A few thoughts for the weekend

["Jerry Czarnecki" <jerrymcza@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

1. Pretty sure that "Platinum" means 4,000,000 (four million) copies; I 
assume this is worldwide...

2. BB Page wrote:

I doubt you can call it integrity that they chose to
disband all those years ago.  From what I can tell, it
seemed like it was inevitable that Plant would want a
solo career of his own, and that the band was going to
at least close shop for an extended period.  Page's
desire to reform the band, and Plant playing Zep tunes
on his solo tours - and with Page in '95 and '98 -
just point out that the band wasn't meant to end
permanently in '80.  Performing is their livelyhood,
and as the tradition says, the show must go on.

- --Exactly. Several things to add as well:

Like all rock stars, Zep has had a tendency to go easy on themselves out of 
self-pity. Going back to 1977, was the death of Plant's son Karak really a 
sufficient reason to cancel the rest of that tour and to do nothing for the 
next two years? In the real world, no one would get away with that. Ditto 
the death of Bonham. Was it "integrity" that drove Pagey into drugs after 
1980 when his pal died of, more or less, drug abuse? I saw Pagey on the 
Outrider tour in 1988, with Jason Bonham on drums. During the drum solo, the 
spotlight was trained on him as he chugged back a Heineken. Given the way 
his father died, I found that particularly distasteful.

Was Bonham irreplaceable? It's hard to say, given that it wasn't tried. I 
think that Luis Rey is spot-on in focusing on the competition between Page 
and Plant and Page and Bonham as something that drove them on. Perhaps Plant 
didn't want to continue because he didn't want to face Page alone, and 
because Bonham was "his," while Jonesy was more on Page's side. However, 
with Jonesy extending himself, especially in things like the 1977 No 
Quarter, he could have taken up some of the slack of competing with Page or 
balancing out Page. And if they were more than the sum of their parts--as 
has been sadly confirmed by their solo efforts--then the remaining threesome 
would still be so with a different drummer.

Finally, if Zep was really revolutionary, then they ought to have continued 
from a responsibility to music, which transcends individuals. Zep didn't 
finish the job, which is one reason why rock is stuck in this rut right now. 
Imagine what Zep could have done melding rock with classical music--as 
Pagey's ambition seemed to be around the time of ITTOD--the way they did 
rock with blues. It would have been interesting even for Page to go forward 
on this with just Jonesy and no singer. After a couple of weeks of 
rehearsals, Plant would have come around.

3. Not to spoil the fun around the new releases...  It will be interesting 
to see how "the rest of the world" reacts to what we have known profoundly 
and for a long time. Especially interesting will be how many people pick up 
on how different Zep sounds every time you hear them. I mean, with this new 
package, there will be four live versions of Stairway available, three 
SIBLYS, etc. Are people going to have a sense that even this is just the tip 
of the iceberg?