Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
In 1968, John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant formed Led Zeppelin, one of the most influential, innovative and successful groups in modern music, having sold more than 300 million albums worldwide.
The band rose from the ashes of The Yardbirds, when Page brought in Plant, Bonham and Jones to tour as The New Yardbirds.
In 1969, Led Zeppelin released its self-titled debut. It marked the beginning of a 12-year reign, during which the group was widely considered to be the biggest and most innovative rock band in the world.
The Led Zeppelin reissue campaign got off to an remarkable start in June 2014 as deluxe editions of Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, and Led Zeppelin III debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart.
The albums achieved similar international success with debuts near the top of the charts in more than a dozen territories, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
For the second round, the band prepared the reissues of Led Zeppelin IV (the third best-selling album in U.S. history) and Houses Of The Holy.
As with the previous deluxe editions, both albums have been newly remastered by guitarist and producer Jimmy Page and are accompanied by a second disc of companion audio comprised entirely of unreleased music related to that album.
The second round of reissues begins with one of the most artistically influential and commercially successful albums in the history of music, Led Zeppelin IV.
Released in November 1971, the album—which is officially untitled—defined the sound of rock music for a generation with ubiquitous anthems such as “Stairway To Heaven, ” “Rock And Roll, ” “Black Dog, ” and “When The Levee Breaks. ”
The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, has been certified 23x platinum by the RIAA.
The Led Zeppelin IV deluxe editions include unreleased versions of every song heard on the original album including alternate mixes of “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Four Sticks, ” mixes of “The Battle Of Evermore” and “Going To California” heavy with guitar and mandolin, and the fabled, alternate version “Stairway To Heaven, ” mixed at the Sunset Sound Studio in Los Angeles which lets fans hear one of the most revered songs of all time as they have never heard it before.
Led Zeppelin continues to be honored for its pivotal role in music history. The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, and a year later was awarded with the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm.
Founding members Jones, Page and Plant – along with Jason Bonham, the son of John Bonham – took the stage at London’s O2 Arena in 2007 to headline a tribute concert for Ahmet Ertegun, a dear friend and Atlantic Records’ founder.
The band was honored for its lifetime contribution to American culture at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012.
In January of 2014, the band won their first ever Grammy award as Celebration Day, which captured their live performance at the Ertegun tribute concert, was named Best Rock Album.
