{"id":518970,"date":"2026-06-30T22:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/518970\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:47:13","slug":"to-call-led-zeppelin-heavy-metal-is-at-the-very-least-absurd-and-at-worst-a-sin-to-me-zeppelin-was-the-equivalent-of-great-classical-music-kiss-stars-paul-stanley-and-gene-simmons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/518970\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTo call Led Zeppelin heavy metal is at the very least absurd and at worst a sin. To me, Zeppelin was the equivalent of great classical music\u201d: Kiss stars Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons on why Zep and The Beatles\u2019 debut albums are the greatest of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"

1974 saw the release of debut albums by three young rock bands that went on to become legendary.<\/p>\n

On their self-titled album, Canadian power trio Rush<\/a> channeled Led Zeppelin<\/a> on riff-driven tracks such as Finding My Way and Working Man.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

British band Judas Priest played heavy rock \u2013 not yet full-blown heavy metal \u2013 on their cheekily-titled album Rocka Rolla.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

And on another self-titled debut, Kiss, face-painted rock warriors from New York City, combined rock \u2019n\u2019 roll swagger with British Invasion-inspired pop smarts.<\/p>\n

The Kiss album featured songs that would live on in the band\u2019s live set for decades until the final End Of The Road tour in 2023 \u2013 dynamic rock anthems such as Deuce, Cold Gin and Black Diamond.<\/p>\n

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Black Diamond (Remastered 1997) – YouTube
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It is one of rock\u2019s classic debuts.<\/p>\n

And in the early 2000s, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, the leading figures and main songwriters in Kiss, were asked to name the debut albums they consider to be the greatest of all time.<\/p>\n

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Inevitably, as two committed Anglophiles, they both looked across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Simmons picked The Beatles<\/a>\u2019 US album Meet The Beatles! \u2013 a counterpart to the UK LP With The Beatles (which was the band\u2019s second album released in their homeland).<\/p>\n

Among the classic songs on Meet The Beatles! are I Want To Hold Your Hand, the band\u2019s first US No 1, I Saw Her Standing There and All My Loving.<\/p>\n

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The Beatles – The Beatles – I Want To Hold Your Hand (Live on The Ed Sullivan Show) – YouTube
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The cover of Meet The Beatles! proclaimed it \u201cthe first album by England\u2019s phenomenal pop combo\u201d. In fact, its release on 20 January 1964 came 10 days after the release of the group\u2019s US debut proper Introducing\u2026 The Beatles.<\/p>\n

However, due to the message on the cover of Meet The Beatles!, Simmons considered it their debut, and stated: \u201cHere, for the first time, was a band that played its own instruments. There was no backing band. They wrote their own songs, they sang all the parts. And everybody in the band was a star.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cThis album was sort of a hybrid of anything and everything that came before it. Paul McCartney<\/a> could do the Little Richard stuff and Lennon could do the Chuck Berry stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Beatles combined of all the great things in rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, from Motown to country to rhythm-and-blues to soul, and they put it together in a way that had never been done before.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, still, they\u2019re the hardest band to replicate. It\u2019s easy to be the Stones \u2013 you have a singer, a guitar player, and so on. It\u2019s tough as nails to be The Beatles. You not only have to play drums, you also have to sing. You play lead guitar and you gotta sing and write songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simmons concluded: \u201cThe Beatles is the pre-eminent, iconic rock band: the template for what all rock bands, in my opinion, should aspire to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Stanley is also a Beatles fanatic, but chose a debut album from 1969 by a British band of a heavier nature.<\/p>\n

Led Zeppelin – Babe I’m Gonna Leave You (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Led<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe first Led Zeppelin album was an amalgamation of American blues and British sensibilities,\u201d Stanley said. \u201cIt took a music form that had already existed and created something new.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody was singing like Robert Plant before he was. Sure, you had Terry Reid, you had Steve Marriott, you had people out there, but Robert just took it to a whole new place.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Jimmy Page<\/a>, besides being a fiery guitar player, is a brilliant arranger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanley declared: \u201cTo me, Zeppelin was the equivalent of great classical music \u2013 it\u2019s Beethoven, it\u2019s Mahler, it\u2019s bombast! And yet they had incredible subtleties and variety in what they did.<\/p>\n

Led Zeppelin – Good Times Bad Times (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Led<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt certainly wasn\u2019t \u2013 to coin a phrase \u2013 heavy metal. To call Zeppelin heavy metal is at the very least absurd and at worst a sin.<\/p>\n

\u201cZeppelin covered more ground than most bands could ever hope to. And I\u2019d say that first album is the defining album. The first time I heard Good Times Bad Times on the radio, my jaw just dropped!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1974 saw the release of debut albums by three young rock bands that went on to become legendary.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-518970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}