Comparison of Stairway to Heaven, Hotel California - Essay Example

Stairway to Heaven

Album: Led Zeppelin IV

Artist: Led Zeppelin

Year of Release: 1971

Rock Style: Hard Rock

It is the emotions of the music that is the most important element as the sentimentality expresses something deep. With Stairway to Heaven, the lyrics are highly symbolic, so much so that it is possible that a great deal of the listeners had no idea what was being expressed. However, the music was so beautifully emotive that the lyrics came across on some level, making this song iconic in music history.

Hotel California

Album: Hotel California

Artist: The Eagles

Year of Release: 1976

Rock Style: Hard Rock

Musical Characteristics: This piece of music is also a hard rock ballad, but it is less sentimental and more dangerously exciting. There was a fascination with Satanism and the occult in the 1970s that came through in the lyrics. The lyrics tell a more straightforward story in which death and the afterlife are explored. The music is intoxicating, the beat seeming to be in 2/4 time, rather than the more common 4/4. The lyrics are the center of this ballad, as the story is highlighted by the use of the lead guitar.

Both songs have similar themes of life and death. However, they are different in that they explore different kinds of sentiments. Hotel California tells a story of an event, where Stairway to Heaven creates a more symbolic scenario subject to a variety of interpretations.
The music is slower in Stairway to Heaven, drawing the listener spellbound through the piece, where Hotel California intends to push the listener through the events, dragging them into the ’hell’ that they have created. This is accomplished for Stairway to Heaven through the slowly rising music, that then drops back down, the tempo varying to give the listener time to experience what he or she is hearing through deeper exploration. Hotel California is a steady beat, slower than many rock songs, but with the feel of a horror movie, one you cannot turn from because the pacing has pulled you into the storyline.