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BATTLE OF THE BANDS: Greta Van Fleet vs Kingdom Come


fraroc
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4 members have voted

  1. 1. Greta Van Fleet vs. Kingdom Come

    • Greta Van Fleet
      3
    • Kingdom Come
      1
    • Both are good
      0


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First, let me say that I am very, VERY impressed with Greta Van Fleet, as they along with Ghost, are working to try and bring rock and metal back into the ears of listeners all over the world. Their music sounds very Led Zeppelin-esque, to the point where some people initially believed that their music was unreleased Zep songs.

 

When I first discovered Greta Van Fleet, my mind was brought back to another very Zep-esque band that came out decades prior to GVF, the (in)famous Kingdom Come. An extremely underrated band of the 80s hair metal period. However, the reason why I say "infamous" is because in the tail end of hair metal's halcyon years, Kingdom Come had kind of become a joke in the music industry due to Lenny Wolf's denial that they were inspired by Led Zeppelin (Citing AC/DC and Van Halen as their main influences). This lead to Jimmy Page himself openly accusing Kingdom Come of plagiarism and bands writing diss tracks about them. People even got pissed at Eddie Van Halen, who enjoyed them so much that they landed the opening spot on Monsters of Rock 88 where Van Hagar headlined.

 

Which really is a shame, because they had a lot of great material.

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I saw a Greta Van Fleet video on Stingray. I liked the song, but I forgot the name of it. Their lead singer reminds me of Michael Hutchence.
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Way too soon for a battle of the bands involving Greta Van Fleet. What do they have? 6 to 8 original songs? Not enough of a pallet to even finish a painting...
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I mostly dislike Greta Van Fleet. The point of their music appears to be to sound as much like Led Zeppelin as possible, throwing in all the little Zepisms they can manage, without worrying about writing great songs or albums in the process. Zep similarly ripped off their favorite artists to a tee, but they had the sense and talent to craft classic, timeless songs and albums from those many borrowed ideas over and over and over again. The debut alone has Dazed and Confused, Communication Breakdown, Good Times Bad Times, and a few more just stone cold classic songs, unharmed by the hand of time. What does Greta Van Fleet's album have that's going to be cared about in fifty years anywhere near that much?

 

"It sounds just like Zeppelin." Then why not listen to Zeppelin?

 

I haven't heard the other band.

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I really disliked Kingdom Come when they first came out, and nothing has changed ...

 

Greta Van Fleet is like going to a School Of Rock class watching kids do watered down versions of Zep songs

 

I do like The Struts though - a lot ... so if we're talking about new bands that don;t mind wearing their influences on their sleeve, The Struts are the ones carrying the torch for me

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I really disliked Kingdom Come when they first came out, and nothing has changed ...

 

Greta Van Fleet is like going to a School Of Rock class watching kids do watered down versions of Zep songs

 

I do like The Struts though - a lot ... so if we're talking about new bands that don;t mind wearing their influences on their sleeve, The Struts are the ones carrying the torch for me

 

The Struts I enjoy, but I don't think they're great yet. The guitarist needs to come out of the shadows a bit, at least for some solos, and the songwriting could use a little more nuance.

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I'm not big on tribute bands

 

I guess when it comes to modern bands, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

 

Not true. Modern bands should be spending time developing their own sound, learning lessons from their influences without letting those influences define them, then writing timeless songs that people will connect with. If they do that well, they should at least find a respectable audience, if not possibly make an impact on the mainstream.

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I mostly dislike Greta Van Fleet. The point of their music appears to be to sound as much like Led Zeppelin as possible, throwing in all the little Zepisms they can manage, without worrying about writing great songs or albums in the process. Zep similarly ripped off their favorite artists to a tee, but they had the sense and talent to craft classic, timeless songs and albums from those many borrowed ideas over and over and over again. The debut alone has Dazed and Confused, Communication Breakdown, Good Times Bad Times, and a few more just stone cold classic songs, unharmed by the hand of time. What does Greta Van Fleet's album have that's going to be cared about in fifty years anywhere near that much?

 

"It sounds just like Zeppelin." Then why not listen to Zeppelin?

 

I haven't heard the other band.

 

You stole my words!

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I'm not big on tribute bands

 

I guess when it comes to modern bands, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

 

Not true. Modern bands should be spending time developing their own sound, learning lessons from their influences without letting those influences define them, then writing timeless songs that people will connect with. If they do that well, they should at least find a respectable audience, if not possibly make an impact on the mainstream.

 

Fraroc doesn't understand that rock and metal is thriving today...he equates success with high chart positions.

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I'm not big on tribute bands

 

I guess when it comes to modern bands, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

 

Not true. Modern bands should be spending time developing their own sound, learning lessons from their influences without letting those influences define them, then writing timeless songs that people will connect with. If they do that well, they should at least find a respectable audience, if not possibly make an impact on the mainstream.

 

Fraroc doesn't understand that rock and metal is thriving today...he equates success with high chart positions.

 

Is a high chart position really that undesirable of a thing?

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I'm not big on tribute bands

 

I guess when it comes to modern bands, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

 

Not true. Modern bands should be spending time developing their own sound, learning lessons from their influences without letting those influences define them, then writing timeless songs that people will connect with. If they do that well, they should at least find a respectable audience, if not possibly make an impact on the mainstream.

 

Fraroc doesn't understand that rock and metal is thriving today...he equates success with high chart positions.

 

Is a high chart position really that undesirable of a thing?

 

It's completely desirable, but if you do actually view it as the be all, end all purpose of making recorded rock or pop music, then you aren't looking at it right. chart success is great when it happens (its effects on a band's later output are debatable), especially if the music behind it is still great. But here's the thing, history shows us many bands' best albums are released before they have a chart smash hit, and even if the chart smash is their best album, the albums released following that success are rarely as good from a musical standpoint, even if they're commercially appealing and become smash hits. This doesn't have to be true, but most music fans will agree it too often is, though they debate about which bands this actually happened to. Metallica is a great example since most fans are of the consensus that their decline in quality (for those that see it that way, sorry Segue) more or less coincided with their mainstream acceptance and the smash hit that still is the Black Album. Commercial success puts a bad taste in people's mouths because it often results in less quality music for fans of the original band.

 

 

I think that's all besides Segue's point though. The point is that if your only determinant of success and quality is how well something does on the charts, you're depriving yourself a lot of joy in listening to great music that doesn't make it onto the charts. My album of the year last year spawned zero real hit singles and didn't make a lasting impact on the charts, but everyone who reviewed it and listened to it (myself much included) could not get over how incredible it was. Nobody really knows about MisterWives aside from maybe one song that isn't on the album they released last year, yet that album speaks to me to this day. I found out about MisterWives from a free iTunes single they released in 2014 and bought their debut EP because it was 6 songs for 4 dollars and I thought that was a steal. I really enjoyed it, but didn't enjoy the full album that followed quite enough to make a priority of buying it. It also didn't sell incredibly well despite the hype from the EP, so I didn't think I'd miss it much. Three years later they released a lead single that had me absolutely floored, followed by three more pre-album singles that eventually convinced me to pre-order a deluxe album package with a t-shirt and poster and connect the dots book I was so in love with what I was hearing. Nowadays I wish I'd bought the full debut album back when it came out. It's not as good as the second one, but I would've had that much more enjoyment of this band had I made a priority despite it not being that commercially successful. One of my other albums of the year last year was a one minute recommendation from my favorite youtube that I listened to on a whim and was absolutely in love with as well. It made like zero impact on the charts, but sounded like most everything I loved hearing in a pop rock band. Had I not been open to listening to something that wasn't making a dent on the charts, I'd have missed out on one of my favorite modern rock albums ever.

 

It's not being averse to chart success that's preferable, Fraroc, it's having the courage to look past chart success to find great music that isn't getting the recognition it probably deserves.

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I'm not big on tribute bands

 

I guess when it comes to modern bands, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

 

Not true. Modern bands should be spending time developing their own sound, learning lessons from their influences without letting those influences define them, then writing timeless songs that people will connect with. If they do that well, they should at least find a respectable audience, if not possibly make an impact on the mainstream.

 

Fraroc doesn't understand that rock and metal is thriving today...he equates success with high chart positions.

 

Is a high chart position really that undesirable of a thing?

 

It's completely desirable, but if you do actually view it as the be all, end all purpose of making recorded rock or pop music, then you aren't looking at it right. chart success is great when it happens (its effects on a band's later output are debatable), especially if the music behind it is still great. But here's the thing, history shows us many bands' best albums are released before they have a chart smash hit, and even if the chart smash is their best album, the albums released following that success are rarely as good from a musical standpoint, even if they're commercially appealing and become smash hits. This doesn't have to be true, but most music fans will agree it too often is, though they debate about which bands this actually happened to. Metallica is a great example since most fans are of the consensus that their decline in quality (for those that see it that way, sorry Segue) more or less coincided with their mainstream acceptance and the smash hit that still is the Black Album. Commercial success puts a bad taste in people's mouths because it often results in less quality music for fans of the original band.

 

 

I think that's all besides Segue's point though. The point is that if your only determinant of success and quality is how well something does on the charts, you're depriving yourself a lot of joy in listening to great music that doesn't make it onto the charts. My album of the year last year spawned zero real hit singles and didn't make a lasting impact on the charts, but everyone who reviewed it and listened to it (myself much included) could not get over how incredible it was. Nobody really knows about MisterWives aside from maybe one song that isn't on the album they released last year, yet that album speaks to me to this day. I found out about MisterWives from a free iTunes single they released in 2014 and bought their debut EP because it was 6 songs for 4 dollars and I thought that was a steal. I really enjoyed it, but didn't enjoy the full album that followed quite enough to make a priority of buying it. It also didn't sell incredibly well despite the hype from the EP, so I didn't think I'd miss it much. Three years later they released a lead single that had me absolutely floored, followed by three more pre-album singles that eventually convinced me to pre-order a deluxe album package with a t-shirt and poster and connect the dots book I was so in love with what I was hearing. Nowadays I wish I'd bought the full debut album back when it came out. It's not as good as the second one, but I would've had that much more enjoyment of this band had I made a priority despite it not being that commercially successful. One of my other albums of the year last year was a one minute recommendation from my favorite youtube that I listened to on a whim and was absolutely in love with as well. It made like zero impact on the charts, but sounded like most everything I loved hearing in a pop rock band. Had I not been open to listening to something that wasn't making a dent on the charts, I'd have missed out on one of my favorite modern rock albums ever.

 

It's not being averse to chart success that's preferable, Fraroc, it's having the courage to look past chart success to find great music that isn't getting the recognition it probably deserves.

 

I think you and Segue are right. I mean, I love the band Daughter, and they're virtually unknown in the US. Whether they become top 40 or not doesn't change the fact that I genuinely love the music.

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Going by chart success in today's music scene doesn't mean much when you look at how the music industry has changed and that overall album sales are nowhere near as good as they used to be. Especially if rock and metal are the main genres you listen to. Stuff like that just doesn't sell these days and when it does it usually a very popular band like Metallica or Slipknot. Even bands like Priest and Maiden who use to get to get platinum albums fall off the charts very quickly after entering at a high position on the week of release. It doesn't mean the album sucks because sales don't remain to keep it high on the chart. It's just there are part of what has become mainly a niche genre that caters to a very specific audience. If an album I love is successful and sells a ton, great. If it doesn't that's not a big deal to me. All that matters is that I like it and screw anyone else who doesn't.
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I'm not big on tribute bands

 

I guess when it comes to modern bands, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

 

I'm not asking for captain beefheart or stravinsky. I just don't dig these groups

 

my idea of obvious zeppelin influence that doesn't cross into ripoff territory would be an album like soundgarden's louder than love, or jane's addiction's ritual de lo habitual. or the first rush record

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