Led Zeppelin “IV” released 50 years ago today, November 8th, 1971. IV is not  the album’s true title: it is officially untitled and was supposed to be simply referred to by the four symbols pictured on the LP label. The band’s name does not appear on the cover and there is no catalog number on the spine. Despite this, it is probably one of the easiest recognizable, best-known and best-selling  records of all-time (charting at #1 and #2 in the UK and US) and is considered one of the best albums ever recorded, landing at or near the top of a zillion best-of lists.

IV is definitely early heavy metal and certainly hard rock but Led Zeppelin always interwove elements of Celt/Anglican folk and Lords of the Ringsy imagery and IV’s iconic “Stairway to Heaven” is the epitome with its bustles in hedgerows, May queens and pipers piping. It was also the most confusing song to be confronted with at awkward junior high dances, starting as a slow dance (oh my God he wants to dance with me!!) and then breaking into an upbeat metal jam where we’d kind of drop our arms and sway self-conciously. Or maybe that was just me? Also I’m realizing that particular junior high dance occurred only 15 years after IV’s release and oh my god I’m also feeling very old. Anyway, I love “Stairway” (and many of its covers/parodies, including the one by Little Roger and the Goosebumps “Gilligan’s Island (Stairway)” which Robert Plant declared his favorite cover of the song) but even better are the absolute ripping opener “Black Dog” (#15 US), “Misty Mountain Hop” (more mixing of Tolkien imagery with modern day youth culture), “Rock and Roll” (released as a single in early ‘72, hitting #47 in the US) and the supremely beautiful “Going to California.”

*reblogged and revised from my post in 2017