In this Rick Beato video, he asks a fascinating question: If Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" was released today (and no one knew who LZ was), would the song still be a hit? As a test, he asked his young daughter, Layla, to help him answer that question. She was not impressed ("There's no auto-tune," "It's too long," "There's a long guitar solo").
In the course of breaking down the song, Rick brings up some interesting, and for many, sad facts: There isn't a lot of blues-based, or guitar-based, music around these days, people have short attention spans and aren't likely interested in an eight-minute song, and who would be interested in seven verses of nonsensical, painterly lyrics?
While Rick and Layla were analyzing the track, Rick's wife walked in and asked what was going on. When he explained the premise of the video, to the question of would "Stairway to Heaven" be a hit if it was released today, she replied "No, because people like crappy music now." Ouch.
Here's another, related Beato video that poses the question: What would "Stairway" sound like if Eddie Van Halen, Peter Frampton, or Eric Johnson played the song's 1-minute-plus guitar solo.
Image: Screengrab
