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Can Future Generations Hope to Survive Without Knowing Led Zeppelin?
Global warming isn’t our biggest existential threat
Before diving into this week’s Rate-A-Record, I am happy to report that the results of the First Annual Rate-A-Record Tournament of Champions are in, and “Born to Run” is solidly on top. This doesn’t exactly restore my limited faith in humanity, but it does keep it from vanishing completely. Tramps like us…
Another example of the death of civilization as we know it came in the form of a text message from my son-in-law. It included a link to a YouTube video of a live performance by the band Greta Van Fleet and this comment: “Someone told me this band is the closest thing someone my age (he’s 28) will have to listening to Led Zeppelin in their prime. I don’t know, since I haven’t listened to much Zeppelin.”
With all due respect to Greta Van Fleet, there are more things wrong with his comment than I can cover in one article, but I’ll try. First of all, thanks to the magic of records, CDs, and streaming, Led Zeppelin will ALWAYS be in their prime. What troubled me more, though, was him saying he hasn’t listened to much Zeppelin. I have clearly failed as a father-in-law when the one song of theirs he is most familiar with is “Immigrant Song,” because it was featured in Thor: Ragnarok.
