As one of the pioneers of hard rock and heavy metal, Led Zeppelin continues to bring waves of new fans into the rock music family, despite their peak occurring over half a century ago. Time is often the true test of any artist. A band or a solo artist can gain almost immortality during their peak, but it is usually decades later that we get a good idea of just how high they sit among the pantheon of music greats.
Zeppelin are in the tier with some of the greatest and most influential artists of their era, whether it's Black Sabbath, the Rolling Stones, or Queen - all of whom have cemented their legacy decades ago, and influenced countless artists since.
Global Merchandising & Current Appeal
Led Zeppelin was not an obscure hard rock band on the fringes of success; ever since the late 1960s, they had shipped millions of records. Their success was more apparent in the US than in the UK, but the release of Led Zeppelin IV catapulted them into popular culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
It was around the same time that the band was beginning to develop a fanbase that would see them sell out stadiums all over the world. Their merchandising sales soared. They sold shirts, hoodies, bags, concert-specific tours, guitar picks, and even poker chip sets.
Led Zep In The Casino
While the band wasn't renowned for its poker expertise, it just goes to show how big its brand became. Their image rights and logo were projected onto anything that had the potential to sell. There is a correlation between hard rock and games like poker. As music merchandising and gambling both flourish in the digital age, communities have been able to grow and expand from the ground up.
Games like zone poker aim to capture the essence of the global community, as does merchandising; they are markets that still share many similarities.
So, what is zone poker, and how does it work? It's simple: it allows poker players to join the game as soon as they meet the buy-in requirements, resulting in more rapid-fire games and less waiting around in the waiting room. As digital poker moves into the global market, it's crucial to harness the power of social media marketing, as demonstrated in the link below. Impactful poker posts can have a vast, international reach.
Being able to capture the digital market is imperative, with Led Zep moving their brand online to music streaming sites and guitar players being able to find tabs for some of their greatest songs like Stairway To Heaven, and poker sites overcoming some of the challenges that have transformed the conventional game into a global digital market.
Private Jets, Stadiums & Mainstream Popularity
Led Zeppelin IV has an interesting dichotomy. If you're a diehard Zep fan, then you probably have a lot to say about the ranking of the first four albums. However, critically and commercially speaking, IV is their magnum opus. A recent documentary on the band highlighted just how phenomenal their growth was during this time.
For any band to bridge the gap between an ardent, respectable fanbase and one of the biggest bands in the world, they need to have a hit that becomes so recognizable and well-known that people who barely know the band can identify the song. For the Zep, that was Stairway To Heaven, considered one of the greatest songs in the history of hard rock.
Zep diehards will argue that none of their first five albums contained any filler. However, IV has the strongest case. It is packed from beginning to end with the sound of a band operating at the peak of its powers. Black Dog and Rock and Roll are a sizzling 1-2 combination of frenetic hard rock, whereas The Battle Of Evermore and Stairway To Heaven have a more melancholic feel to them.
The B side is just as strong as the A-side, with the finale of When The Levee Breaks being one of the greatest album closers and covers of all time. The half-century-long mystery surrounding the album cover was recently solved. However, the album itself funded the band's Boeing 720, The Starship, and within a few months, the band embarked on a stadium tour of the US.
In fact, in the mid-1970s, they were arguably the biggest band in the world, and their enduring appeal over 50 years later shows just how integral they were in the history of 20th-century rock music and popular culture.
Navigating The Digital Age
As mainstream music continues to become more sterile and robotic, the art of rock music, which involves crafting original songs with tenacity and soul, is becoming rarer. The absence of Led Zep's music in mainstream charts has been addressed by the rise of sites like YouTube and streaming services, which have been integral in keeping Led Zep's music alive and delivering it to a new generation of fans.
While they might not have the presence and appeal they did 50 years ago, the popularity of Robert Plant's solo music and the dozens of tribute acts around the world showcase just how big their magnum opus was in creating a long-lasting legacy.
