Ten Songs That Make Me Cringe: Stairway to Heaven (#9)

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For two weeks @JohnRoberts took his life into his hands by posting "12 songs I loathe," blasting a dozen sacred cows in the world of rock and roll. I didn't agree with every song, but I found he was spot on in a number of cases, especially in regards to songs that are grotesquely overrated and overhyped as "masterpieces" and "classics." I'm looking at ten songs that just make my skin crawl at the mere mention of the title. Here's the next one. #9: Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin Oh, so badmouthing the Beatles wasn't bad enough, huh, hillbilly? You want to go for the most overrated and overplayed...er....popular song in rock history? You betcha. Come on, people. This song got airplay because it was LONG and the DJs had to go to the bathroom. It wasn't because they thought it was so great. It just gave them eight minutes to use the can, pull more records, get their logs caught up, and answer the phone. (Yeah, DJs used to do all those things.) "D.O.A." by Bloodrock was eight and a half minutes long so it got airplay. You really think they played it because people liked it??? In fact, the Picky Wedia entry on this song says that this song went unnoticed for two years. Say what? Aren't "classics" generally recognized a little more quickly than that? I mean, The Godfather actually won Oscars when it came out instead of being hailed as a "masterpiece" 30 years after the fact. Oh, I know. People love it to death. Not me. In fact, all of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs can conveniently be found on one 45 ("Fool in the Rain" and "Hot Dog"). I never cared for them. The duet album Robert Plant did with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand, blew me away because I didn't know he could actually sing and do harmonies instead of his nonstop hard rock squalling. Now for a post-script: when I saw the Dave Rawlings Machine in Knoxville three years ago, guess who was playing mandolin for them? Zep's bass player, John Paul Jones. Go figure. Stairway to Heaven Written by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page Recorded by Led Zeppelin From Led Zeppelin IV, 1971 I can't post songs I don't like. Here's the only song named "Stairway to Heaven" to EVER make the Billboard top ten.