Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of '70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope…

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of '70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope…

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of '70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope. Even at its most basic - the muscular, traditionalist "Rock and Roll" - the album has a grand sense of drama, which is only deepened by Robert Plant's burgeoning obsession with mythology, religion, and the occult. Plant's mysticism comes to a head on the eerie folk ballad "The Battle of Evermore," a mandolin-driven song with haunting vocals from Sandy Denny, and on the epic "Stairway to Heaven"…

Led Zeppelin built their reputation on their live show. Their studio recordings were, as Jimmy Page stated many times in interviews, a springboard for further live improvisation and exploration. Many songs (“The Rover,” “The Song Remains The Same” and “In The Light” among others) began as riffs discovered on the stage…

The second wave of reissues in Led Zeppelin‘s overhaul of their classic catalog pretty much follows the path set by the first: remastered versions of the original albums on one disc, and alternate takes and mixes (along with the occasional rare cut) on the other. The band’s self-titled 1969 debut included live tracks, but all of the others so far — including the new ‘IV’ and ‘Houses of the Holy’ — have basically replicated the original LPs with different versions of the same songs. That doesn’t give fans looking for more obscure Zeppelin tracks much to reach for, but Led Zeppelin weren’t ones to waste much. During the decade in which they recorded their eight albums, very few songs were left unreleased. Only one B-side — 1970's ‘Immigrant Song’ flip, ‘Hey Hey What Can I Do’ — even surfaced during their run. So don’t expect to hear any recently unearthed gems on the remastered deluxe editions of 1971's ’IV’ and 1973's ’Houses of the Holy.’

The untitled fourth studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV, was released on 8 November 1971 by Atlantic Records. Produced by guitarist Jimmy Page, it was recorded between December 1970 and March 1971 at several locations, most prominently the Victorian house Headley Grange. Led Zeppelin IV was a commercial and critical success, featuring many of the band's best-known songs, including "Black Dog", "Rock and Roll", "Going to California" and "Stairway to Heaven". The album is one of the best-selling albums of all time with more than 37 million copies sold. It is tied for third highest-certified album in the United States at 23x platinum. Writers and critics have regularly cited it on lists of the greatest albums of all time.