A Load of Horseshit

Andrew Goodwin, writing in Slate, claims that the song Stairway to Heaven almost "destroyed" Led Zeppelin:

Led Zeppelin, which is reuniting for a one-off charity gig in London on Dec. 10, appears to be positioning itself to make the Biggest News in the History of Rock: a new album and world tour—a prospect described by Billboard's Ray Waddell as "like twenty Super Bowls rolled into one." While there are still many obstacles to a Zeppelin tour, the most vexing may be that Robert Plant will have to overcome his reluctance to sing the song that has done the most damage to the band. Yes, "Stairway to Heaven."
Variously described as "a song of hope" (Plant), "an optimistic song" (Jimmy Page), and "a wedding song" (these words popped into Plant's mind as he was finishing the lyrics—his unconscious muse tipping him off to the mixed blessing that he had just received), "Stairway to Heaven" remains the closest thing Zeppelin has to a hit, as it was their policy not to release singles. In 1971, when the band refused to edit the song into four minutes of radio-friendly pop, stations simply started playing the whole track, and it soon became the most requested song on rock radio.
It also turned Zeppelin into a joke. It was "Stairway" that branded Zeppelin as spaced-out mystics. It was "Stairway" that drove them to the madness of the absurd fantasy sequences in their movie The Song Remains the Same. It was "Stairway" that sold them to a mass audience that found it amusing to hold lighters aloft throughout the song, perhaps under the understandable impression that they were attending a concert by the Moody Blues. Plant has disowned "Stairway." But "Stairway" would be an essential component in any set list constructed by a band calling itself Led Zeppelin.

Goodwin does not proceed to explain how Stairway 'almost destroyed' Zeppelin. And the clown projects his music tastes on to other people by claiming they found it 'amusing' to hold lighters aloft during a song, even though I have seen it done at many different music concerts of many different genres of music.

All this essay by Goodwin accomplishes is his disdain for Zeppelin's music. That band have almost never received positive reviews from music critics. I went to see their first performance in Dallas during their final tour in 1977. I loved the concert and came home enraptured. The next morning I read the reviews in the local papers and wondered if the critics had gone to the same concert I had attended. All they did was criticize the performance up, down, and sideways, often without any supporting facts and often by getting the facts completely wrong. Reading their reviews one would think the audience would have booed and left early. But they didn't and the critics didn't bother to mention that the entire audience were dancing on top of their chairs.

Goodwin is stupid and he knows nothing about Led Zeppelin whatsoever. He is merely projecting a bunch of ridiculous nonsense onto people whom he knows nothing about at all.