THE CRITICS!
Well, of course not all of them hated the Zeppelin, but you’ll be surprised how huge the number who did. Most of these so-called rock critics tended to focus on what the music or lyrics bring. As if as they were taught to criticize everything they hear, and take them as literal and such. One thing you didn’t know, that most of Zeppelin’s lyrics (with the exemption of few, of course) generally awful, so came critics bashing the band.
IMHO, these so-called critics never had any background in music theory, and therefore they simply ignored how brilliant Jimmy Page as a guitarist, how virtuoso John Bonham as a drummer, and John Paul Jones genius.
One more thing CRITICS hated about the Led Zeppelin is Robert Plant and his charismatic and unabashed sexuality. David Lee Roth joke about this once of why people love Elvis Costello because most of them look like him. They hated Robert Plant because he went against the “supposed” rock musician should look and act. They think that Rock Star should only do Open Shirts, Tight Pants, And Long Glamorous Hair. You wouldn’t believe how they described him back in the late 60s, a “Neanderthal.” You wouldn’t even understand why critics at that time loved more acts such as Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young.
Remember the first two albums? Those albums were judged so heavily and considered the band as a blues-ripoff artist. They were maybe right, “HINDSIGHT.” Unlike the Rolling Stones and The Who, they managed to build up quite reputations and were considered as musically adept, can you believe that? While on the other hand, Led Zeppelin was put on the same level as Blue Cheer and was seen as “LACK OF TALENT.”
But when they released Led Zeppelin III and IV, the critics changed their views about the band a bit, but of course, they still have something negative to say. They called them “pretentious” and “overly commercialized.”
This is why Led Zeppelin’s worst enemies were the critics because they never really did win over against them in their lifetime: it was only then when John Bonham died in 1980, and the band disbanded that the critics, especially the Rolling Stones Magazine, were forced to recognize them as “ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS IN ROCK HISTORY.”
In whatever case, this band takes the cake whether you like them or not. Just look at this live video of Kashmir and tell me otherwise.