Seeing as healthy discussion about the Mighty Zep seems to occur during pretty much every blog posting about music, this posting will now constitute the place where Zep can be idolized, worshipped, appreciated, discussed, hated, trashed or ignored. I even added it as an official category down the right side, so come back to it and post as often as you like. I will weigh in with my 2 cents and then everyone can thrash it out from there, allowing the other posted topics at hand to remain, well, the topics at hand.

Uppers

• Bonham is my favourite drummer of all time, and one of the main reasons i started and continued playing drums. I wore out my cassettes during the ending of Rock and Roll and Moby Dick.


• Had a strong hand in the creation of the "70s Rock Sound", along with Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc.


• Most songs from most albums remain relevant today.


• Could pull off acoustic just as well as electric.


• Everyone in the world knows Stairway.


• Each guy had his own cool symbol.


• I had Bonham's 3 rings patched on my jean jacket.


• John Paul Jones is a musical genius.


• They just fucking rocked. Hard.


• Defined rock and roll excess for generations to come.

Downers

• By buying into their own definition of rock and roll excess, eventually became a parody of themselves.


• Critisized early on for being derivative white-boy blues.


• Deal with Devil leads to death of Bonham, death of Plant's son, and Jimmy's unhealthy love for preteen girls.


• Growth of their Myth could be tarnishing their true legendary status.


• Stairway becomes waaaay overplayed, leading to it's ban from being noodled by guitarists in music shops worldwide.


• To paraphrase Chuck Klosterman on the topic of 8+ minute songs, "There are only two really long songs that get played on classic rock radio every day: American Pie and Stairway. Nobody changes the station on American Pie, they sing along through to the ending chorus. However, almost no one listens to Stairway all the way through." This is a valid point.