The power of desperation: Robert Plant hates his vocals on the first Led Zeppelin album

While we might love artists like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Black Sabbath, all of whom defined their own corners of rock and pop music, classical composers would despise them. This isn’t me pointing out the obvious and saying that maybe the palette of classical musicians from centuries will be different to Jimmy Page’s; however, it is a comment on how the use of effects within these different bands would rub romantic composers the wrong way.

When romanticism first started finding a place in music, the rules were fairly straightforward: If you wanted to play something sad, you needed to play in a way that convinced people of it. The same applied to happiness, anger, love, lust and any other feelings that could be pinned to sound. By using different effects and recording techniques, many a composer would likely criticise the likes of Paul McCartney, Tony Iommi and George Harrison.

“A musician can not move others unless he too is moved…” wrote Johan Sebastian Bach in his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (1753, 1762), “In languishing, sad passages, the performer must languish and grow sad… Similarly, in lively, joyous passages, the executant must again put himself into the appropriate mood.”

While on the face of it, we might think that romanticism can’t exist in the face of technological advancements in music, you would be surprised to learn just how much of what we consider important moments in rock ‘n’ roll were driven by emotion. They were less driven by the emotion which is often attached to the song, and are instead a reflection on the brutalness of the industry. It leads to some of the energetic musical performances that we now consider pivotal parts of the movement.

Take The Kinks and ‘You Really Got Me’, for instance. The band were on the brink of tanking, with their label threatening their contract if their next song didn’t chart. When they recorded ‘You Really Got Me’, they weren’t just playing a love song; they were playing something that could make or break their future in music. It’s that dread that led to the gritty style of that song, which subsequently influenced how many guitarists who made rock music played.

Another artist who let a form of desperation influence how they performed was Robert Plant. He is renowned for his screeching and emotive vocals, but if you listen to him perform on the first album compared to the Zeppelin albums that came afterwards, it feels as though he is really emphasising the power behind his vocals. This is no accident. Plant was terrified that he would have to leave his music career behind after none of his former music projects had taken off, and he saw Led Zeppelin as his last effort. That resonated in his vocals, which were packed with unrelenting power.

Speaking bluntly, Plant admitted, “I decided that if I didn’t get anywhere by the time I was twenty, I would pack it in.” His vocals were a reflection of that last-chance mindset, and while we might enjoy listening to them, Plant now looks back and cringes. He hears that desperation in his voice and believes it led to something far too exaggerated and dramatic.

Speaking specifically about the track ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’, he said, “Songs like ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’… I find my vocals on there horrific now […] I really should have shut the fuck up!” Romanticism in music is alive and well; it manifests in a more aggressive and energetic sound than that which classic composers may be familiar with.