more fun, but, you know, I do have fun writing. Okay, so here's what I want to do today.

I want to break down the argument of your review. talk a bit about the effect and a bit of the history of the idea for the negative review and talk a little bit about the fan response as well. So starting from the top, the argument of the piece, the thesis seems to be that you state, they make music that sounds exactly like Led Zeppelin and demand very little other than forgetting how good Led Zeppelin often were. You say that the album sounds like a bona fide classic rock record,

with its fuzzy bass, electric guitar solos, and lyrics featuring the kind of self-actualized transcendence brought on by a few too many multivitamins. It is not actually classic rock. So what is this then, if this is not classic rock? To call something classic rock in 2018, you're kind of being dishonest into the year that it's being created in. Like, this wasn't a lost record that was found.

These are young kids who are playing music that are very directly influenced from music that came out 40 years ago. I think you can call it classic rock, but I also think that you have to understand that how it functions today is much different than how classic rock function back then. It seems like it's pop music

that's trying to recapture something that once was. And to me, that doesn't register as classic rock to me. What seems to irk you the most in this article is their lack of any semblance of self-awareness for what is garnering their success. There was an interview in Rolling Stone, interviewing the guitarist Jacob, who says,

that's the thing that destroys a lot of good art now, chasing trends. And I think that fits in with your analysis of it is this classic rock or not. It may be looking back to the past, but certainly there is a radio format and an entire marketplace for this music that is a trend,

even if it was created 60 odd years ago. I don't believe that Greta Van Fleet are approaching this in bad faith. I don't think they sat around and are like, hey, guys, this is our opportunity to make a million bucks by trying to sound like Led Zeppelin. I don't think that's the case at all. I think these guys are approaching this honestly. I think they're clearly having a good time when they perform. I don't think that they're sort of realizing how this music is going to be seen in the eyes

of like the marketplace and how it's going to be used and manipulated by a by like a major label and their agents and their PR people. But it's not, you know, again, like I don't think criticism is about like punishment for bad deeds. Like to me, criticism is about taking a look at the context of where music is today, taking a look at the piece of art that was presented to you. And my job to me is a critic is trying to place it, find its, location in music today. And I feel that's what I try to do with this review. You're not very

generous in calling it half-baked boomer fetishism, but you make a really insightful claim that for as retro as this album may seem, you say in actuality, it is the future. It's proof of concept that in the streaming and algorithm economy, a band doesn't really need to capture the past. It just needs to come close enough so that a computer can assign to it its definite article. All art is derivative in a certain sense, you know, like you got to steal to make art. That's what you have to do. And I think a lot of people are really good at doing that really well because a lot of people like to listen to what they recognize, you know.

It releases the kind of dopamine and the serotonin in the brain. When you hear something you recognize, you're like, I like this. I don't have to think about this, you know. That's the basis of pop music, which is I guess sort of why I kind of consider. consider Greta Van Fleet to be more pop music because it is so like a thing we all recognize. So switching gears a bit, we'd love to hear more about the art of the hot take, the negative review. I can imagine, regardless of the integrity of your takedown, that there must be, you must brace yourself on some level for the response, especially, you know, today when I don't

I think Lester Bangs had to go on Twitter and, you know, see the responses to his reviews. Have you heard from the band, from their management team, has pitchfork, you know, received any feedback on this piece since it's been published? Oh, man. I mean, they're going to debut in the top five this week. They're going to sell 70,000 units. They're like, cool. You know, like, I can't imagine they're upset by going viral. Yeah.

I don't feel that bad. because there's just so much music out there. And there's no one telling you really anymore what to listen to except for a playlist, which is just trying to get you to stay on the app longer, you know? Interesting. And that's all they're trying to do. So it's like if you can have the wisdom and the knowledge and hopefully like the wit and intelligence and empathy of a person talking to you about music,

I think that's a lot better, you know. And this one guy sort of emailed me and was like, and he's like, why can you encourage them? You know, why can't you just say like, hey, they're going to do better? I'm just like, it's not my job, man. Like, that's what they pay a manager for. That's what they pay a PR person for. That's what their label does.

Like, everyone else around them tells them, like, what they're doing well. That's why bands start to suck, you know, because no one tells them what they're doing wrong. I think the critic artist relationship is a very important part of the ecosystem of music, you know. I don't hate that band. I don't have any animosity toward them. They're not like actively bad for the world. I, you know, I don't wish them any will.

Like, I hope they continue to be a band. I hope they keep making music that they want to make. And I hope they found an audience that really loves that. That audience just isn't me right now. Early on in your history, you all gave the Flaming Lips, Zyrika's album, a 0.0 rating, which the editorial team laid up. had to retract. Yeah.

Do you think that there will be any retractions on this Greta van fleet review in the future? I can all but guarantee that won't happen. I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, who knows, maybe like 20 years down the line that somebody will take a look at this and be really embarrassed. I mean, that's good, maybe. I can't foresee that, but God, why not? I mean, that would be really exciting.

If a really smart person comes along in 20 years, it's like, you want to know what? this actually was like a harbinger for the great, you know, sea change in music and all of a sudden, everything became authentic and like rock returned and, you know, but all of that kind of like reeks of just. Yeah. It also suggests that in 20 years that the album review will be the album review, which begs the question today, what is the position of the album review for pitchfork? Especially now that we, I mean, more than ever, we don't have to go and. read the review before we buy the album. We don't have to buy the album. We can just listen to the album. So I'm curious about how you think about the position of the review today. Right. I think that a good review offers context that you otherwise couldn't get, you know, right? So like,

if you're looking at Apple Music or Title or Spotify, I mean, title, I think title gives you the credits, gets you the production credits. I think Apple Music offers a little capsule review. But there's no, you know, there's no context. You're just sort of presented with something, and it's kind of bald-faced presented as like, here's what's new and everybody's listening to it. The only thing you're presented with is the metric of how many people are listening to it. And it's like, that sucks.

You know, like, that is the one thing you never got before when you went to a record store. You didn't go to the recommended CD and say, like, this has been bought 50 times already. It just said, like, hey, this is recommended. You didn't get to see how many people were also listening to it. I think a good review kind of tries to, get things out of the headspace of what's popular and what other people are listening to

and to try to place it into the context of the art and of the music itself, you know. Yeah. No, I appreciate you saying this because there's maybe a perspective out there that the accessibility brought on by streaming has sort of obviated the need for the traditional gatekeepers, such as critics, to explore and discuss. ever new music. But in what I'm hearing from from this conversation, it's maybe more that actually we need those gatekeepers more than ever, but we also need to ask more of those people than we ever have before. They need to provide that sort of integrity and honesty and context and research and they need to have diverse pluralistic voices to really capture this insane

access we have to basically every song ever. the critic is as important as it's more important than it's ever been, but we demand, we need to demand more of our critics too, perhaps. Right. I mean, you know, and it's like, everybody's working toward a bottom line, you know, like I get paid by Connie Nast, and Greta Van Fleet gets paid by Republic, and

everybody who works at Spotify gets paid by Spotify. So it's like we're all, you know, whatever, not to, not to sound like just this, not to reduce everything to lay capitalism is a prison, but like, we're all beholden to, to a bottom line at some point. So to me, like, if you have the ability and if you have the platform to try to be, like,

as honest as possible and as curious as possible, and to remain a student of the music and what's happening around you and to try to listen to the kids that are coming up right now and to try to listen to the people who've been there for a while and synthesize all of that information and present it to someone, with as much clarity and humor and wisdom as possible. And I think like that to me is the job of a critic, you know.

Word. Because a lot of people aren't listening to young people. A lot of people aren't listening to old people. A lot of people aren't listening to anybody they don't, anybody they disagree with, right? So I think that what's important in, you know, to try to just to try to offer something that isn't, that isn't beholden to selling music.

you know like it's almost kind of freeing right because like we don't if you're going to listen to this anyway like I don't I don't have any I don't have any stakes like whether you're you're going to listen to this album no matter what I say and and like I said like I'm probably probably this review probably drew a lot of traffic to the Greta Van Fleet album and that's great I want I want people to listen to music and decide for themselves what they think you know and if and if like if I helped clarified an idea that was sort of tumbling around in your head that's great um if you disagree with me, that's also great. Like, if this spurs you to think about why I'm thinking about it this way and causes you

to think about it differently and you want to write a rebuttal that that disproves every point that I made, that's awesome. That's fucking great. I think everybody should be doing that. I think just everybody should be just thinking more about the products they receive and where they come from and why they're trying to do the things that they do. We get a slow clap going here. Yeah.

That sounded like a manifesto, and I like it. To speak to issues of listening, we want to look at just briefly the fan response. And there's been all kinds of reply. You've generated a lot of dialogue. Everything from people are upset about the fact that, okay, this review is trashing Greta van Fleet. But did you know that Led Zeppelin was also dismissed in their first review in Rolling Stone, which is a sort of fallacious logical argument to suggest that, no, they are independent

and not like Led Zeppelin, yet they are also like Led Zeppelin and will be great. It's not a very strong argument. There's also been a lot of racial amnesia about Led Zeppelin's own direct lifting and borrowing of earlier blues artists like Willie Dixon and Helen Wolf and Leadbelly and muddy waters. And I think one of the pieces of criticism that has sort of been most irking has been the deeply biased and not well-veiled racism of people claiming, well, pitchfork is super generous to artists like Cardi B, Kanye West, and Lil anything. Literally a quote from Twitter. How is it that they're not paying attention to artists like Red Avan Fleet?

That one was particularly irksome. But I wanted to go to maybe some of the direct response straight to you. And I think there's nothing more fun than the reply to the critic. We had a lot of fan reviews that were extremely positive. people said, you know, pitchfork is alive and I've never been more happy. That's from Daddy F on Twitter. We heard from Eric Alexandrakis. That was a truly amazing read.

We also heard, I've been needing this review. So people loving it. And then there was one that really stood out. And I wanted to get your reply. This is a review of your review. Maybe you've seen it. It's from Brian Mulligan. It says, the 2018 review from Brooklyn-based Jeremy Larson is mired in nostalgic cynicism,

and pretension poorly amassed as rock historian intellectualism and even-handed critique. The reviewer extolls authentic 60s rock, but would likely lambast it if he were present during its era 0.4. Do you have a reply? I mean, I welcome all criticism. I think it's, I think if I can't, you know, if I can't dish it out, or if I can't take it, you know, I can't dish it out or whatever. The other thing is, I think it's, that's fine. I get it. I mean, I disagree. What are you going to...

I think people will always sort of look for the error and will look for what... We'll try to sort of nitpick that, you know, like, well, clearly he would have... Like, this would have... He wouldn't have done this had this been around. Also, like, I feel like the whole Brooklyn thing, I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, I've only lived here for five years.

I grew up in a tiny farm town in Wisconsin. Like, I played in a funk rock band called Resurrected Grooves. we covered Incubis a lot. Like, I've been subsumed in rock and roll. It is my lifeblood, and I absolutely love that kind of stuff. But my brain is focused on what's happening and what can be new and what has worth as new music. You know, like that's kind of pitchfork's whole thing. There seems to be a real missing link.

And I think a lot of the criticism of recognizing, well, what is the role of this thing? Where is it fitting in? And I think you are, I think you are quite generous to recognize that, hey, this is not ill will against a band. This is for the pitchfork readers. And it's clear, at least from our conversation, that, hey, it'd be great if these folks evolve. And it's also wonderful people are out listening to it and asking questions about it. That's what I'm taking. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, listen to whatever you want. I'm not going to judge you for your taste. Like, I love bad music. I have historically, I love, I love, I mean, this guy was like, This guy was like, this is the website that gave Toole's Enema 2.0. Like, effing hipsters. I'm like, man, Enema rules. Like, I love that album.

I like, I have this really weird soft spot for Tool. Like, I have historically shitty taste in music, you know? Like, I love dumb stuff. I love dumb rock and roll. Like, this Grand Funk Railroad Live album where it's just like Mark Farmer doing dumb solos for way too long. and he sucks. But I like, I enjoy it.

It's stupid. Like, you can love stupid stuff. And I just think that, like, stupid music is wonderful. But, you know, there was something to me where it's like, this isn't the right kind of stupid, you know? Like, you can kind of tell that there's something else going on here. And I'm like, this isn't the kind of idiocy I really enjoy. Well, we'll leave you with the last word, the last line of your article reads, enjoy the self-satisfied buzz of recognizing something you already know, it's the cheapest high on music. And it sounds like, you know what,

that's what's a turning your honor music. That's all good. It's not bad to get a cheap buzz. So it thanks a lot for joining us. This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys so much for having me. It's been great. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay.

Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the women who have demonstrated. the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations.

Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time.

the view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Nate, now we get to do something that we've never done before. Let's do it. I don't know what it is, but I'm excited. We are going to go track by track of the entire Greta Van Fleet, anthem of a Peaceful Army album.

Wow. And we're going to look at the original, the actual song. and what I think is potentially the influence or, nay, the copy from the Led Zeppelin. And I want to put to test the criticism within Jeremy's article on Pitchfork. Your job is to tell me whether or not I'm on point with the reference or if I'm completely off base. I'm very curious to begin this experiment. We've never gone through an entire album, but we're going to do it. We're going to make it snappy.

We're going to go song by song. but we are going to sort of establish ourselves with the opening track, The Age of Man. All right. Oh, Lord. I mean, it's a powerful statement. This thing is a melange

of Led Zeppelin references that I'm hearing. Cool. The thing is, nothing here is an exact copy. This is like the tribute of the tribute band. So I invite some creative listening, if you will. All right. Let's listen to the introduction of the age of man.

Simple. Nice. Not what I expected in terms of like, so for the, I should say, I'm not familiar with this album. I've heard maybe one song of theirs on the radio and definitely did a double take where I was like, what is this? Yeah. So I was expecting, you know, some heavy electric guitar riff. We're going to get there. But Led Zeppelin is also known for it's like introspective Tolkien-esque fantasy realms.

And I think this is what we're getting. Totally. I'm hearing that Melatron taken right from Led Zeppelin's rain song. You've got a point. You make a good point. The Melotron being an instrument that you can hear on everything from strawberry fields to contemporary pop tracks. It was the first sampler. They basically put samples of orchestras onto tape machines that ran through this giant device. And it sounds like a lo-fi orchestral sound.

Yeah, you press a key, it triggers the tape loop, and you get the sample. So, yeah. You wanted hard rock riffs. Please. Age of Man is going to give us hard rock riffs. Yeah, that's more of what I was imagining. Yeah. And I'm hearing in the light.

Wow, yeah. This is a very delicate operation here. I see what you mean because we're never going to find, or I assume we're not going to ever find like an exact copy. That would be too blatant. But yes, so here like that rhythmic syncopation that we hear in In the Light. Yeah, I absolutely hear Age of Man kind of taking that. Yeah. But wait, there's more. Okay. We're going to, every other song we're going to plow through. But this one is just the opening. It really deserves going into it. this sort of hook of the riff in the age of man, I actually think is coming from another Led Zeppelin track. So let's just listen to the hook one more time in the end of man. Listen to the end line right here.

Yeah. That. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Got it. No. No. Your face is like, nah. It's just a pentatonic riff.

Nothing there. That was so funny. Charlie really wanted me to have a different reaction. But no, I appreciate, I mean, first of all, I appreciate the digging through the Led Zeppelin catalog that went into this. I mean, it's very impressive. You're right, I have to say I'm not totally convinced that this is a match. How about the outro of the age of man?

Actually, I love that outro. Very cool. But it really reminded me. So, Hammond. Now, again, nothing's a carbon copy. Right. We're going to go to a little church organ on your time. is going to come. Okay. Yeah,

it's there. Okay. Finally, Age of Man, lyrics. There is this line, To wonder lands of ice and snow in the desert heat where nothing grows, a tree of life and rain and sun. To reach the sky, it's just begun. Lots of bloviations about fantasy

nothing. This for me is a combination of four different Led Zeppelin tracks. You have the immigrant song. We come from the land of ice and snow. Oh, yeah. Right. You have, you then can go in age of man. You get in the desert heat where nothing grows.

We can take a cashmere, heed the path that led me to that place, the yellow desert stream. We get back in age of man, a tree of life and rain and sun, which takes me back to rain song. It is the springtime of my loving. The second season I am to know, you're the sunlight in my growing. And finally, in the last line of age of man, to reach the sky. It's just begun. We could go to what is and what should never be. Catch the wind.

See us spin. Sail away, leave today. Way up high in the sky. Hey, whoa. But the wind won't blow. Wow. So it's like refrigerator magnet poetry with Led Zeppelin lyrics. Yeah.

Yeah, that seems incontrovertible. So I'm hearing a mixture of, yeah, some of these things are on, some things are not. But it's refrigerator magnet, Led Zeppelin, music, and lyrics. A little bit, yeah? Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's so there. I think the question with some of them is how Led Zeppelin specific

are they, you know, Oregon for instance. Like that's, that could go either way on that. Rift rock. Yeah, we could probably find a lot of other 70s Prague rock they would use that texture. So is there enough to say like, oh, they're really drawing it from this particular example.

I'll be curious to... I promise you by the end of this. I'm going to give you an example that is going to absolutely destroy you. I can't wait. Okay, song one, we're going to start breezing through things. cool. It's going to get cold. No, it's a great intro. It's a cool off. We're going to a song called The Cold Wind. Here is the Riff.

It's fun. I'm feeling it. I like it. Have you heard Led Zeppelin's custard pie? I have now. We've got the same key, the same sort of shuffle feel. A lot of riff similarities. They're singing in the exact same vocal register. What do you think? I hear it. There are some small differences, which I think are cool, sort of like, coming in on the offbeat on the Greta Van Fleet original. I think it's cool.

But it does feel like, yeah, taking maybe custard pie and just adjusting some of the elements slightly. It's nevertheless very effective. This is fascinating, Charlie. Okay. Okay. So let's go to one of the singles on the album. Okay.

When the curtain falls. Your face. What's going on? What are you thinking? I mean, it's just there's so many elements that scream Zeppelin from the John Bonham style like, super swung, fat, double-based drums and Tom work to, as you said, the singer's vocal timbre. And even something I find so distinctive about Robert Plant's vocals beyond the sound of his voice is like this melodic trick he does where he, at the very end of a phrase, he'll go to the tonic note, the home note of the key, and he'll go down one step.

Dada! You know, he does have to think of like, you know, good times, bad times. you know I've had my share He'll always like hit the tonic And then like go down to the flat seven Which gives it this kind of like Pungency you know And tension and I hear the Gretta van Fleet singer

Doing that a lot so yeah You haven't even heard You've heard all the things that are already in your head I actually struggle to find a great connection for this one I think it sounds a bit like the wanton song Severely permutated though I wasn't so sure if that one held up Yeah

But then I found this mashup by this guy DJ Cumberbond And so here just for a second the chorus of when the curtain falls. Here's what happens if you mix that with the Led Zeppelin one song. What do you think? I think, well, I mean, I'm of two minds. On one hand, my reaction is like, when you said we're going to listen to when the curtain falls, I was like, wait, which one is that, is that Led Zeppelin or is that Greta Van Phley?

Which says to me like, wow, these are hard to tell apart in a lot of ways. Right, right. I couldn't remember. It doesn't feel like you've entered a wormhole into another dimension where Led Zeppelin just made other songs and were like reborn, but not Led Zeppelin. Yeah, but when I hear this mashup, I also think, oh, I don't know. I think he probably had to tweak the BPMs and the keys to make it fit. And the harmonic structure doesn't really overlay perfectly. And there are things that Greta Van Fleet are doing that are surprised.

You know, if we listen to the chorus at the very end, they hit this chord that I really liked that was like reminded me of like the beginning of Hard Day's Night or something. It was very surprising. Yeah. And it was like, oh, that's cool. So I don't know, they have these little dollops of like sounds that are not of the Led Zeppelin world, perhaps. Sure. But this is, I'm so captivated by this whole thing. I can't, I don't want it to end. All right, track four. Great. Watching over. Yeah. This is a sort of slow burn blues track and it's definitely not spot on, but it reminded me a lot of the tracks since I've been loving you. Oh, yeah. Different time, signature, different BPM. Like, if you hear what Robert Plant said just before the solo starts, no. He goes, watch out. And this song is called Watching Over. This is some Illuminati stuff.

I mean, I can't lie. I love it. I don't know. It's, I don't know. I don't know. You're gonna, okay. So, what do you think? If I'm putting on musicologist Nate Sloan hat, like, I'm also thinking, well, yeah, they're blues tracks. Like, and they're one, I think is in, like, 12 of 8, the others in 4-4, the BPM really different, even have different sense of darkness of minor tonality. Totally. At points, it's hard to say, well, are both these bands simply drawing from a much deeper well of blues, of certain electric guitar, riffs, etc.

Or is Greta vanfleet at points really picking very specific sounds of Led Zeppelin? So, yeah, and in some cases, we're in a gray area there, I think. Okay, okay. I've got one that is not gray whatsoever. but crystal clear for me this is the fifth track on the record lover lever I do like that title yeah can I guess you haven't even heard the uh the comparison well is this is going I think I know what do you think a whole lot of love yeah yeah wow what do you hear not not a lot of gray area there the the rhythm of the guitars the vocal melody and the rhythm of the vocal melody

these match up really closely. It was the first thing I thought of basically. It's a bit of an homage. And to Jeremy's point, I think there's a question of the self-awareness of the copy. I don't actually have any problem with sounding

alike to something else, but it's important that we certainly give credit words due. And speaking of which, I think it's appropriate to put a small break in the album and look at the piece that we would be remiss to leave behind, which is that Led Zeppelin themselves were not innocent of total artistic originality.

Yeah, absolutely. And they were known to pretty brazenly borrow in everything from vocal timbre to riffs and songs. And there were quite a few necessary redactions to credits on songs later on in history. So I think it's important to recognize that there is a longer history of borrowing. And in Led Zeppelin's case, it's complicated. Now, many people might know that there was a recent. copyright case by this band Spirit for their song, Taurus, and they said

that it sounded a lot like Sterey to Heaven. But I won't even entertain this because I think that both of these things are sort of derivative of the same sort of descending riff that neither can sort of claim to. What I'm more interested in are the blues songs that Led Zeppelin borrowed from.

So let's just get a taste of muddy waters. You need love, the inspiration for a whole lot of love. as we've been pointed out that they actually might have even heard another version of that same song which they in many ways actually even more deeply borrowed from this is by small faces woman do you need a lot interesting very robert plantish small faces yeah

That's new to me. Okay. And there are lists and lists of songs. Yeah. So if you kind of take the music and rhythm of money waters and the sort of vocal quality of small faces, put them together. Yeah. You have a whole lot of love. Interesting.

And there are so many tracks that we could reference. But just one more. We'll look at Willie Dixon. I can't quit you, baby. Wait you, baby. Got to put you down a little while. These are undeniable. I mean, these were actually covers

and sometimes not fully credited covers. So back to our original project, back to the Greta Van Fleet, acknowledging that there is borrowing and borrowing and borrowing throughout the history of pop music. But we have a project that we must finish. Let's find the copies or potential copies. So I want to move on to track six.

You're the one. This is a acoustic slowdown kind of track. And Led Zeppelin, we're known for always having to balance the hard rock they would have these acoustic slow songs. So here we go. This one is uncanny to me. This is straight lifted from, well, let's just listen to it. Okay.

Wait, sorry, just to clarify, is this, no, I'm genuinely asking, is this a different song or do we accidentally play the same one? No, that's Led Zeppelin's your time is going to come. Are you sure? Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. here's the Greta Van Fleet. Huh. There's differences.

We have a Rhodes keyboard in here. More stereo spread in the guitars. Okay, now the Led Zeppelin. Here's the Led Zeppelin. We have a church organ. And a slight harmonic difference too, right? The Greta of Anfleet is like 154 and the Zeppelin is like 174 maybe. Anyway.

Is this the one that was going to destroy me? No. No. I think they don't have song there's no songwriting credit to you know page and plant and etc this stuff is complicated right I mean I think we could certainly look to the lawsuit between Marvin Gay's estate and Farrell and Robin Thick which established that

Farrell and Robin Thick had infringed on the copyright of Marvin Gay by sounding alike to one of his tracks rather than actually straight borrowing. Now, my position on this is that that is a really dangerous direction to go on to actually copyright the style of something. I think it certainly would inhibit the development of the arts and sciences, the true purpose of why copyright exists, but there's issues of cultural and social capital that are not being named. This might be on the borderline of that borrowing. I mean, definitely it's a bit much for me. What's the Led Zeppelin song called? Your time is going to come. Yeah. Yeah. And this was, uh,

you're the one. I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, this is so interesting. All right. So the, onward, onward. The acoustic, uh, side of the track builds back up, gets some more energy in a track called the New Day, track seven. This is fun. The kids got pipes.

I can't deny it. I wish I could sing that way. It's awesome. But, uh, let's listen to Led Zeppelin's over the hills and far away. Close. Yeah, I think you got some of the same. sort of mythical lyrics. Again, sort of more derivative of the entire body of work of the band and this increased energy,

but, you know, by adding the drums and over the acoustic guitar sort of vibe. Okay, okay. All right, then we need to continue moving on. And this is the part of the album where I'm struggling a little bit, but I promised you a grand finale. And we're not far. Track eight is Mountain of the Sun, which I don't understand. what Mountain of the Sun is. It's just, I don't, I can't even, can you see that metaphor?

Yeah, Charlie, just free your mind. Mountain of the Sun. Any thoughts on this, uh, in this too? Nothing, no, you can't find the specific reference. I feel like once again, we're in general Led Zeppeland, but I wouldn't be able to point to one to one correlation. Blues slide guitar in there, uh, which Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin was known for playing this like guitar.

Yeah. Um, I think this sounds a little bit like celebration. Day. You have this really active almost like R&B style bass. You have this movement of going from riff bass music into choral changes and a slide right into that Panatonic guitar solo. Again, maybe more generally derivative. Yeah, could we find that in a lot of Allman Brothers tracks as well? Not like that. No, maybe. I think we could find it in other sound alike. Yeah. I think it's great. There won't be clear answers and that's wonderful. Okay, so this one will get, maybe we're giving a little bit more original integrity.

Let's move on to track nine, Brave New World. Are you prepared? Put on our hero hats to Brave the Brave New World. After our acoustic tracks, we have to take a minor turn back to that heavy riff-based rock, sort of the later era of Zeppelin. And this reminds me very strongly of the track Achilles' last stand from one of their later albums. For me, I think it would have to go back to the refrigerator magnet idea where really different rhythms, right? The Krily's Last Dan has this driving kind of like almost horse gallop kind of feel to it.

But both of them are these minor guitar tracks that open solo guitar, introspective, and then boom, the whole band comes in. I'm hearing some connection there. I'm persuaded, yeah. Okay. You have nothing else to add. I'm starting to wonder, you know, if you were a teenager who was learning how to play music and you got really into Led Zeppelin and you like went through their entire catalog and learned how to play all these songs, got together with your brothers and friends and started a band, you would have all of these riffs and sounds in your fingers and in your throat. And even when you were perhaps consciously trying to create something original, it would be in your muscle memory. That's exactly what I was thinking.

these songs are like the shadows of certain Led Zeppelin originals in a lot of ways. Yeah. In my teenage, raucous years, I learned a lot of Led Zeppelin riffs. I knew every single song, and it embedded itself in the way that I played. I love there's this line by St. Vincent when she's asked about which guitar she wanted to play, and she built her own line of guitars, football, which I've done very well. And she said, I wanted to make a guitar that was unlike a Stratocaster, unlike a Les Paul, the classic guitars of big riff rock. Because she said that every time she picked those up, she would have the finger memory of just like, I'll play those same riffs.

And she wanted to sound not like the blues greats that she had studied and instead developed her own voice. And this does, you know, they're playing basically the same instruments in Greta Van Fleet. They're clearly learned every single song. And it does feel like a fever dream of all of the different sort of like a host. of Led Zeppelin references just sort of bubbling up under the earth. The album takes a sort of final acoustic turn in a track called anthem.

Your face is ridiculous. What are you thinking? Oh my God. I love it. Honestly, it makes me so happy. He's straight up yodeling. You know, it's very... I find something very effective in what appears to be the,

what we were talking about in the first half, a certain lack of self-awareness, I find also as is refreshing in a way because some of it is so kind of comical and silly, but in a way that I find moving because it is, it evidences, yeah, a certain lack of, a certain free liberation or something, you know,

and that makes me. happy. It's actually honestly hard for me to listen to this music, not because I don't enjoy it, but actually it's very challenging in this case for me to not hear a song that I've known for 20 years. A track called Tangerine, Philead Zeppelin. The worst harmony ever at the end. You have the introspective acoustic track with fingerprints of country music and slide guitar on it. And if you check out Anthem one more time, You get that sort of slide. You get the, it feels like we're in the same world that Tangerine was thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm buying.

All right. I said I was going to just totally blow your mind with my final reference. So the album doesn't close on the final song anthem, which it sounds like could be the end. Rather, it has a reprise. The reprise is something I actually really love, where you take a track you've already done and you give it some new life. In this case, this is lover. lever, taker, breather. So they've extended lover,

lever, into this longer jam track. And, well, there's a moment that for me is just ripped straight out of whole lot of love. I wait with bated breath. We're back to a whole lot of love,

it sounds like. So Whole Lot of Love was this very strange track in that it was the opening of the second Led Zeppelin album. And in the middle of it, there is this sort of like Stockhausen style. noise music for like two minutes where there's these pheromins and weird sounds right yeah it's usually

like there's a radio edit that you'd hear on the classic rock station but the original is long right oh it's yeah it's and there's just a weird noise rock thing in the middle and and I think that they are hinting towards that noise rock so imagine you took basically everything that they did is just slightly the opposite of what led Zeppelin did check it out so coming up of that noise section, we get Robert Plant descending chromatically, low, right?

And then we get this great, simple but powerful drum fill, and we're back into the riff. What would happen if instead you took that same vocal line instead of going down, you went up, ooh, bad crack, and you extended just a little musical fragment. before you get the drum fill back into the riff. Well, you'd get love or lever. Yeah, I can see it. Mind is not as blown as I thought it was going to be. My mind is only not blown because it was the earlier one we played.

What was it? Track seven. Track six, you're the one and your time is going to cut. That was, but that blew, my mind is now scattered in pieces over your studio floor. So there's not much left. to be blown at this point. I wonder, it's so fascinating because when I, I thought we were going to hear something even more identical because, you know, just hearing that, that chugging, building guitar riff, I was like, I've heard that before. That's a Led Zeppelin song. And then I can't go, I would have to do

what you've been doing and go through every song in their catalog to figure out where exactly I've heard that before. Or maybe I haven't, but it's just so, feels so familiar. I don't know. It's this weird world we're in listening to this album where I'm not sure what is real and imagined and what's in my memory and what's in the ether. I don't know. Yeah. It's wild. It's wild stuff. It's like an analog remix of an entire catalog of music.

But I do hear these sort of inconsistencies in the recording in terms of it sounds like a cover band where you're like, you're pretty talented. I also hear less riff orientedness in choruses and a lot more of chordal, In which they just kind of like ham through a entire progression without it having a particular sort of like riff based sonic signature. That's the other thing that I hear is like particularly different. Yeah. No, this is a, uh, I'm, it's a weird world to exist. Right.

I don't, I'm not, I'm not upset about it. Yeah. Nor is this the first band. Oh, no. Like Greta Van Fleet. No. Remember, uh, Wolf Mother? Oh, yeah, I like Wolf Mother.

Yeah, me too. And I feel like they, we had a, there were a lot of similar conversations when they came out. I don't know, maybe that was like eight, five, eight years. I'm completely making it up. I haven't thought about them in a long time. But I think we were having similar conversations. Oh, is this something to celebrate as this kind of nostalgic redux or is it something to dismiss because it's just a carbon copy of Zeppelin? I imagine we could probably set a timer for another eight years from now.

Sure. we'll have another. There will be another band. And yeah, it's, it's, it's, I'm,

I'm having trouble speaking because I'm just taking it all in. It's, I love this. This has been really, really edifying to do this. People are having fun with it. If this is the thing that they're wanting,

that's, that's just fine. I think there's probably places where there might need to be some further evaluation about where either social credit or potentially, even songwriting credit maybe do. Yeah. I'm not too worried about levying that. I think there's going to be other,

there's other people who can worry more about that. Yeah. And it's so, the fact that of all bands, we're talking about Led Zeppelin here is so fascinating because as you said, they've been at the center of so many of these conversations since their inception. Right. And Led Zeppelin has had huge ramifications for how we understand and control a copyright because from, you know, there were landmark decisions. For instance, when Willie Dixon brought a suit again.

against Led Zeppelin for a whole odd love that was settled outside of the court that never went to trial and thus didn't really create a possibility for creating more stringent rules of how we deal with these blues homages. And then later in the 80s, when School E.D. samples Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, which we referenced earlier,

that their suit against School E. for sampling, their song becomes a real touchstone in discussions of what's fair use and what's what's copyrightable and they in that decision they had to pay Led Zeppelin for it makes me think that we're hearing also the banality of cultural appropriation in which as it moves through generations it becomes further removed from its original source right and so as much fun as it is to go back to oh the similarities between this entire uver of a ban that was also an era in which predominantly white British artists were

were copying predominantly black American blues music in the time when criticism of that exchange and appropriation did not have the sort of awareness that we have today. And so now when we listen to Greta Van Fleet in that it is the copy of the copy, who potentially is missing out that we have left out of this conversation. I think that deserves a lot more investigation. Well said, Charles. This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by me, Charlie Harding. and me, Nate Sloan.

Our engineering, mixing, editing, all great things is done by Bill Lance. Our community manager is Sarah Terry, and our design is done by Luke Harris. You can find more episodes at switchedonpop.com on radio public, Apple podcast app, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts. There we be. And chat with us. We love getting your suggestions. There's been a lot of fun conversation about this album and this breakdown on Twitter. Follow us at Switched on Pop.

We want to give a special thanks to Max McKenna on Twitter for giving us some fun ideas. We've left you out we didn't mean to. But also a huge special thanks to Jeremy D. Larson, who has joined us from Pitchford. Really fun review. You've got to read the review. We're going to post all the links to all the articles on the site and in the show notes. We can catch them there. We'll be back again with more episodes of Sushed on Pop in two weeks.

And until then, thanks for listening.