Process of Change Inventory

Introduction Inventory has always been defined as the taking of stock for raw materials, supplier components, and works in process and even finished goods that appear at various points of production and logistics channel. Others define it as the listing of assets or any form of items for formal purposes. Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Process of Change Inventory specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Inventory involves several activities which among others include recording of items, time and even costs involved in the management of the listed items. The process of taking inventories involves a cost and that is why several methods of taking inventories exist and people adopt the different methods depending on the processes involved. Process Management problems involve decision making problems. The fact that companies have to acquire, allocate and control the factors of productions brings out the necessity for invento ry management. In order to improve the management of a business, sometimes it is necessary to change the inventory method so as to realize what you have not been achieving and the reasons behind. In order to reduce the inventories and thus the costs involved, it should be the role of the company management to ensure that the activities taking place in the business are geared towards achieving and meeting the customer needs without excess stocks being left unused. The process of change of inventory can also be achieved through analysis of all the inventory items involved. With the goods in the inventory being important according to their contribution towards the company goals, the items which generate high returns should be given a higher priority compared to those with low returns. The process of inventory can also be changed by classifying the inventory according to the bulkiness in order to be aware of the transport logistics that may be involved. This is due to the fact that dif ferent items require different transport means. The inventory method can also be changed by adapting new, better, and improved demand forecasting methods. Better forecasting methods reduces variability in terms of the expected against actual sales. The management can also introduce inventory management software which, when data is fed to it, can predict all the inventory management that is involved. Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More By managers using this software, they are able to predict easily the fast moving inventories as well as the more profitable items in the company. Finally, the use of postponement methods is another way of improving and changing the inventory method. This process involves modifying or customizing products after the main manufacturing process has been completed then delay the configuration and distribution process to the time when the distribution c ycle will be favorable. Conclusion When the management decides that the existing inventory method in use is not serving the business right, then a process of changing the inventory begins. From the study we can conclude that the process of inventory change can be brought about by the desire to reduce the inventory so that no excess inventories are left idle. The desire to introduce better forecasting methods in order to ensure the business gains optimally from the inventory is another reason why the inventory process might be changed. Another reason why change of inventory might be necessary is if the business plans to delay the configuration and the distribution process so that to ensure the time for release will be favorable and this can force also the change in the inventory process. This essay on Process of Change Inventory was written and submitted by user Nathaniel Summers to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Concepts of Budget and Cash flow analysis

Concepts of Budget and Cash flow analysis Liability A liability are any claims against the assets of a business or financial organization, they are the obligations that the business has for or against the external stakeholders of the business which may be the shareholders, creditors to the business, suppliers and even the lenders (Swart, 2004). Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Concepts of Budget and Cash flow analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A liability can also be defined as the legal obligations of an individual person or an organization and the obligation is derived from current or past actions of the person or organization that binds them to the external party legally. Liabilities therefore demands from compulsory transfer of assets or the demanded services at a future defined dates. Liabilities are majorly divided in to two that is current and long term liabilities (Tyson, 2009). Current Liability This is the future obligation that is payable w ithin a duration of less than one financial period i.e. one year. They include: accounts or trade payables, accrued rent and short term loans (Swart, 2004). Pizza Piazza’s current liabilities include:- the monthly rent of the leased restaurant $3000 per month, 2 short term loans of $1500.00 credit card balance and $350 vendor balance. Long-term liability This on the other hand are legal obligations or claims that are payable in the long run which may even range up to a period of from one year to ten years. They include:- owners equity which is the companies obligation to its owners and long term loans (Custard, 1996). Pizza Piazza’s long term liability includes:- the long term bank loan of $50000 Assets These are the economic resources that are owned by any form of business entity. They are generally of the use of value addition to the entity through the creation of more resources. They do this also by adding to the net worth of the entity that owns them (Hysell, 2007 ). They can be classified variedly as either current or fixed, liquid or illiquid or tangible and intangible assets. Assets include cash and receivables, Land and buildings and also equipment.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Current Assets They are also called short-term assets and they can be converted into cash or an exchange done against them within one financial period that is a year. These types of assets are highly liquid and change form often from one to the other. They include cash and cash equivalents, receivables, prepayments and short-term investments (Swart, 2004). Pizza Piazzas Current Assets are as follows: the inventory that it maintains to produce Pizza as well as start-up cash. Fixed Assets These on the other hand are called capital or long-term assets. They include all forms of property, plant and equipment that are owned by the entity. They are illiquid and therefore don’t change form that easily (Custard, 1996). It’s the long-term assets that are used to run the day to day operations of a business to create more wealth to the owners. Fixed asset include:- land, buildings, machinery and even vehicles. Pizza Piazzas fixed assets entails among others; the kitchen equipment and the three delivery vehicles. The cash flow of Pizza Piazza would contain cash from the sales of pizza and other menu items as the operating activities. Cash outflows would result from monthly expenditure like rent, insurance and community expenditure, fuel for the vehicles and loan payments. Reference List Custard, E. T. (1996). The complete book of colleges. Princeton: Princeton Books. Hysell, S. G. (2007). American reference books annual. Houston: Adventures Works Press.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Concepts of Budget and Cash flow analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Swart, N. (2004). Personal Financial Management. New York: New York Book Stores. Tyson, E. (2009). Personal Finance for Dummies. Chicago: Chcago Printing Press.

Motivations for public sector organizations to move from traditional Essay

Motivations for public sector organizations to move from traditional procurement to eprocurement systems - Essay Example Private sector organisations have embraced information and communication technologies, including e-procurement. The motivation for doing so has largely been increased efficiency, contributing to the enhancement of business excellence, and cost effectiveness. Public sector organisations have, in comparison, lagged behind and, in general, have been slow in adopting ICT. Management scholars have blamed the said tardiness on the organisational structure of public sector forms but have, nevertheless, argued the incontrovertible imperatives of the public sector's embracing the said technologies (Dent, Chandler and Barry, 2004). Concurring with the stated, this research will argue in favour of the public sector's adoption of e-procurement as a strategy for enhancing organisational efficiency and for embracing cost-effectiveness. Management scholars have determined that public sector organisations are largely modelled after the traditional bureaucratic organisational structure, as influenced by Weber (Cane and Thurston, 2000; Dent, Chandler and Barry, 2004). The implication is that all of the four components of organisational structure-labour division, departmentalisation, span of control and scope of decision-making-are shaped by bureaucratic-traditionalist managerial theory. This, according to numerous management scholars, has only served to offset the capacity for flexible response to changing external conditions and has, in the long run, resulted in the formulation of mechanistic and atrophying organisations (Cane and Thurston, 2000; Flynn, 2002; Dent, Chandler and Barry, 2004). As explained by Flynn (2002) among others, labour division within the public sector organisation is invariably highly specialised. Task specialisations are clearly articulated and each employee has a specific set of job functions, clearly set out in his/her job description, which he/she must operate by (Bourn and Bourn, 1995; Flynn, 2002). While the advantages of specialisation and clearly articulated job descriptions are practically too numerous to articulate, the disadvantages are enormous. Certainly specialisation implies that employees are often matched to jobs according to their skill-sets and explicit job descriptions mean that employees always have a clear understanding of the tasks they are required to perform and know the boundaries of their professional responsibilities (Bourn and Bourn, 1995; Flynn, 2002; Mctavish, 2004). Excessive specialisation, however, as is often the case with private sector organisations means that employees cannot function beyond the parameters of t heir jobs and are devoid of the proactive, problem-solving skills which are deemed integral to contemporary organisational success (Bourn and Bourn, 1995; Flynn, 2002; Mctavish, 2004). Quite simply, employees are confined to the limits of the skills that they brought with them upon joining the organisation, and on which basis they were hired, and their job descriptions. As early as the 1960's, management

Business Organisation and Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Business Organisation and Policy - Essay Example Where as, if the country has a government, which prefers large companies and even sometimes the government invests a lot to pull the sick companies, definitely the sentiments would be in favour of size. In a condition of economical boom, most of the people seek their entrepreneurial dreams to come true. The venture capitalists are there to help them out in this. Situations become gloomy in economic downturn. Venture capital firms would be in no position to help them out. In such a situation, big companies can sustain for long than the small ones. The situation can be seen from other point of view also. For an example, an industry, whose demand has decreased drastically; a large company, being in that industry, would get hit badly than the smaller ones. The smaller ones would incur less cost than the bigger ones. Even the economic downturn can be encouraging for the entrepreneurial business. In such a scenario employment opportunities would get squeezed. Many people would be inspired to have their own business this time. Even in recession time, companies prefer to squeeze themselves; by cutting on their employee size or selling off some of the non profitable divisions of a conglomer ate. Sometimes some social reasons can encourage a company to be whether small entrepreneurial or of larger size. Social pressure can play an important role to create emotions in favour of the entrepreneurship. Technology has encouraged having smaller entrepreneurial companies; but taking the help from the bigger ones. The small companies grow using the servers of the big companies; taking the help from their research and development. Sometimes large companies can have problems in communicating between themselves; the centred management information system might not be efficient enough to carry on the co-ordination within the business systems; that time the

The result of mixing calcium carbonate + hydrochloric acid Essay Example for Free

The result of mixing calcium carbonate + hydrochloric acid Essay I will set the apparatus out as shown above. To make it a fair experiment I will always add three marble chips and 10ml of acid to the test tube, for the first experiment. The clock will start with the test tube is secured with the bung. I will count how many bubbles come out in a minute. I will also check at certain intervals how far the bubbles of CO2 have reached in the burette (cm3). For the second experiment I will place 5 chips with roughly the same weight into separate test tube. The different test tubes will have a different acidic strength (molar). When The marble chips and the acids are added together I will time how long it will take for the bubbles to stop. Prediction: I predict that as the concentration of the acid decrease, from the selection I have chosen, the time of the reaction will increase, as the acid will consume the marble chips slower. There would also be fewer bubbles, coming out of the delivery tube, which is connected to the boiling tube. For the second experiment I predict that as the concentration of the acid increases the chips will be consumed quicker and the bubbles will disappear. Other experiments: Other ways in which I could have measured the rate of reaction was to use different weights of marble. For example I could have used only one marble chip or grinded a marble chip or I could have used 1-? amount of marble (as long a I had the resources). I could have measured how long it took the bubbles to fill up to reach 40, 30 20 etc. Results (1st): Concentration of acids (M) Bubble Count (1st) Bubble Count(2nd) CO3 (5 seconds)(1st)Â  24 13min, 11sec Graph: From the results I have retrieved I will make two graphs to explain the experiment. I will use two line graphs to do this. (Look at graph paper). Analysis: From the results I have found and the tables that I have drawn I can tell that as the concentration of the acid, in molars, increases there are more frequent appearances of bubbles and the burette fills up with CO3 quicker. For the second experiment I have found that there is a pattern as in the first table all the lines seem to curve in practically the same way. The graph allows me to measure the gradient accurately. From the table I can see that as the acid molecules were more stronger they worked quicker to consume the marble chips that had a quite a bit of surface area. From the results I found I believe that my prediction was correct. I said that as the acidic concentration increased the marble chips will be consumed quicker. From the two experiments that I did I believe that the rate of reaction experiment was more better than the other as it gave me more results. Conclusion: From all the experiment that I have done, on the rate of the reaction and how long it takes certain acids to consume marble chips, I have concluded that my experiment was successful in the sense that all the measurements gathered were accurate and that they showed the needed result to make the tables. I think that the acidic concentration effects the marble chips in the first experiment. And in the second experiment I think that acidic concentration also effects the marble chips in this experiment as well. Evaluation: From the results I have retrieved the quality of them depended on the accuracy of the instruments I used. These instruments included a burette to collect the CO3, a measuring cylinder to measure the liquids I was using and a clock to measure how long the experiment ran. The burette was only accurate to 1 millimetre so 1/10 of a centimetre. The measuring cylinder was only accurate to 1 millilitre. The clock was only accurate to 1 second so it was hard to interoperate where the pin exactly stopped, if it stopped in the middle of the second markers. The top pan balance was only accurate to 2 decimal places and 0. 00g. The acids were in molars and as the results were retrieved on different days the concentration may have varied in this period. The marble chips werent weighed in the first experiment so they may have given an inaccurate result. The accuracy of the reading I took were hard to see as it was difficult to determine, whether the marble chip had dissolved in the acid. The clock sometimes didnt start when the lever was moved upwards. Each reading that I took was repeated at least twice. From these two readings I made an average conclusion to plot the graph. The only abnormal and uncommon result that I spotted was in the second graph. It was the point where the 3(M) mark was plotted, it was not supposed to be there. The good points about my method were that they were repeated enough times to make an average and hence eliminated any chance of there being a mistake. The bad points about my method were that the marble chips were not always the same weight. The solution of the acid was not measurable so you have to make an estimate the concentration of the acid. As the results were taken on different days the temperature in the room may have varied through the duration of the experiments. I could have used a more effective clock to get better readings. I could have proceeded to use larger amounts or other concentrations of acids. Instead of the experiments that I did I could have done something different for example collecting the gas in a test tube and seeing whether or not it was flammable. Instead of having to repeatedly count the bubbles, which passed through the burette I could have used a laser to count the bubbles.

Animal Testing Essay -- Animal Testing

Animal Testing Animal testing is the running of tests and the research done in a laboratory on animals. Some of the tests are done to benefit human lives and other tests are done to determine side effects of a certain household or cosmetic products. It is a topic that has been up for debate for many years not only in the United States, but all around the world. While some support the advances that come from the research others oppose the cruelty that the media projects to society. No matter what one’s opinion of the subject is, it is still something that our society and culture deals with. There have been many progresses in the medical field and cures for a variety of different diseases found by testing vaccines and other treatments on laboratory animals. Scientists have been working for several years to try and discover a cure for the AIDS virus. According to Nowak, hopes for a vaccine to totally cure the virus are fading, however doctors have began to focus on a vaccine that would slow the progressions of AIDS. Diabetes is another disease that has benefited from the testing of animals. â€Å"Researchers who tested more then 50,000 natural and synthetic substances say they have found a fungus compound that acts like insulin, raising the possibility that diabetics in the future may take pills instead of shots†(Recer). As far as breast cancer is concerned, researchers for the government say that they have bred a strain of mice that identified what gene causes breast cancer in women (Waldholz). Another very important discovery in the medical fiel d is that â€Å"results of laboratory studies over the past year are providing new clues about how to prevent liver damage and giving researchers hope that they... ...er again and constantly ending up with the same results. In conclusion, animal testing is a subject that will continue to be argued about for years to come. There are two very distinct sides to the debate, it is either acceptable or it isn’t. Animal testing is a very beneficial process when used to discover cures in the medical field but should not be used just to simply test a new brand of cosmetics of household products. There have been several advancements made so far and more cures will be discovered as time goes on and more products are tested. The medical field has advanced so much due to the discoveries made from testing out new vaccines and medicines. They don’t have a cure for cancer today, but who knows, in ten years from now there might be a way to save loved one’s lives because of research and procedures that are being performed today.

Led Zeppelin: A Decade That Changed Rock Music Essay

Led Zeppelin was formed in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. During that interval there were dramatic changes in rock music, its mythologies, the industry, and its audience. Through circumstance, design, and luck the band occupied a central position in some of the most significant of these developments. The band’s impact on rock was music was noteworthy: Led Zeppelin rewrote all the record books. All subsequent bands were measured by the standards it set. As with few other popular bands, the truth depends upon the perspective one takes. Since Led Zeppelin’s demise popular music and its institutions have changed significantly, in this paper, I will attempt to give both sides their due by sketching a measured image of the band and the role it played in the development of seventies rock music. It will be seen that the band emerged at a transitional period in popular music, and that partisans and critics alike hold it responsible for changes that characterized rock music in the seventies. Led Zeppelin was formed by Jimmy Page in late-1968. It rose from the ashes of the Yardbirds, a blues-rock band that, along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, was one of the first-generation British groups. Despite the fact that it had been extremely successful in the United States, the group had little success in its native country. One of the band’s central claims to fame was that it employed in succession Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Today, these musicians are revered as the holy trinity of white, English, rock-blues guitarists (Cole and Trubo 13-14). Page, a highly regarded session guitarist who played on numerous British hits, selected the musicians that would form his band. He first recruited another accomplished session musician, John Paul Jones, to play bass and keyboards. Discovering that his first choice for vocalist, Terry Reid, was unavailable he selected the relatively unknown Robert Plant. Plant, in turn, suggested a friend and former band-mate, John Bonham — â€Å"Bonzo† affectionately — to play drums. In their first rehearsal together, the four played the Yardbirds’ â€Å"The Train Kept a ‘Rollin. † The session has been described as â€Å"magic† by all present. The rest, as they say, is history (Yorke 21-3). Led Zeppelin, along with Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, and Grand Funk, was a progenitor of the musical style known as â€Å"heavy metal† rock. As the name suggests, the genre features loudly amplified music that emphasizes the bottom register. Live or on a good stereo, its heaviness has a distinct somatic component — the throb of the guitar, bass, and drums can all be felt the in listener’s gut. Commentators interpret the genre as one of a number that emerged from the decomposition of psychedelic music in the late sixties (Straw 97-110), According to Straw, early heavy metal had three dominant stylistic traits; first, was the â€Å"cult† of the lead guitarist. Heavy metal bands were formed around guitar playing â€Å"geniuses† who were revered by fans for their instrumental prowess. As Weinstein reminds us, this extended to their use of, â€Å"A wide range of electronic gadgetry, such as wah-wah pedals and fuzz boxes† (Weinstein 23). Second, was the notion of the â€Å"power trio,† and other references to musical virtuosity. Unlike â€Å"pop† or commercial bands, whose relationship to musicianship was accidental at best, metal bands were made up of highly proficient musicians. Third, was the â€Å"supergroup† phenomenon, and the importance of extended solo playing that discarded the temporal limits of the pop song (Straw 97). As Weinstein observes, many of these attributes could also be discerned within pre-metal acts such as Hendrix or Cream (16-17). Later, the genre’s characteristics would sediment into distinctive stage shows, album cover designs, and audience dress and life styles. The success of this style has been interpreted as reflecting the emergence of a new rock audience, composed in Davis’ view, of, â€Å"Boys and young men between fifteen and twenty-four, an audience who like their rock to be loud, Anglo-Saxon, violent, 4/4, martial. The girls weren’t really at this party. It wasn’t a dance† (Davis 63). Audition tapes in hand, Led Zeppelin’s manager, Peter Grant, negotiated a five-album, ? 200,000 package with Atlantic Records in late 1969 (Lewis 45). In addition, the band was given complete artistic control over its music and album cover design. This was an unprecedented deal for a band that had yet to release a single album, and said as much for the negotiating skills of the principals as it did for the label’s expectations of the group’s potential for commercial success. In a move bound to raise more than a few eyebrows, the band removed the â€Å"a† from Lead Zeppelin, reportedly so that American fans would not mispronounce it. The magnitude of the deal would lead to charges that the band was based on â€Å"hype† rather than solid musicianship (Weinstein). Led Zeppelin’s early musical output fits squarely within the above stylistic categories. As Rockwell argues, its music was, â€Å"Essentially a prolongation of the nineteen-sixties British blues-rock tradition† (Rockwell n. p. ). Rather than offering a reinterpretation of the path laid down by its predecessors, the band’s music mutated the genre, creating a new offshoot. Two direct examples may be found on the band’s first album, Led Zeppelin: Willie Dixon’s â€Å"I Can’t Quit You† and â€Å"You Shook Me. † No mere covers, each song served as a point of departure for amplified, distorted, and shrieking musical efforts. Equally characteristic was the way Led Zeppelin offered up portentously expanded variants on American and British folk music. Songs such as â€Å"Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You† from the first album, or â€Å"Gallows Pole,† from the third, start with a vocal accompanied by an amplified acoustic guitar, building to complex tapestries of electrified sound and crashing drums (Yorke 72-4). These effects were realized by the way that Page used his guitar and electronic wizardry to explore the coloristic possibilities of distortion. Plant, on the other hand, used his voice like an instrument. This upset the vocal technique traditionally used by blues singers, which had required them to project emotion. Writing of this practice, Christgau argues, â€Å"Its influence on popular singing has been so widespread that, at least among males, singing and emoting have become almost identical — it is a matter of projection rather than hitting the notes† (n. p. ). Thus, singers like Bob Dylan or Neil Young who, by their own admission possessed little vocal talent, could be excused, or even revered, because of their ability to communicate not only lyrical content, but feelings. Plant’s vocals, in contrast, were devoid of feeling in the traditional sense. The expressive possibilities were found in the sound of his voice rather than in the lyric’s meaning (Lewis 67). No longer chained to lyrics, Plant used his voice as a sound rather than to express emotion, which often meant that a song’s lyrical content was often obscure or indecipherable. Led Zeppelin’s music did not emote in the traditional sense. Even the band’s acoustic work — sounds traditionally coded as â€Å"sincere† and â€Å"warm† — was sometimes interpreted as lacking feeling. The often meant that critics would interpret the band’s music as cold, or charge that it was just undifferentiated noise. With his characteristic penchant for hyperbole, Lester Bangs referred to Led Zeppelin’s music as, â€Å"The tonal equivalent of a 1933 Nuremburg rally (â€Å"Mighty† 62). An analysis of the band’s lyrical themes reveals a variety of topics and sources of inspiration. In Led Zeppelin’s early music, lyrical content, vocal style, and instrumental attack, often exemplify an aggressive, swaggering, male sexuality. All are found within the band’s â€Å"Whole Lotta Love,† one of its early hits. Recorded in 1969, the song has a â€Å"dirty† sounding, three-note riff, that has become one of rock’s most recognizable. Plant sung the lyrics, â€Å"borrowed† from Willie Dixon’s â€Å"You Need Love,† with his best histrionic ardor (Davis). Accompanied by the vocalist howling in orgasmic frenzy, the song’s middle section has churning, swirling, electronic sound effects that move from left to right speakers. On the same album, however, one finds â€Å"Ramble On,† a song that embodies and presages Robert Plant’s fascination with Tolkien-inspired imagery and Celtic themes. Undoubtedly, its lyrics owe a debt to traditional, blues-based tales of ‘ramblin men, who â€Å"have no time for spreading roots. † Ultimately, however, the song breaks from that mold by restating the narrative within the vernacular of an unrelenting, mythical quest for â€Å"the queen of all my dreams† (Lewis). Such songs are characteristic of Led Zeppelin’s output, and provide insight into what differentiated the band from its precursors. For Straw, one of the characteristics of their music was a, â€Å"Consistent non-invocation of rock history or mythology in any self-conscious or genealogical sense† (103). While he views this as a generic quality, it is particularly relevant to the analysis of Led Zeppelin’s music. Put differently, when Plant copped blues lyrics for a song it was rarely to evoke a specific musical mood or period. Instead, they became part of a larger musical dynamic. True, a song such as â€Å"Bring it on Home,† may have begun with the harmonica and voice mannerisms of an old, black, blues singer, but its inclusion was based primarily on architectural considerations rather than of a desire to pay homage to American urban music of the twenties and thirties. This misunderstanding is part of the reason that someone like Lester Bangs would write that Led Zeppelin’s, â€Å"Albums refine the crude public tools of all dull white blues bands into something awesome in its very insensitive grossness, like a Cecil B. DeMille epic† (â€Å"Review of Led Zeppelin† n. p. ). Rather than understanding the mechanics of the effect, or perhaps understanding but still not won over, critics found it easier to interpret the means Page used to achieve it. As it employed â€Å"inflated† or â€Å"excessive† means to achieve dynamic contrasts, Led Zeppelin’s music was often accused of being cartoon-like, the perfect intellectual nourishment for its young and uninformed audience (Cole and Trubo 49-50). According to Rockwell, â€Å"As it evolved from 1968 onward, Led Zeppelin became the first and greatest mass audience band built up through FM radio-play and live concerts rather than AM singles† (â€Å"Led Zeppelin and the Alchemy† 24). Christgau compliments this view, by observing that the band never â€Å"woodshedded† like Cream, that it had a mass audience from the start (n. p. ). Both facts reflected the changing structure of the music industry in the late-sixties and early-seventies. Traditionally, rock bands started at the ground floor. They toured in small venues and received local radio airplay, which they would then parlay into a local or regional base of support. Despite its commercial success, Led Zeppelin positioned itself as a band that lay outside the mainstream. Though it had a mass audience, the band’s fans felt as if they were members of a secret society. When their early albums were criticized by reviews in the Rolling Stone and other national music publications, they recoiled from contact with the music press. Unlike other bands, its members were rarely in the pages of music magazines (Lewis). Consistent with contractual stipulations, Led Zeppelin exercised absolute control over their artistic direction. They became known as a band that wouldn’t take shit from anyone. Tales of their contrariness have taken on mythic proportions. At a time when other popular bands were required to cut singles or engage in more subtle or obvious forms of merchandising, they were one of the few that had the power to abstain from these sordid affairs (Yorke 114-5). Despite many lucrative offers, the band refused to perform on television. These stories lent the band a distinctive mystique. Rockwell comments, â€Å"Led Zeppelin is a band that is almost a ritual among teen-agers and blissfully alien to the over-21-year-olds† (24). This combination of mass appeal and cult-like allegiance is an unusual and interesting phenomenon. In structure if not in meaning, the group was the musical equivalent of the Volkswagen Beetle. Even today, its status as a â€Å"people’s band† remains largely uncontested (Cole and Trubo 102). The hullabaloo surrounding the release of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album provides insight into how the band’s unique status was constructed. In 1971 it released its fourth album. Its jacket contained no words that would identify it as a Led Zeppelin album to â€Å"outsiders. † Inside, one found four â€Å"runes† at the top of the liner sleeve (Yorke 133). When asked to explain the rationale for this unorthodox packaging, Page replied, â€Å"We decided that on the fourth album we would deliberately downplay the group name and there wouldn’t be any information on the outer jacket. Names, titles, and things like that do not mean a thing. †¦ What matters is our music. We said we just wanted to rely purely on music†( quoted in Davis 141-142). Within the industry, confusion ensued over what to call the album. Critics labeled it â€Å"the fourth album,† or referred to it by catalog number, â€Å"Atlantic SD 7208,† while fans often referred to it as â€Å"Zoso,† a rough transliteration of the first rune. One does not have to challenge the sincerity of Mr. Page’s remarks to see how a belief that only music mattered, and that â€Å"Names, titles and things† had no relevance, might also function as an effective marketing tool. It played the game both ways: on the one hand, it affirmed the band’s distance from merchandising itself, while, on the other, it created an aura that drew suburban teens to record stores in droves (Cole and Trubo 73). Led Zeppelin toured North America every year from 1968 through 1973, returning in 1975 and 1977. The band had scheduled concert dates for 1980, although John Bonham’s untimely death halted their plans. The tours since 1973 were conducted with military-like precision. The band even went as far as leasing their own private jets to ferry them to and from shows (Yorke 142). The size of Led Zeppelin’s attendance and gate receipts were to become almost as legendary as its performances. In July 1973 the band broke the Beatles’ record for single concert paid attendance. The Beatles had drawn 55,000, with a $301,000 gross, to Shea Stadium in 1965. Yet that night 56,800 people paid $309,000 to see Led Zeppelin in Tampa, Florida (Robins 116). In 1977 the band played before 76,229 fans in Pontiac, Michigan, billed as the largest paid crowd for a single attraction in the history of rock. The band’s gross for the evening was $792,361, a record at that time (Swan Song Press Release). While its fans would proudly identify with the band’s â€Å"outsider† status, they also took a great deal of satisfaction in the band’s commercial success. This contradiction suggests that the rock ideology had mutated since the late-60, and that its oppositional stance had softened some, reflecting institutional changes that the genre and its audience had undergone during that time (Lewis). Plant and Page, around whom most of the show revolved, presented starkly different characters. On stage Plant was the front-man. He introduced the songs and chatted with the audience between them. The singer’s appeal was primarily to girls and young women. On stage he was, by turns, coquettish and phallic (Cole and Trubo 66-7). At one moment, he was a golden-curled, teeny-bop dream, provoking fantasies of castles and knights, at another, he was a groaning, pushing, back-door man, ready to break down the door to get what he wanted. Robins characterized his stage presence as, â€Å"Spirituality mixed with sexuality† (Robins 117). Unlike the singer, Page’s appeal was primarily to boys and young men. While the driving force behind the band, he almost never spoke to the audience. His is the silence of young boys, vulnerable and aloof. A waifish, Edwardian figure, Page’s guitar playing was accompanied by dramatic and grandiloquent gestures. On stage he often resembled a wizard marshaling the dark electronic forces at his disposal, an impression heightened by his reported dalliance with Satanism. He appeals to those who feel they have something important to say, but doubt their ability to say them (Davis). Led Zeppelin’s music always exceeded generic heavy metal boundaries. In the mid-seventies, however, these boundaries were eroding from developments within and without rock music. The stylistic diversity that marked its third and fourth albums was pushed even farther in later albums such as Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti. In each, the blues played a less prominent role, and the band’s lyrical concerns began to shift, in a generic sense, overlapping the terrain occupied by progressive groups such as Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. In the mid- to late-seventies the distinctions between the audiences for heavy metal and progressive rock began to fragment (Weinstein 29). By the mid 70s, Led Zeppelin’s audience had become more varied. While still holding much of its traditional audience base, new groups such as Boston, Aerosmith, or Kansas, competed with the band for the allegiance of young listeners. By contrast, its music became part of the mainstream. In 1976, for example, the daughter of the president, Susan Ford, said on the Dick Cavett Show that Led Zeppelin was her favorite group. Not able to let its historical commitment to youth be outshone, the Democrats responded in kind. Speaking at the National Association of Record Manufacturers convention, Jimmy Carter â€Å"reminisced about listening to Led Zeppelin records during all-night sessions when he was governor of Georgia† (Davis 296-7). While anecdotal, both accounts suggest that Led Zeppelin had become something of an institution. As a signifier of youth, one needed only to refer to it to become cool. As is common in politics, however, the symbolism rang hollow. Although the undisputed ruler of America’s high school parking lots in the early seventies, by the dawn of the eighties Led Zeppelin was no longer able to unite different youth factions under its sonic umbrella. Instead, these same parking lots were the sites of tribal warfare, with one area given over to New Wave, another to Disco or dance music, and still another to Metal (Straw 101-3). Led Zeppelin was, arguably, the most commercially successful rock band of the seventies, all the while maintaining an aura that made its young audience feel as if it were part of a secret society. From their standpoint, fandom was an entry into a â€Å"community† the size of which has not been seen since. It was also, arguably, the most significant and influential rock band of the seventies. Emerging from the decomposition of 60s psychedelia, the band played a leading role in the development of the decade’s musical, performance, and business practices. Works Cited Bangs, Lester. Review of Led Zeppelin III, Atlantic SD 7201. Rolling Stone. (November 26,1970): NP. Bangs, Lester. â€Å"Mighty War Machine, Familiar as a heartbeat,† Creem. (February 1972) 62-63. Christgau, Robert. â€Å"A Power Plant† Newsday. (June 15,1972): NP. Cole, Richard and Richard Trubo. Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored. New York: Harper Collins, 1992. Davis, Stephen. Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga. New York: Ballantine Books, 1985. Lewis, Dave. Led Zeppelin: A Celebration. Omnibus Press, 1991. Queenan, Joe. â€Å"Bookshelf: Sex V Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll. † The Wall Street Journal. (August 28,1992): NP. Robins, Wayne. â€Å"Led Zep Zaps Kidz. † Village Voice. (February 3,1975): 116-118. Rockwell, John. â€Å"Led Zeppelin Excites Crowd at Garden But Somehow Delirium Wasn’t There. † New York Times. (February 4,1975): NP. Rockwell, John. â€Å"Led Zeppelin and the Alchemy of a Rock Group. † New York Times. (June 5, 1977): 19-24. Straw, Will. â€Å"Characterizing Rock Music Cultures: The Case of Heavy Metal,† in Frith, Simon and Andrew Goodwin (eds. ) On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word. New York: Pantheon, 1990, pp. 97-110. Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Lexington Books, 1991. Yorke, Ritchie. Led Zeppelin: The Definitive Biography. London: Virgin, 1993.