Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV [ATLANTIC]

Why you'll love it

It's the one with "Stairway to Heaven." It's also one of the best-selling albums of all time, certified 24 times platinum in the US, and "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll" and "When the Levee Breaks" are hard rock at its absolute peak.

This edition

• Single LP, 8 tracks
• Remastered by Jimmy Page
• Atlantic pressing with the original artwork

About the album

After Led Zeppelin III got a lukewarm reception from critics, the band decided their fourth album wouldn't have a title at all. No name, no band name on the cover, just four mysterious symbols, one chosen by each member, and an old man with a bundle of sticks on his back. Let the music do the talking, basically. It did.

Recorded mostly at Headley Grange, a draughty old country house in Hampshire, the album captures a band trying everything at once: the crashing riff of "Black Dog," the Chuck Berry rave-up "Rock and Roll" (with the Rolling Stones' Ian Stewart on piano), the folk-fantasy of "The Battle of Evermore" (with Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny singing alongside Robert Plant), and John Bonham's colossal drum sound on their remake of Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks." And then there's "Stairway to Heaven," eight minutes long, never a single, and probably the most famous rock song ever written. Not a bad week's work.

Also at Kops: more Led Zeppelin on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Atlantic, a remastered reissue of the 1971 album.