“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”
Who rocks harder – Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath? This is the kind of question that we can only solve with the help of political philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin.
Led Zeppelin were obviously all far more competent musicians than Sabbath. Bassist John Paul Jones was choirmaster and organist of his local church at age 14 while (not be outdone) Jimmy Page at age 13 appeared in a skiffle band on a TV talent show*. The Zep could deliver strutting peacock rock with the best 70s codpiece-sporting sexgods (“Whole Lotta Love”, “Heartbreaker”, “Immigrant Song”). But they aspired to be so much more – the folk of Led Zeppelin III, the near Queen-like rock opera of “Stairway To Heaven” or “Kashmir”. Even “Black Dog” has those weird time changes in that sounded like your vinyl had been left too near the toaster. So many, many ideas and styles and clever bits. My personal favorite is “When The Levee Breaks”, whose tidal groove feels pulled by an elemental horniness equivalent to the oceans pulled by the sun and moon. It sounds like The Velvet Underground on Viagra or Denis Villeneuve remaking a Michael Bay movie.
Black Sabbath are far more limited. And miserable. As you’d expect when you all come from the West Midlands**. The closest that Sabbath get to pastoral is The Wicker Man. Both Zep and Sabbath wrote songs inspired by The Lord Of the Rings, but only Sabbath would be the orcs not the Fellowship. Musically they are a boogie as industrially damaged as Tony Iommi’s fingers. Whereas Page is an elegant artist with his guitar, Iommi remains a foundryman pouring molten riffage on tracks like “War Pigs” and “Sweet Leaf”.
In the 1953 essay on Tolstoy “The Fox And The Hedgehog”, Sir Isaiah Berlin distinguishes between two intellectual temperaments.
“For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel – a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance – and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related to no moral or aesthetic principle.”
The first are “hedgehogs”, the second “foxes”. The concept has since been taken up by the psychologist Philip Tetlock to explain different style of decision-making. Personally I tend towards the fox. Asking me to be faithful to one system of thought is unbearable – a vow of intellectual poverty, chastity, and obedience. But being a hedgehog can have some benefits as an artist. It gives you a brand. It gives you an identity. It forces a level of emotional commitment to your work. If you cannot go wider then you have to go deeper.
It should be clear to anyone with ears that Sabbath are hedgehogs and Zeppelin are foxes. And that therefore Sabbath rock harder. Zep sometimes seem to be performers acting out as rock stars whereas the Sabs are a rock band. There is no pretence, no mask. Or at least no seams between the mask above and the face beneath.
Please feel free to correct me in the comments below.
*As Ron Swanson so nearly said, child labour laws are ruining rock today.
**Led Zep were 50/50 Home Counties vs Midlanders. Enough to take the edge off.
EDIT - 20.01.2023
Worth noting the worldview differences between Zep and Sabbath as well. Zep are utopian hippies, Robert Plant constantly yearning for some paradise with hot chicks and magic and hugs and puppies. Sauntering up a stairway to heaven. Whereas the Sabs have the opposite vibe. Everything is f***ed and they are going to a hell just outside Digbeth. As you might expect from a bunch of lapsed catholics, this damnation is not going to be personalised and private but communal and epic. I don’t know if I’d call them conservative but they are weighted down by the world.
Sabbath remind me a lot of the Eeyore of British political philosophy, John Gray. “Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia” could easily be three Black Sabbath albums from the early 80s.