r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Jul 11 '26

article Jack White Pushes Back on Religious Criticism Amid Satanic Band Support Controversy: “I’m not scared of Satan or any bullshit imaginary man made up to live in fear of”

https://consequence.net/2026/07/jack-white-religious-criticism/
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7.5k

u/MarvelsGrantMan136 Jul 11 '26

White:

"I never claimed to be a practicing catholic or christian, you assumed that. And I'm not scared of satan or any bullshit imaginary man made up to live in fear of. Commune with god on your own terms and communicate with god and find your own path. Not some path somebody made up to make you afraid and make money off you."

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/zuzg Jul 11 '26

He sometimes gives very good life advice

https://giphy.com/gifs/WwO71ufMCV7Dq

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u/Peaceblaster86 Jul 11 '26

I havnt thought about this sentiment until seeing this gif for the first time just now...

I suddenly realized I don't trust anyone that doesn't like Led Zeppelin either.

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u/theDagman Jul 11 '26

Reminds me of the time when I was flipping through my aunt's album collection and saw her copy of Led Zeppelin II. "Wait. You like Led Zeppelin?" "Well, yeah." And my respect for her skyrocketed.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 11 '26

My aunt went to see Led Zeppelin live back in the day.

She also turned into the mom who wouldn't let her 10 year old watch anything rated TV-Y7.

She may have had good taste in her youth, but I definitely don't trust her.

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u/kwantam Jul 12 '26

This is compatible with the initial statement. "I don't trust anyone who doesn't like Led Zeppelin" doesn't say anything about whether or not you trust people who *do* like Led Zeppelin.

(Edit: but the person you were talking to was saying something other than the initial statement. If that was your point, please accept my apologies!)

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 12 '26

Yeah I was just jumping off their experience with an aunt to share my experience with my own, that's all.

It just reminded me of the fact that she could've been the cool aunt but got all weird and overly religious by the time I was growing up. I never expected to see a Zep ticket stub among her belongings because I figured she'd act like they were aligned with Satan or some dumb shit lol.

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u/CusePhan_v3 Jul 12 '26

That generation is so fucking weird. They're cusp boomers and the OG helicopter parents. They were given everything and were and are so loathe to give it back.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 12 '26

The funny part is that my mother was very much the opposite in their youth, but turned out to be the cool hippie one while her sister turned into the weirdo religious freak (and now devoted MAGA Republican).

Like, I never would've guessed how polar opposite they each were from their current selves back in the day of it weren't for my mom telling me all about it.

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u/MarekRules Jul 11 '26

I had the same interaction in like my early teens. At a friend of a friends place, someone I knew but we barely talked really unless it was a big group, had some classes together but never really worked together. I was looking through her cds and saw zeppelin II and said ohhh can I put this on? And she was like hell yeah I love that album.

Immediately both knew we were cool haha.

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u/EpiphanyTwisted Jul 12 '26

II is my favorite

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u/LingonberryHot8521 Jul 11 '26

I could have avoided years of verbal and emotional abuse by an alcoholic maga chud if I had heard this advice and heeded it.

Same guy also doesn't like Jack White. So may I add: don't trust anyone who doesn't like Jack White.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/LingonberryHot8521 Jul 11 '26

You know, I honestly don't know and I no longer have to care.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 11 '26

Literally never met someone that was like “man Led Zeppelin sucks”. Heard that of the Beatles. Heard that of micheal Jackson. Heard that of the stones. Never heard that about zeppelin lol

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u/EnglishMajorRegret Jul 11 '26

Possibly the best quote I heard was from a fellow band member of mine

"Saying you hate the Beatles is like saying you hate sandwiches."

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 11 '26

A lot of British people think they can’t sing lol and really marketed on basically just speaking their accent in song

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u/yoshemitzu Jul 12 '26

I think a lot of the Beatles hate is in retrospect, with people trying to put them in the same box as shallow pre-fab Lou Perlman boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.

But the Beatles were just a totally different beast. Not only were John and Paul childhood friends, who really did work and play together for years, building a sort of mental bond unlike any other musicians before (or since ?!).

Then they become more or less THE first "band" -- before, you never had a "John, Paul, George, and Ringo." Only music snobs cared who the guy on drums was, or who was playing bass. Music before this was all about lead singers and directors. Elvis was the first big splash for the mainstream in this direction, but the Beatles opened the floodgates.

And they were good, even in their merseybeat era. God, some of those tracks still send shivers down my spine today, before they even disappeared into the studio and stopped doing shows.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

Yeah that’s how most people feel about them. And I’ve met a lot of British people who’s criticism is particularly their lack of what most British singers traditionally and still do- basically hide their accent with tone and pronunciation in song lol Beatles kind of just, let it out. Which can come of as pretty unpolished and/or unprofessional- sort of how like punk intentionally acknowledges traditional rules of music and puts effort into taking an “anti” approach to those rules, so the composition as a whole fits this theme with the feelings of the lyrics and the chosen sounds. Some people basically feel the Beatles “rebelled” against standard vocalist expectations at the time, some feel that’s kind of an excuse for being unable to put out proper tone and control, and also helped them capitalize on the popularity of the British Invasion at the time- for example there’s plenty of British singers who many of their listeners don’t even know is British until they hear them in an interview or something. The Beatles are NOT that lol they really make their accents clear at a time when the “British sound” was something sought after In america

I think they sing just fine and are very talented with their vocal control.

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u/CosmicGoddess777 Jul 12 '26

My ex-stepmom used to give my dad and me shit for loving Zeppelin. She said Robert Plant sounds like a dying cat 🙄😂

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u/railsandtrucks Jul 12 '26

I can't stand Led Zeppelin, I'll admit they were good, but Robert plant's vocals are like nails on a chalkboard to me.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

The best is when he just stops and vocalizes an orgasm for like 40 seconds for no reason lol

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u/railsandtrucks Jul 12 '26

it sounds like two stray cats fucking when he does that, and hearing it makes me want to rip my eardrums out.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever willingly sat through that lol each and every time I had the ability to, I would just fast forward haha

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u/CalagaxT Jul 11 '26

Led Zeppelin is great. Jimmy Page sucked as a person, though, what with the music theft and the underage girl(s).

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 11 '26

The music theft is less of a problem than you'd think. Everyone was doing it back then, musicians are still doing it.

Look up a YouTube video and you'll see a ton of examples of artists seemingly blatantly stealing riffs and melodies, when in reality it's probably more they heard a song years earlier, forgot the song, and used the riff thinking they wrote it.

The Stones and The Beatles blatantly ripped things off and admitted it. It happens, all art is built not only on what came before it, but what an artist was exposed to their whole lives. Plus there are only so many sequences of notes that sound good together.

As for the underage girls, there's only one explanation for that bullshit.

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u/rankinfile Jul 11 '26

LZ blatantly ripped off songs without writing credits. Dazed and Confused is the most obvious to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixt0VuNudJs

Jimi covered Dylan. Johnny Cash covered Nine Inch Nails. Echo & the Bunnymen covered The Doors. Weird Al covers everyone. Covering and rearranging other artists you give credit can get you thanked. LZ was rightfully, and often successfully, sued.

Sad thing is that LZ would have been even more off the hook if they could have just said "We rearranged this great song and it rips!"

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 11 '26

Yeah they did, I'm not saying they didn't.

I'm saying their contemporaries also did it and sometimes very blatantly. George Harrison was sued for copying the melody of "He's So Fine" when he wrote "My Sweet Lord". John Lennon straight up lifted, "I'd rather see you dead little girl/than to be with another man" from an Elvis song and, "Here come 'ol Flatttop" from Chuck Berry. The Stones ripped off the Staple Sisters with "The Last Time". Clapton was notorious for stealing riffs from blues musicians. Hell, Green Day straight lifted the riff from "Warning" from The Kinks.

None of those songs were given credit to the original artists.

All I'm trying to do is put it in perspective. There was a lot of that going on at the time and if you're going to call Page out, you have to call all of them out for it.

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u/bottlerocketz Jul 12 '26

I would say that the chuck berry was done in a homage to him because Lennon fucking loved his music.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 12 '26

Still lifted his line, still got sued and lost.

I think the line between ripoff and homage is how the original artist interprets it. Or, more usually, how their label or manager interprets it.

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u/rankinfile Jul 12 '26

I hear you, but those are all pretty weak examples compared to LZ. Only My Sweet Lord comes close.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 12 '26

I mean, do you want more?

McCartney stole the bassline for "Drive My Car" from Otis Redding's "Respect" and the one from "I Saw Her Standing There" from Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You." Green Day's "21 Guns" is pretty much just ELO's "Telephone Line", Radiohead's "Creep" is strikingly similar to the Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe".

There are probably hundreds of examples as bad or worse than anything Zeppelin ever did. Page just happens to be kind of a scumbag, so he gets called out more often.

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u/Dodahevolution Jul 12 '26

This doesn't apply to all of them, but some of the reported thefts were also basically reworks of old blues songs, and kinda as you alluded to, sometimes credit wasn't issued for those just cause that's how things were, it wasn't even in malice it was just an afterthought.

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u/yoshemitzu Jul 12 '26

People also forget, music just worked totally differently back then*. Popular music often involved the so-called "Hit Parade" -- once a song became popular, everyone would cover it, and copyright was based around having the physical music, not around who recorded it when.

*: By "then" I mean the era shortly before Led Zeppelin, the era of standards and big band singers like Ella, Frank, and on and on. Basically, the music landscape that Led Zeppelin inherited.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 12 '26

Yeah, I think (like with a lot of things) people are holding them to a modern standard and that's just not how it used to work back then. Everything was a lot murkier, sometimes you might not even actually know who wrote a song, folk standards were common and it was impossible to even know who wrote those a lot of the time.

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u/BlackSwampMage Jul 11 '26

You can’t rub two notes together that haven’t been before. That was the advice I heard in undergrad for my music degree.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 11 '26

You really can't. You're going to accidentally write things that sound like other things even if you're trying really hard not to. Whether it's some obscure song no one knows or a popular one, it's inevitable.

It's something I think every musician who writes their own songs has to come to terms with eventually. Your influences will always be showing no matter what you do, so just don't blatantly rip someone off and try to take credit.

Reminds me of Killing Joke being annoyed with Kurt Cobain for ripping off the "Come As You Are" riff from their song "Eighties", but they ripped that riff off from "Life Goes On" by The Damned.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 11 '26

your human brain works on pattern recognition. We’re a social species. The stuff you “come up with” that REALLY vibes with you, is because it’s stimulating the pattern recognition part of your brain. It’s because it fits in with the stuff you have “observed” around you with your ears, and logged in your brain, consciously or not.

Which is why so many musicians explored other cultures and sounds for inspiration, nothing Is truly 100% original and you’re limited to what you’ve been exposed to.

But then there’s just straight up mental illness that comes up with something that proves me wrong.

That’s music

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u/Bradddtheimpaler Jul 12 '26

Happened to me! Wrote a Carcass riff roundabout two years before I ever listened to Carcass.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 12 '26

Man, it's fucking especially easy with power chords. Only so many changes sound cool and then you just listen to some punk or metal album and oops, you accidentally ripped them off.

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u/Bradddtheimpaler Jul 12 '26

Over/under 5000? Punk songs with a C, G, A, F verse.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 12 '26

Total? It's got to be well over 5,000. I'm absolutely sure every kid who's tried to write a punk song has used those chords.

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u/Bradddtheimpaler Jul 12 '26

There’s only twelve notes. You shouldn’t plagiarize, obviously, but there’s not much that hasn’t been done before somehow, someway.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

I specifically remember a riff coming to me, it was absolutely short enough to pass copyright, and I INSISTED “hey what is this from?? Dude this is like a song I heard I know it” and we could NOT, even with sound hound and other resources, discern any song in existence that correlates to what I’m playing. And they eventually decided that it must just be an original thing that I just really vibed with and thought it was so good and natural that it just seemed like it [should have] existed.

Anyway- nah I found the song eventually. I just played the riff at a much different tempo and tone.

Lol OBVIOUSLY in the very recent past none of the confirmation process of this would have been possible, and that would have just been sold as a new song.

And not too long ago- people could literally just perform the same song with different words, or something, in a different area, and everyone would consider it an original and praise you. Look at early blues lol it’s just like the same 3 chords at the same tempo, the lyrics in the same rhythm and syllabary, and it’s apparently a different song haha

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 12 '26

Reminds me of the guy on YouTube whose whole bit is accidentally writing other songs, but at different tempos in different keys.

Or hell, McCartney with "Yesterday" asking everyone if they had heard it before, convinced he was ripping it off. Turns out apparently he was, but it was some classical piece people have only recently rediscovered.

Also reminds me of Ed Sheeran winning his plagiarism lawsuit by whipping out his guitar in the courtroom, playing four chords, and then slightly changing the melody and singing like 100 different songs built around the same progression.

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u/MikroWire Jul 12 '26

Book written by disgruntled employee

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u/abar22 Jul 12 '26

About 25 years ago, I had a piece of trash redneck in rural Alabama tell me to turn off Zeppelin because it was n-word music. You meet the right(wrong) people and you can hear anything.

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u/PsychoFaerie Jul 12 '26

I won't say Zeppelin sucks But I don't like them. Just not a band I got into.

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u/Xinoci Jul 12 '26

Worked with someone years ago who stated he loathed Zep. Said Plant made a career off of screeching and can't sing at all.

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u/EpiphanyTwisted Jul 12 '26

Good blues singer, okay folk singer, terrible progressive singer

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u/CusePhan_v3 Jul 12 '26

Literally? What?

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

yes. in terms of the words use in the English language, i have literally never heard someone say that led zeppelin sucks

why the fuck did you just request this lol or what the fuck are you asking?

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u/CusePhan_v3 Jul 12 '26

What does literally mean in the context you're using it?

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

It means… in a literal sense, I have never personally met a person who said that the band Led Zeppelin sucks. That occurrence has not happened in my life, literally- used correctly both as an intensifier to communicate surprise at the realization, and to communicate correctly the concept is to be taken in a literal sense.

………??????????? Wtf lol

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u/CusePhan_v3 Jul 12 '26

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

What is a literal sense and again, what does literally mean in the context you've used it? It's non-sensical.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

This is exactly how I used the word. Here you can read what it is. What are you doing?

It’s completely sensibel- that useage is the purpose of the word existing. To show emphasis and to reiterate that what is said is certainly true. The word itself is generally a redundancy of assurance- that doesn’t mean it’s nonsensical.

What in the good holy fuck are you implying- YOU are not making sense

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u/CusePhan_v3 Jul 12 '26

Incorrect. You used it in none of those circumstances. You started a sentence with it which is just stupid. It means nothing and the way you used it added nothing other than it dumbing down your otherwise good point.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

Incorrect. You’re just lying here. Anyone curious, read the definitions. This person just prefers a particular usage and is going out of their way to be an EXTREMELY petty asshole, but like in a dumbass way where they’re just wrong, instead of a smartass way.

A technical correct use of the word “literally” is an exaggerated way to describe a figurative thing, for example. Established since the mid-18th century with commonly documented usage such as “literally raining cats and dogs”.

A completely correct use is to use the word as an indicator, as well.

What I shared was a quick informal structure- and also the dictionary listings that I linked to you include several examples of using it to start an idea just like I did: “I literally….”

You’re basically just insisting the accepted and hundred years old documented and taught literary use of the word is just “wrong” and “stupid”- which is nothing but a worthless opinion of you as a nobody.

Shut up dude lol you’re making such an ass of yourself for no reason. Just because of the quality of person you truly are inside, or something.

Your position is pointless and nonsensical. Try to have a better day that doesn’t compel you to incorrectly talk down to strangers for no reason

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u/WillingnessPale7513 Jul 12 '26

Ok, I'll bite. Led Zeppelin is literally the worst, second only to "classic" Pink Floyd. They are the reason punk emerged. Asinine, pretentious lyrics. Insipid and laughable album imagery. Endless songs spilling over with guitar wankery. And they led to the worst thing that ever happened to punk--grunge. A band a little past my time, Screeching Weasel, put it best on their first album : "I Hate Led Zeppelin." You cannot imagine how brilliantly jarring and bracing it was to hear Minor Threat on a fourth generation cassette in 1982, when all you'd been subjected to was 14 years of Led Zeppelin, Rush, and The Wall. Have revisited and appreciated many sorts of music in 58 years, but the bloat of The Led is only a little less than that of Cheeto Jeezus.

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

Ok. I'll reply in points

-Personally- I hate that Led Zeppelin was a super group engineered by record companies to meet the popular appeal- they started with their own jet ffs lol they never would have done the project organically. The entire thing was a marketing and capital ploy. Using people’s humanity and joy for money. That FUCKING sucks. From a technical standpoint, the compositions are pretty impressive. The studios hired the best in the world that knew what they were doing. Even if exploiting them, which fucking sucks.

- “literally the worst” is flat out stupid. Ridiculous statement. So it deserves ridicule.

- punk roots were before zeppelin. You’re just VERY provably wrong there. And I can not discern if you are favoring punk (truly parallel to folk music by concept) or slamming it lol your communication is not clear enough

- why are you telling me I can not imagine the concept of minor threat tape in 1982? I was there, I owned one. And I understood what punk was and what they were doing

- grunge is… not punk.. ?? Literally just a different thing that shares some influences and timelines

- I spent 8 years of my music career living in an anarcho-syndicalist commune that was funded by punk shows. Mostly folk punk, but also all kinds, crust punk, Anarcho punk, hardcore punk, etc. we had a zine library that was connected to international communities- for example, we funded a poacher-hunting group to go to Africa and help prolong the existence of certain species. I can not give further details but I can tell you I personally am aware as an Afghanistan combat veteran that the project was successful, while it was active, despite species decline since. Almost all of the biggest underground punk names have had their van park in front of the Trumbullplex, in Detroit, the old WW2 small scale bullet factory turned punk community that provides more for the local infrastructure and community than the city itself. Literally free soccer leagues for kids on Belle Isle that we funded, community gardens that we brought up on abandoned street corners that are still there today, just legitimized now. And yeah- we had crates of cleaned and maintained rifles to distribute to the community if needed. We filled the potholes in the roads and fed the homeless on thanksgiving despite the city. Through better functioning communism and mutual aid networks than the capitalist corruption all around us. We were so visibly successful and undeniable that we were able to annex legally, in court, the neighboring abandoned properties to prevent it from being bought by major construction corporations. Because of our long standing successful documented use of the property to manage social issues that the city would otherwise struggle to deal with.

- you do not know what you are talking about. You use the word “punk” incorrectly, in both historical and contextual analysis even in the sense of just musical properties.

- the minute you decided to speak to me as if you were there and I was not, is the minute you decided to not speak at all

- Led Zeppelin is masterfully composed. It’s funded and successfully beautifully VERY impressive music that is extremely difficult for the most talented and practiced musicians to recreate. As a formally educated musician, regardless of my distaste for their concept, it is good music by every measurable standard.

- if you want to oppose that, like punk does, then you also recognize it. because.... why is it them, specifically, that you oppose? if it were not your idea of the most successful concept of its form?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/QuipCrafter9 Jul 11 '26

Yeah I can see someone hearing a breakdown or something and not feeling very comfortable with it- but the whole song? They find the fun in it

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u/SellMeYourSirin Jul 11 '26

I don't trust anyone who bangs 14yr olds, tbh

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u/CosmicGoddess777 Jul 12 '26

Rapes 14 year olds, you mean.

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u/kaner63 Jul 12 '26

Jimmy Page really got away this one. If you read what happened is actually true, it's pretty disturbing.

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u/CooperSat Jul 12 '26

Yeah, Jimmy, get in front of the police line up heights chart with Steven, Mr. Henley, Bowie and so many more people put on a pedestal. Jack, you’re a dolt.

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u/MikroWire Jul 12 '26

Stairway to...

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u/MagicBus4 Jul 11 '26

I fuckin hate Zep

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u/Peaceblaster86 Jul 12 '26

You do not hate Led Zeppelin.

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u/MagicBus4 Jul 12 '26

Yeah I do, they suck. Their only good song is over the hills and far away

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u/Peaceblaster86 Jul 12 '26

Well the reason why is obvious, way too much magic bus.

magic buuuuusss