Best Guitar Work by Brian May

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[b]Sir GH wrote:[/b]

Even 'Burn' !??  I think it's just as strong as In Rock and Machine Head.
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Mmmmmm.....   I'm partial to some of the songs from that point onwards, don't get me wrong, but something always fouls the combination up for me.  Usually it's the vocalist that throws me.  I guess I'm just a Gillan/Blackmore slut! :D

Yes, Zeb, we all tend to take the perspective of things from where we live, and there is always a North American bias to things that aren't big here.  Oasis were unstoppable in Britain in the 90s, here they had the one or two good albums and last year were doing small halls in Canada with no buzz.  Keane is an afterthought, most British bands aren't seeing the same success.  America sees soccer as an odd little game that the rest of the world loves, but they haven't embraced it.  So through that filter, and knowing the historic tastes of the North American heavy rock community, I'd say DP falls into the sphere of bands like Kansas, Jethro Tull, et al.  Perceived to have had a nice little run, obviosuly very talented, but at least over here, just a page in the history of heavy rock, and the book would be a Zeppelin book.  Of course North America isn't the world and the perception of the two bands may be flipped elsewhere so sorry if I was giving world rankings ;)  [/QUOTE]

I don't argue that more people would be familiar with 'Led Zeppelin' than 'Deep Purple', but to say one's Pele and the other's Beckham...

And indeed, there are 193 countries in the world besides Canada and the States.

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[b]Sebastian wrote: [/b]

I don't argue that more people would be familiar with 'Led Zeppelin' than 'Deep Purple', but to say one's Pele and the other's Beckham...

And indeed, there are 193 countries in the world besides Canada and the States.
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[/QUOTE]I apologize Sebastian, bad comparison.  Check out this link.
[/QUOTE]http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=2&table=tblTopArt&action=[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]After you've seen it, upon further reflection, I should have said Zep is Pele, Purple is Landon Donovan.  At least in North America, Deep Purple would appear to be irrelevant judging by sales, which equates to radio play, concert tix sold and where they stand in the public consciousness.  Which is slightly below Scorpions, slightly above Korn or Little River Band.[/QUOTE]
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[/QUOTE]And yes, there are plenty of other countries besides Canada and the US, which is why I stated my own experience of where zi live.  Unless DP has sold 100 million more albums in these markets, they aren't in Zep's league in the eyes of world, musicianship, songwriting etc. be damned.  






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Speaking of which, I remember a friend of a friend's, who once said something along the lines of 'I like Deep Purple, except for those silly keyboards'. No comment...

So your friend made a foolish comment about DP, and you have no comment.  I'd like you to comment on the fact that Funky Horsie said he didn't understand how LZ was considered the ultimate heavy rock band (he's Canadian too, so Sir GH, FH and I are all in agreement that LZ is king in N.A.) and I said that their work connected with more people's than DP, which started a discussion of semantics about connection.  Then I provided statistics which shows that LZ's sales (and all of the connecting factors, forgetting their mythology) dwarf everybody's sales in North America, which makes them the ultimate heavy rock band which pisses off Funky Horsie and you.  So if DP don't even register over here, how am I to square your comments and his that they are equals or better (again in N.A.)?  I say they don't have enough songs that connected to people in the way LZ did.  They may have been too prog rock with the keyboards your friend hated.  They may not have had a charismatic front man a la Plant or Mercury.  But if you are positing that they are in LZ's league (at least here) you can offer nothing than your opinion.  Seb, I just believe that I could tell you that sirloin steak is the most popular meal for Texans (no idea if it is), give you stats and stories, and you'd debate it by saying you once had sushi in El Paso that your friends and you agreed upon was the greatest meal ever, and no one could have a connection with food like you did, which means sushi is arguably the equal of sirloin steak in Texas.

> I'd like you to comment on the fact that Funky Horsie said he didn't understand how LZ was considered the ultimate heavy rock band (he's Canadian too

Funky Horsie is Canadian? Since when is Argentina part of Canada? Is it called South Saskatchewan or Nova Nova Scotia?

> Then I provided statistics which shows that LZ's sales (and all of the connecting factors, forgetting their mythology) dwarf everybody's sales in North America, which makes them the ultimate heavy rock band which pisses off Funky Horsie and you.

I'm not pissed off about that. I disagreed (and still do) with your comment about DP not getting to people's consciousness as LZ did, and I still stand by it. You provided stats, good ones, but as I wrote earlier, there are too many variables. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if you want my two pence, here they are: DP are on the same league as LZ in terms of public's consciousness.

> So if DP don't even register over here, how am I to square your comments and his that they are equals or better (again in N.A.)?

I didn't mean NA, BTW.

> I say they don't have enough songs that connected to people in the way LZ did.

Which, as I said, can't be proved by sales (which result from way too many factors). We're gonna have to agree to disagree or write ten more posts each, with the same result.

> They may have been too prog rock with the keyboards your friend hated.

Not my friend, but a friend's friend. And there are loads of people who adore those keyboards. That's precisely my point: DP get to some people's consciousness, LZ get to other (and in some cases the same) people's consciousness, etc.

> But if you are positing that they are in LZ's league (at least here) you can offer nothing than your opinion.

I didn't reduce my comment to North America (which by the way includes Mexico too, not just the States and Canada - in fact, it also includes Guatemala, etc. if you don't split them as Central America), and I didn't reduce it to sales for the reasons already explained.

> Seb, I just believe that I could tell you that sirloin steak is the most popular meal for Texans (no idea if it is), give you
stats and stories

Both stats and stories are the result of (broken record again) 'way too many variables'.

> and you'd debate it by saying you once had sushi in El Paso that your friends and you agreed upon was the greatest meal
ever

First of all, I hate sushi. Second of all, I should've made some sort of survey when I went to Houston ca five years ago - it would've come in handy now ;)

> and no one could have a connection with food like you did, which means sushi is arguably the equal of sirloin steak in Texas.

It's not the same case. [i]SotW[/i] and [i]HS[/i] are just as overplayed and famous as [i]StH[/i] and [i]BD[/i], even if loads of people wouldn't know the name of the band (in both cases). The 'sushi vs stake' case you're referring to is, again, like Beckham vs Pele, like Mister Mister vs The Beatles, but not like DP vs LZ.

I've been away from the site for a few days. Sebastian, I don't really have the patience to go through your post with a fine-tooth comb, so I simply responded to the first part.

Sebastian wrote:"  > Hitler ordered the deaths of millions of people.

Of course he did. Did I say otherwise?" I never said that you did.

">  He wanted to kill Jews, and upon assuming power, he made it a reality.

Not really. He wanted to have Jews killed (not the same), and upon assuming power, he made it a reality.
His dream was for the race to be 'cleansed', not for him to commit the murders."Again, you don't need to
press the trigger to kill someone.

 "And by the way his dictatorship resulted in the death of loads of non-Jewish people, including African
immigrants or descendents, homosexuals, etc." True, but Jews were the primary targets and victims.

">  If he hadn't gone to power, there is an excellent chance that those people would still be alive.

There you're quite off: first of all, many of those people would be over 80 by now , and comparatively very few people actually make it to that age. Also, consider diseases, other wars, accidents, etc. Of course (before you jump into some ridiculous conclusion), I'm not at all defending the nazis or saying that it was ok because they'd die some day anyway." Oh my god. You really are predantic. Of course, I don't mean that they would be alive right now. I meant that if Hitler hadn't come along, millions of people wouldn't have been murdered. You don't have to take everything people say so literally. I could have said there's an excellent chance they would have lived, it doesn't mean that some of them wouldn't have died in other ways or they would be alive right now. If you're focusing on the word still, perhaps you should ask yourself what the logical meaning is, not the literal meaning.

"Your sentence could be rephrased to 'if he hadn't gone to power, there is an excellent chance that the vast majority of those people wouldn't have been murdered'." No. I'm not going to structure my sentences on a Queen site so as to please the more literally minded. I will write to my best ability what I mean, and people need to use common sense. I'm not writing an essay.

We are unlikely to ever agree on whether Hitler killed people or had them killed. You say that he had them killed, however IMO he absolutely killed them.

As someone whose grandfather on one side was on a RAF bomber crew, dropping bombs on the country of my other grandfather who was working in the German telecom of the day, I can happily say I have no regrets about World War 2.  Shit happened, as it does,  but this isn't fantasy football we're talking about.  It's not even cool to debate this sort of thing; it happened, it made the world we live in today, so sharrup.
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[/QUOTE]Besides which, we stopped talking about Hitler pages ago.  [/QUOTE]

Zebonka12 wrote: "Besides which, we stopped talking about Hitler pages ago." True, however I was meaning to respond to Sebastian, but I wasn't able to until now. Plus, the discussions on this site move at such a fast pace, I'm still not used to it.

Regarding Deep Purple, I don't think there's any comparison between them and Led Zeppelin. Purple are awesome, or at least were awesome when they were at their peak, but IMO they don't come close to the brilliance that was Zeppelin. Gillan? A great great vocalist, but among heavy metal/hard rock vocalists, I've always preferred Plant and Axl (I don't think I would necessarily describe Freddie as a heavy metal/hard rock vocalist since Queen crossed so many genres). John Paul Jones was IMO just about the greatest bass player of all time, while *Page  was IMO a vastly superior guitarist to Blackmore. I also think that Zeppelin were better writers, were better produced, and produced vastly superior songs. In comparison between their most famous songs, Smoke in the Water is wonderful, but Stairway remains IMO among the very greatest rock songs of all time and is flawless.

*Regarding Page, I want to make a few comments:
1)People talk about how sloppy Page was, but he wasn't always sloppy. He was nowhere near as sloppy in the early days before he started taking alot of drugs, and it's unlikely that he would have been such a successful session musician who was the first choice to replace Clapton in the Yardbirds if he truly was that sloppy.

2)Technique isn't everything. Emotion, originilality, creativity, excitement, knowing what to play and what not to (in relations to the song) and making sure that one is servicing the song is also important. Malmsteen may have great technique, but I could never describe him as a great guitarist because not only does his music come across to me as merely technical wanking but it is also IMO incredibly forgettable (plus, it's all basically the same). If a guitarist is original, creative, services the song, plays the right note in relation to the song, and makes you feel what he is playing or alternatively makes you feel awe, then IMO he's a great guitarist. Page does all of that, and so, I would describe him as not simply a great guitarist, one of the ten greatest of all time. (Incidentally, I think that Brian does all this as well).

3)Music is there to be heard. Dazed & Confused is my favourite Zeppelin song, but Stairway features my favourite solo, and I would rather listen to the Stairway solo a million times than a solo by some technically superior but IMO actually inferior guitarists once, such as Malmsteen.

But, you see...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDVwqTLS7d0


Malmsteen only made 4 or 5 records, the rest is more of the same. But fuck, can he play!
Before he turned into a generic neoclassical shredder, he sure wrote some pretty great tunes. But besides that, he played them really great, not neccesarily fast.

You can't say he's not original but Stairway to Heaven is... you have to be kidding. Malmsteen can be a Bach-ripoff and everything but Stairway to Heaven has that OBVIOUS "reinassance" vibe to it... how can THAT be original? Besides, it repeats the same progression over and over again. Have you heard the instrumental version?

Well it's really very simple.  Blackmore did things that Page could never do, but Page never did anything that Blackmore couldn't do.
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[/QUOTE]It comes down to this : *Do you like this musician or not?*   As long as you like an artist, then you never need to defend that choice.  Their work pleases you, it has done the job.  [/QUOTE]
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[/QUOTE]Ignore anyone who complains because they're a cunt.[/QUOTE]

[b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]
"Ignore anyone who complains because they're a cunt."

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Hey Peckerhead I resent that!!  :oP))))))))))))))))))))))))))[/QUOTE]

from best guitar work by brian may this topic became purple vs
zeppelin. i like both bands.  i'm from croatia and i have to say that
here purple are more loved than zeppelin and smoke on the water is more
famous and well known than stairway to heaven