leeves breaking with rhymin

         The British rock sensation know as Led Zeppelin made its way on the scene in 1968.  Influenced by blues and folk music, their hard rock style made them just different enough to piss off the critic and land in the hearts of millions of rebellious teens.  “When the levee breaks” is the band greatest accomplishment from their fourth consecutive untitled album. The country blues married couple Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie originally recorded it in 1929. The song is about the great Mississippi flood in early 1927 when the levees did in fact break, forcing more than thirteen thousand people to be evacuated to higher ground. 

The John Bonham’s steady rock solid background drums playing in the background are truly the back bone to this single.  In an interview with Bonham he said that they recorded the beat in a stairwell of a three-story apartment complex, which gives it a muffled sound.  Lead singer, Robert Plant accompanies the mood by adding the legendary harmonica tune that is echoed through the guitar riffs from Jimmy Page’s electric guitar.  Led Zeppelin IV (as the album is know by) is the third best selling album in US history, resulting in it achieving the sixty-sixth spot on the Rolling Stones Magazines “ The Top 500 Albums of All Time”.

They’re raunchy, annoying but you can’t help but love them, Ad- Rock, Mike D, and MCA make up the infamous Beastie Boys.  The hip-hop rap group is one of the longest active worldwide, forming in 1981, and they finally called it quits in 2012 after vocalist MCA passed away from cancer. The group has a knack for sampling other well-known songs and adding their own twist to them. Their song “ Rhymin’ & Stealin’” samples the drumbeat from the Led Zeppelin song “When the Levee Breaks”. The eerie repetitive loop is revamped to add a hip-hop flare, which is signature to the Beastie Boys. “When the Levee breaks” is not the only song sampled on this track. The guitar riff that Tony Iommi plays over top of the drums is from the Black Sabbath song “Sweet Leaf”.

 The three different members of the Beastie Boys each have their own unique voices that range from slightly irritating, high pitched to raspy deep, to somewhere in-between.  The group molded the two different samples together to make it their own and they did it well enough that it’s not a direct rip off of the original songs. Whether it is dancing on stage in their underwear, or crashing parties, the Beastie Boys’ off the wall personalities are demonstrated in their lyrics and music choices. Pairing these two factors together is what makes Beastie Boys one of the greatest Hip-Hop groups of their time.