Hard Rock · Blues Rock · Heavy Metal
Four musicians, eight studio years, and a sound that rebuilt rock from the ground up.
The biography
Led Zeppelin formed in London in 1968, rising from the ashes of the Yardbirds. Guitarist Jimmy Page assembled singer Robert Plant, bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham — four virtuosos with a shared appetite for volume. Their 1969 debut album announced a new heaviness, and Led Zeppelin II, released later that same year, knocked Abbey Road off the top of the American chart.
What followed was one of the great album runs in rock: Led Zeppelin III (1970), the untitled fourth album (1971) — home to “Stairway to Heaven” — Houses of the Holy (1973), the double album Physical Graffiti (1975), Presence (1976) and In Through the Out Door (1979). In 1974 the band founded its own label, Swan Song Records, and under manager Peter Grant’s fierce protection, their 1970s tours broke box-office records on both sides of the Atlantic.
On September 25, 1980, John Bonham died, and the surviving members chose to disband rather than continue without him. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Why they matter to 1970–1989 music: Led Zeppelin made the album — not the single — the unit of hard rock, fused blues, folk and mysticism into something entirely new, and set the template for heavy metal and stadium rock alike. Every loud band since has lived in their shadow.