THE REAL REASON LED ZEP WERE RUBBISH
The Zep war flaring twixt Tom and Fred is of course ridiculous to an extreme. Of course ver Zep were excrable, that was pretty much their raison d’etre. By way of proof I need merely offer one salient fact. With most bands, the reason for their success is not wholly musical. Instead much is often tied up with individual band members – and the kind of cool they exude. (The exception which proves this rule is Genesis. Pre and post Peter Gabriel.) Nevertheless, nearly all great bands have in them a cool member. Some have more than one. This is where the Zep fell down. Now ostensiably, if anyone was cool in Led Zeppelin it would have been Jon Bonham. He hit things hard, which is at least to cavemen and other lower forms of human life, pretty cool. Now its already a no-no if your coolest member is your drummer, but he was certainly more interesting than the god botherer, the poodle or the really, really dull guitarist.
But Bonham was not the coolest member of the band. The fella who had all the good stories about him, the person everyone wanted to be was their cricket bat weilding manager. Let us examine that statement for a second. This was a group who had so little personality that their manager, skulking lowlives that they are, was actually preferable in a social situation than themselves. And really, if your manager is cooler than you – then you should call it a day.