Yesterday, I gave my reasons for choosing Pink Floyd over The Doors. But what about Led Zeppelin versus The Beatles? Nine out of ten people, I would bet, would choose The Beatles, but I’m one of the ten percent who thinks Led Zeppelin is better. Since ten years old, I’ve been a Zeppelin fan.

In his bedroom, my older cousin in North Carolina played Led Zeppelin IV for me. At the time, in the mid-eighties, he was about fourteen, and I was about ten. I remember he played “Stairway to Heaven,” and the song put me in a trance. After hearing it, I started buying every Zeppelin cassette at the record stores. Although I began with Led Zeppelin IV, I moved on to Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin I and every album up to Physical Graffiti.

As I sit here in my late forties, I believe Led Zeppelin I is their best because of its heavily bluesy influence. Fundamentally, in some form or fashion, the blues had influenced every rock band, although Zeppelin experimented with other genres.

Not until my late twenties did I really dig into the Beatles catalog. Before then, I’d only known them from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which I really enjoyed, and of course their early years when they wrote “Twist and Shout,” which I never got into. My friend who was a die-hard fan burned me a CD of The White Album and Abbey Road. He swore by The White Album, but I thought Abbey Road was a more cohesive work, while The White Album was more of just a collection of songs. Nothing against it, but I thought “Birthday” kind of ruined the vibe because they used to play it at Chuck E. Cheese when I was celebrating my birthdays as a young boy, so I always associated it with those times.

But in my twenties, I was still impressed by their albums, such as Rubber Soul and Revolver, just as much as I was with Led Zeppelin’s discography. I’d been more involved with heavier rock, and Zeppelin became a big influence. The Beatles were more of a pop band, which didn’t detract them from how great they were and the fact that they dabbled in psychedelia and many genres. Me personally, I would stick with Zeppelin, but not by a lot. Their best work outdoes The Beatles best work.