The modern band Jack Black and Jimmy Page agreed eclipsed everyone in the 2000s: “They stood out a mile”
Like Herman Melville and Harper Publishing before them, Jack Black and Jimmy Page will always be married by a singular wail.
For the School of Rock generation, the roaring sound of Black’s interpretation of ‘Immigrant Song’ is rooted firmly in the psyche. Black nailed it. Perhaps that’s unsurprising given how much praise he has heaped upon Led Zeppelin over the years.
He’s a noted mega-fan, commenting that they’re “the greatest rock band of all time”.
Not only does he revere their thunderous chops, but also the lesser-noted wryness and singularity of the group. The ‘lemon-squeezing’ blues wordplay was also a vital ingredient of the group. And both Black and Page saw these reflected in the standout indie band of the 21st century.
Ahead of their 80,000 a-night weekend shows in Finsbury Park – a feat in itself in modern times for rock – Page heaped praise on a certain group of Sheffield scoundrels, stating: “The Arctic Monkeys, right from their very inception, you could tell straight away that they really, really thought about it.”
This considered approach was notable in Turner’s snarling and slack-jawed sermon to growing up under streetlights. His songwriting has also been championed by poets like John Cooper Clarke, Simon Armitage, and Carol Ann Duffy who opined: “Arctic Monkeys write poems. They are great lyric writers.” From the off, they were Baudelaire in baggy trackies.
This opinion was shared by Page himself, who stated: “Alex is superb, isn’t he? They’ve really worked hard at it, and you could tell that straight away. They stood out a mile from everything else that was going on.” And much like Led Zeppelin that hard work continued to evolve beyond the Promethean stylings that they first offered up back in 2006 with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.
However, it was their debut that first grabbed Black’s attention, and he soon asserted that it was one of his favourite albums of all time. His first wave of appreciation was born from the “very catchy tunes”. But then he began to uncover the deeper wealth of rock ‘n’ roll history in the welter of their mutt sound.
As he explained, “It just seems like there’s a lot higher appreciation for rock. People know their rock over there; there’s a lot of encyclopedic knowledge and a lot more love.” That sentiment was writ large across their debut and they stirred up the old guard to stand in admiration as a result.
