Word out of London is that Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham are getting tired of waiting for singer Robert Plant to decide whether he wants to join their reunion tour – so they’re considering bringing a new singer aboard.
This can’t be real.
In the long and battered history of hard rock, only one band has successfully replaced its lead singer: AC/DC. Sure, you’ll argue Van Halen, but if you go back and listen to the Hagar years now that the buzz is gone you’ll know I’m right.
On the other hand, there are plenty of bands that have attempted to replace singers and ended up with music that sounds like sacks of wank.
For instance:
- Motley Crue. Do you know who John Corabi is? No. That’s okay. Vince Neil returned and all is well again.
- Judas Priest. Rob Halford left Priest for more than a decade, and they were crap. When he returned, they started making slightly better crap. Nothing will ever top the early years. The story of how Priest hired its replacement singer inspired the movie Rock Star, with Markie Mark. The soundtrack to that movie is better than anything Priest put out without Halford.
- Iron Maiden. Ha ha ha ha. When Bruce left, those other guys should have changed their name and tried something new, like country music or male modelling. They got some other singer named Blayze Bayley or something stupid and then vanished.
- Black Sabbath. Some people swear by the Dio years. Others like Gillen. There’s a guy named Jeff who sang for them in there somewhere, too. But I say Sabbath died when Ozzy left, and I would be right.
- Journey. When Steve Perry left and took his distinctive and perfect rock pipes with him, he was replaced by a couple of soundalikes. Journey is still touring, but I’ll bet you they sound like muffled farts.
The list goes on and on. Now, I know some of you metal geeks are getting ready to comment on this. You’re going to say ‘Weather, some of them guys what you, like, talked about on your internut wasn’t the original singers, either. They was replacements. Bruce Dickinson totally replaced Paul DiAnno, man!’
You’d be right. But I’m going with the singers that made these bands the successes they became, not early members from their bar-band days, or vocalists who bowed out after a couple of low-selling records. Bon Scott wasn’t AC/DC’s first singer either, you know.
Back to Led Zeppelin. Let’s hope Plant comes through. The band reunited for a show last year in England and I could hear it here in Canada. The sky turned red and lightning fired from the moon. It was that huge. So these guys really need to get their shit together and tour. But Plant is doing his thing with Alison Krause these days and is reportedly too busy to think about a reunion.
Who would they pick as a replacement? Some unknown Plant clone? Or a rock legend? Or some loser?
I’ll bet you David Coverdale is trying like hell to get through to Page right now, but Jimmy’s not picking up.
