The 1987 album Robert Plant would be “very happy” if he could match
Rock and roll was never meant to be a battlefield between artists. Robert Plant has made that clear with his high praise for everyone from Prince to Elvis Presley.
Everyone can take inspiration from those who came before, but when the new kids in town start making their own creative strides, there are often a lot more people trying to figure out a way to stamp out their competition and remind everyone why they were one of the biggest names in music, to begin with.
That’s never been Plant’s approach. He always took inspiration from the likes of Jeff Buckley who came after him. Since the howling singer wanted to move away from the sounds of Led Zeppelin by the 1980s, he felt he was more than capable of taking on the new school.
Then again, the version of rock and roll that Plant was talking about looked a lot different by the dawn of the MTV generation. The titans of hair metal had picked up where Led Zeppelin had left off in terms of raw excess, and as much as people loved the idea of making brash guitar riffs for hours on end, Plant seemed to be burned out on that kind of music before Zeppelin was even over.
In Through the Out Door was the first time they started experimenting with synthesisers, and while not every song worked, it proved that they were still listening to what the new sounds of the future were going to be. If you wanted to look for the greatest rock and roll in the 1980s, though, it was better to look underground rather than the pin-up stars appearing in every music video.
The alternative scene had only begun to rise above ground, and while Pixies and The Smiths had their own sets of fans by this point, REM felt like the group for everyone from the moment they started. They never had plans to be the biggest group in the world, but that didn’t matter to them. What mattered was making great music, and albums like Murmur and Reckoning had the same melodies of pop music but with the force of a rock and roll tune.
“If I made a record tomorrow that sounded like parts of REM’s Document, I’d be really pleased.”
Robert Plant
Even though Plant eventually got on the new wave hype train by trying to sound like Talking Heads, there was something more rootsy in REM that resonated with him. Outside of the typical four-piece rock band setup, they seemed to take the same approach Zeppelin did, letting the music speak for itself and not bothering to lipsync to any of their songs whenever they made music videos.
Plant had carved out his own sound by the late 1980s, but he still admitted to chasing what REM was doing, saying, “I’ve ferreted around, working incessantly, trying different things out. If I made a record tomorrow that sounded like parts of REM’s Document, I’d be really pleased.”
Zeppelin and REM are far from one and the same, but the grunge movement felt like fusing both bands together. Eddie Vedder may have worshipped someone like Michael Stipe as a frontman, but listening to the way Pearl Jam attacked their songs, the teeth behind their riffs have come from Jimmy Page’s knack for writing some of the most infectious tunes the rock world has ever heard.
But Plant’s fascination with REM probably has more to do with his personal love of music at the time. He had grown past his days of being ‘The Golden God’, and while he could still belt to the heavens when he wanted to, he knew that there was something genuine about making songs from scratch and making something a bit more contemplative.
Yet, what perhaps marries the two bands is the fact that they both had supreme artistic integrity despite a sense of playfulness. This was embodied by the fact that they both called it a day at the height of their game.
“The last two records were really strong,” Peter Buck told Classic Rock, referring to Accelerate and Collapse Into Now, released in 2008 and 2011, respectively. He added, “But I just felt like no matter how good our last record was, it wasn’t really our time any more.” Led Zeppelin felt the same with the passing of John Bonham. Plenty of bands, however, clearly haven’t felt that way. And somehow, you can almost hear that fact in the uncompromising sound of Document. Little wonder Plant loved it.
