Review: Trampled Under Foot: The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin

Trampled Under Foot: The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin by Barney Hoskyns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The paranoia and the suspicion and all that stuff is part and parcel of who he is, and unfortunately it manifests itself in some weird ways."

I don't like Jimmy Page although I do like a lot of his music. I don't like that Page appears to be unable to share credit (unless legally enforced in doing so) - whether in stealing from Willie Dixon and other blues greats or taking full credit for every note, every sound on Led Zeppelin albums to the extent of changing engineers in case any of them had the temerity to claim they did anything other than position the faders exactly where Jimmy told them to. I don't like that he resurfaces every few years to repackage and resell the same 8 or so albums. 2018 being Zep's 50th, we can expect to go through the cycle again.

I don't like John Bonham. He was a good drummer, but he didn't invent drums. He was a thug.

I do like Robert Plant. He has had a musical life after Zeppelin and some of it has been good.

I do like John Paul Jones, a seriously under-estimated musician. He also seems like a nice man.

I do like Barney Hoskyns but I would have liked some commentary from him, an opinion. Trampled Underfoot is essentially a chronological arranging of various interviews and, while they tell a fascinating story, I expected at least some counterpoint to the likes of Mick Wall's "You are Jimmy Page and you are justified in robbing everyone blind because you are a genius and they would never have been as good as you anyway..." (see When Giants Walked the Earth) or the salacious Hammer of the Gods.

There is a fascinating story here but I think Hoskyns could have told it better.

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