Be More Like Led Zeppelin

As a teen, I signed over my soul to the Columbia House mail-order mafia and bought the first few Led Zeppelin albums. I wore those albums out, dropping the needle in front of the “Heartbreaker” solo, “Black Dog,” and “Stairway” daily. Eventually I moved on to other obsessions and forgot how amazing this band was—until last night, when I watched Becoming Led Zeppelin, Bernard MacMahon’s 2025 documentary. The film, which earned a 10-minute ovation at the Venice Film Festival and grossed $13.2-million by May 2025, charts the explosive rise of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham from their 1968 formation to 1970’s global dominance.

Although Page and Jones had worked together as session musicians, the first time the Zep lineup played music together was a jam in a tiny, rented rehearsal room in 1968. They tested their collective sound, starting with blues standards like “Train Kept A-Rollin’” and “Smokestack Lightning.” Forty-four days later, they were recording their first album, which they completed in 36 studio hours. This raw fusion of blues, rock, and psychedelic chaos, using a 4-track recorder and a shoestring budget of £1,800 (about $4,300, then), helped usher along a paradigm shift in music. Tracks like “Dazed and Confused” and “Good Times Bad Times” took wild risks, blending modal riffs, orchestral swells, and improvisational fire. Led Zeppelin was also incredibly diverse, with the heavy blues balanced by the acoustic “Black Mountain Side,” which was inspired by folk and Indian music. Zep II pushed further, from the primal riff of “Whole Lotta Love” to the semi-pastoral “Ramble On.” Page’s violin bow on guitar and Bonham’s heavier-than-heavy drumming defied norms, while Plant’s primal vocals careened between octaves.

Most of today’s modern music is polished to predictability, sterilized, and quantized. I bet that 99 percent of the sessions I’ve played on over the past two decades were all built on a grid with a stagnant click. Zep’s approach to tempos is more like classical music, where the tempo follows the emotion. “Dazed and Confused” starts with a slow, brooding tempo (around 60 to 70 bpm) driven by a descending bassline and Page’s eerie guitar. The middle section accelerates into a frenetic jam (around 120 to 140 bpm), with Bonham’s aggressive drumming and Page’s wild soloing, before slowing back down for the haunting violin-bow section and a final explosive ramp-up to 140 bpm. On “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” the transitions are so abrupt it feels like a car ran a red light and hit your passenger door. Zep would have been boring if they were constrained by a click.