WI No Led Zeppelin

POD: 1968, after the final US tour of the Yardbirds, the band breaks up as OTL, but instead of forming a band of his own, a disillusioned Jimmy Page decides to go back to session work indefinitely instead of forming a "New Yardbirds".

What would be the impact on the emerging sound of hard rock & heavy metal?

If those styles still emerge, which bands would be at the forefront?

How would the career of OTL Led Zep members unfold in this timeline?
 

Derek Pullem

Kicked
Donor
I think the biggest impact would be that hard rock would evolve more quickly towards heavy metal and not detour into long rambling pseudo-psychedelia type "pieces". Robert Plant would be the big loser in this scenario.

Maybe tying up with Peter Banks ex-Yes in 1970 to go all prog rock?
 
Maybe Deep Purple isn't the "third pillar" of the burgeoning hard rock/heavy metal scene (alongside Led Zep and Sabbath) and is instead part of the big two, for starters.

With no Led Zep, by extension you butterfly away Led Zeppelin III (which showed that even a heavy band could go mellow and play folk/acoustic, instead of just melding blues rock with psychedelia which IOTL gave us the beginnings of metal).
 
We wouldn’t have that overrated piece of shit “Stairway to Heaven” and something actually worth a damn would be regarded as the greatest rock song of all time.
 
It's not like those guys would have gotten out of Music, joining the other bands that were shifting membership in 1970.

Without Zep being a thing, Plant could have taken the place of Lake in King Crimson, and would likely brought his bud Bonham along for the Drummer in early 1970, after near everyone not named Fripp left K.C.
 
It's not like those guys would have gotten out of Music, joining the other bands that were shifting membership in 1970.

Without Zep being a thing, Plant could have taken the place of Lake in King Crimson, and would likely brought his bud Bonham along for the Drummer in early 1970, after near everyone not named Fripp left K.C.

Ooh. Now I'm imagining Plant singing Cirkus instead of Gordon Haskell, and I like the thought of it tbh.

(which showed that even a heavy band could go mellow and play folk/acoustic, instead of just melding blues rock with psychedelia which IOTL gave us the beginnings of metal).

So I've been trying to think of bands that did this as well, and I've only come up with one: the Grateful Dead. I mean, that's arguable, seeing as they weren't the heaviest band in the world and they were always rooted in American folk, but Workingman's Dead iirc sounded nothing like Aoxomoxoa or Live/Dead. I'm not saying the Dead would've become anywhere near as big as Led Zeppelin, but they might've been bigger in the mainstream than IOTL.

Otherwise, idk. Blue Cheer? Bob Seger? I'm splitting hairs, but either way, you have a point there.
 
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So I've been trying to think of bands that did this as well, and I've only come up with one: the Grateful Dead. I mean, that's arguable, seeing as they weren't the heaviest band in the world and they were always rooted in American folk, but Workingman's Dead iirc sounded nothing like Aoxomoxoa or Live/Dead. I'm not saying the Dead would've become anywhere near as big as Led Zeppelin, but they might've been bigger in the mainstream than IOTL.

.

Jethro Tull blended folk with hard blues/rock pretty well.. I imagine they may be more successful in this timeline.
 
Jethro Tull blended folk with hard blues/rock pretty well.. I imagine they may be more successful in this timeline.

Weren't they always folky though? Like, Zeppelin had their folk songs, but they were always kind of in the background until LZIII. Jethro Tull's entire sound was based around blending folk and rock, so in the absence of Led Zep, they wouldn't exactly have the same kind of credentials as a straight up rock band that allowed LZ to become so successful.

Also, I just had a thought: could the absence of Led Zeppelin butterfly away Hendrix's death in some form or another?
 
Weren't they always folky though? Like, Zeppelin had their folk songs, but they were always kind of in the background until LZIII. Jethro Tull's entire sound was based around blending folk and rock, so in the absence of Led Zep, they wouldn't exactly have the same kind of credentials as a straight up rock band that allowed LZ to become so successful.

Also, I just had a thought: could the absence of Led Zeppelin butterfly away Hendrix's death in some form or another?


Good point, and in reflection, Jethro Tull were a folk-blues band who could occassionally rock- as opposed to a rock/supercharged blues band who occasionally did folky stuff.

The impact on Hendrix could be interesting.. anyone know how much attention he paid to early Led Zep in his last year or so?

Another thing to consider is the impact on rhythm guitar. The power trio (or power trio plus singer) lineup was nothing new, but Led Zep & Black Sabbath certainly made it more prominent in hard rock. Does no Zep mean more bands in hard rock/metal with rhythm guitar or twin-lead?
 
Depends. Iron Maiden comes too late in the picture, and a lot of bands (hard rock or otherwise) from the late 60s and early 70s had a single guitarist setup like Deep Purple or Yes. And of course you have The Who.
 
Depends. Iron Maiden comes too late in the picture, and a lot of bands (hard rock or otherwise) from the late 60s and early 70s had a single guitarist setup like Deep Purple or Yes. And of course you have The Who.


True, I guess if someone really wanted to keep the rhythm guitarist as essential in hard rock, the best POD may be getting The Who to break up early in their career (no later than early 1965)- which isn't that impossible to imagine, given their stormy group dynamic.
 
Lots of people don't have to spend money and time in court trying to get paid for the songs the Zep nicked.
Like this one
 
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