The two bands Dave Grohl and Ozzy Osbourne agree might be the best ever
The subjective nature of music is what keeps many of us intrigued. It also leads to the art forms’ persistent relevance.
Regardless of how established different genres become, and how often various themes are written about, new music finds new audiences because of its ability to contextualise things. Love is love is love, but the way that was presented in the 1960s is different to how it’s presented in 2025, and that means that a lot of people listening to music today relate to modern music more than the old stuff.
You might agree with these opinions, you might disagree, but the fact that your opinion remains relevant regardless is pretty special. People want to keep listening to music because people want to keep feeling things, and that means there will always be a place for it as an art form, regardless of whether people’s objective best has been and gone.
It’s for these reasons that when we start to have debates about who the greatest bands and artists of all time are, we land ourselves in arguments that never have any kind of resolve. How many evenings in the pub have you spent watching pint after pint go by as you and your friends try to work out who’s better out of Jay-Z and Nas? Slash and Angus Young? Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck?
Even in something as subjective as music, there are a few universal truths that just about everyone can agree on. No matter who you’re debating with, certain names always come up and are instantly accepted. Two of those are The Beatles and Led Zeppelin – widely respected as among the greatest bands to ever do it. They didn’t just release iconic records; they left behind legacies that still shape the music world today. Even rock veterans like Ozzy Osbourne and Dave Grohl will tell you – these two acts paved the way for everything that followed.
First, let’s discuss The Beatles. These weren’t only a band that made good music, but they changed the way that people wrote, recorded, released, and marketed music. The world of sound was changed as the plane wheels of the Fab Four touched down in the US, and it has remained this way ever since.
Dave Grohl loves The Beatles and says you can hear this love in the work of Foo Fighters. While the two bands might not sound alike, they do champion melody over everything else. Strip back the distortion and aggression of Foo Fighters, and you can certainly hear the influence of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
“To me, that’s the most important part of a song,” said Grohl. “And that comes from growing up with Beatles records and sitting down with a chord book, trying to understand why those harmonies do what they do and why the melody moves the way it does and why the composition and arrangement is like this.”
Ozzy Osbourne agrees. Not only does he love The Beatles’ music, but he believes the world owes them a debt, as growing up in what was a pretty miserable post-war Britain, Ozzy attests it was this band who allowed people to have fun again. “My son says to me, Dad, I like the Beatles, but why do you go so crazy?” Said Osbourne, “The only way I can describe it, is like this, ‘Imagine you go to bed today and the world is black and white and then you wake up, and everything’s in colour. That’s what it was like!’ That’s the profound effect it had on me.”
Next, Led Zeppelin. Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, there were plenty of rock bands making waves and establishing the genre as one of the biggest in the world. However, there were a few standouts who didn’t just make good rock music, but showed how wide that style could be stretched. By incorporating various genres into their strange blend, Led Zeppelin expanded the parameters of rock and showed people just how much this style could achieve.
Dave Grohl was undoubtedly a fan of the collective. “You have no idea how much he influenced me,” said the drummer turned frontman. “I spent years in my bedroom — literally fucking years — listening to Bonham’s drums and trying to emulate his swing or his behind-the-beat swagger or his speed or power. Not just memorising what he did on those albums but getting myself into a place where I would have the same instinctual direction as he had.”
It’s safe to say that Osbourne agreed. While he went on to make a slightly different kind of rock to Zeppelin, there was certainly a mutual respect there. “I remember listening to the first Zeppelin album. It was like such a great breath of fresh air for somebody doing something acceptable but yet so different,” he said.
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