Led Zeppelin Agrees To Digital Distribution

cphilo points out a NYTimes article on Led Zeppelin's decision to sell its music online. The group is one of the last superstar acts to hold out against the digital tide. There was a months-long, trans-Atlantic bidding war for the rights to license the band's catalog. In the US, the only digital holdouts that outsell Led Zeppelin are the Beatles and Garth Brooks.

Comments

Having grown up

[gillbates]

listening to Led Zeppelin, I can say they are easily one of the best rock bands of all time. Unlike a lot of recent 'talent' which seems to be concerned only with imitating others, Led Zeppelin pioneered rock and roll and actually brought creativity back to a genre which many had dismissed simply as hippie music.

Good to see their catalog online; however, a few years ago I had a rather revealing experience after buying one of their earlier works on CD: I could definitely notice the limitations of the analog equipment used for recording. I hope that the tracks offered online are of better quality, or it will be a little bit of a disappointment.

Re:Having grown up

[conteXXt]

"pioneered rock and roll and actually brought creativity back to a genre which many had dismissed simply as hippie music"

Creativity? How creative is it to BLATENTLY rip off blues musicians from 20,30,40 years before they were BORN?

If sampling were available in Led Zeps time, I don't think they would have even bothered "trying" to disguise the theft.

Methinks you were looking for a different word. Plagiarism comes to mind.

No credits (initially) to the songwriters they stole from?

World's biggest cover band.

Sorry, this one makes my sick and is EXACTLY why I hate the music industry.

ringtones?!?

[russellh]

Ok, from tfa:

Under a series of new agreements expected to be announced today, the band will make its songs available first as ringtones and similar mobile features starting this week in an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless.

WTF? This to me says one of two things: either they don't care about the artistic integrity of their music at all, or they don't understand or don't have any respect for digital distribution, digital music players. I'm going with the former, as the latter has big $$$ attached now, apparently. mp3 players already devalue music generally, but nothing kills integrity like ringtones. Especially stairway to heaven ringtones. OMFG. kill me now.

Re:The real news...

[WrongMonkey]

Country music today is basically what rock 'n' roll was in the 70s (more true of the Eagles, CCR or Tom Petty than Zep, but I digress). So it wouldn't surprise me if similar music has similar fan-bases.

Saturated with MP3

[westyvw]

Seriously, who doesnt have all the Zep songs in MP3 by this point already if they like them? I dont get this concept of downloading bands that have been purchased over and over and over again in the past. If I didnt have the MP3's I could get them in short order from rip of my cd, or a library, or have em dropped off on my server by a friend, or turn on any classic radio station for more then 20 minutes.

I was a big fan, I even have hours of boots, back when that was interesting, and I still like them, but think about it, even 20 years ago (1987) you didnt have to buy an album or cassette because someones big brother or friend would give you one. They were very common during the transition to cd. And about 8 years after that I think you could pick up a cd in the $2 used bin.

in partial defense of Led Zeppelin

[commodoresloat]

It's true, the band should have been more up front about the music they were covering, but you are exaggerating the case. They did not "steal everything." They did cover some songs and there were lawsuits to force them to credit Willie Dixon and I don't know if they've ever credited Jake Holmes. But that is a small handful of songs in a large catalog -- Led Zeppelin has plenty of "original" songs. Sure, they were basically a blues band, but they used the blues to basically pioneer a new hard rock sound. Rock n Roll is itself basically ripped off from the blues and country music. And a lot of heavy metal ripped off Led Zeppelin. And so on.... that's how progress occurs in the open source world of popular music history. You're right that they should have credited (and paid respects -- not to mention some percentage of their profits -- to) the musicians whose work they used. But I don't think you can define all of their work by that.