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Credit: Far Out \/ 2025 Paradise Pictures Ltd<\/p>\n
Sat 15 August 2026 18:00, UK <\/p>\n
Jimmy Page<\/a> had to earn his place at the top of rock and roll, just like everybody else. <\/p>\n Playing undersold gigs to half-empty rooms, in some of London\u2019s worst venues, he chipped away at the grindstone like his peers around him in that 1960s blues scene, waiting patiently for the opportune moment to break into the mainstream.<\/p>\n He couldn\u2019t have picked a better time to do that than 1969. It was the year of counterculture\u2019s big bang<\/a>, according to David Crosby, but what it really meant was a wild opportunity for musicians. At the end of the decade, bands like The Beatles and The Beach Boys had defined new artistic boundaries, championing the idea of the long-form album, and now fans were ready for more rock and roll, in its endless forms of innovation. <\/p>\n Zeppelin were the perfect band to deliver that. Filling the void left by The Beatles\u2019 break-up<\/a> but then platforming a new band of raucous \u201870s rock and roll, they soundtracked the blissful optimism of this new era and helped turn Jimmy Page into a global star.<\/p>\n But as Zeppelin released album after album in those early years, helping to solidify the fact that the LP is the premier format, the presence of his torchbearers never left him. Sure, Zeppelin took the \u201860s rock model and turned it up to ten, but they wouldn\u2019t have been able to adjust the volume dial had The Fab Four and their Californian rivals not broken new ground in rock and pop recording. <\/p>\n \u201cI think the Beach Boys tried to do it first,\u201d Page explained when outlining the importance of recording advancements in the \u201860s. He said, \u201cI think there were lots of Beach Boy things on the Revolver album. Especially, the vocal harmony. Wilson really said a lot in his Pet Sounds album.\u201d<\/p>\n It is so easy to slip into a state of cultural autopilot when looking at classic rock. Explaining Zeppelin\u2019s influence almost always comes in tandem with The Beatles, and maybe that\u2019s a national thing \u2013 tracing the lineage of Britain\u2019s influence on rock. But as Page rightly outlines, you simply cannot understand the fundamental impact of The Beatles without understanding The Beach Boys<\/a>, moreover, Pet Sounds. <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Without Pet Sounds, there is no knowing whether or not The Beatles would have dived into the sort of psychedelic waters they did. It was the blueprint for Sgt Pepper and ultimately, Sgt Pepper was the blueprint for everything that came thereafter.<\/p>\n \u201cI played it to John so much that it would be difficult for him to escape the influence,\u201d McCartney said of the \u201866 Beach Boys album. \u201cIf records had a director within a band, I sort of directed [Sgt Pepper] and my influence was basically the Pet Sounds album\u2026 I\u2019ve often played Pet Sounds and cried. It\u2019s that kind of an album for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Nothing Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin created in the \u201870s fit the Pet Sounds or Sgt Pepper mould directly. There was no deliberate attempt to replicate the symphonic arrangements or endless harmonic layers, but there was a clear model of ambition that was followed, and so while it may seem somewhat lofty to say, I don\u2019t think there would be a great deal of Zeppelin\u2019s music without Pet Sounds either. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n