Led Zeppelin “IV” released on this date, November 8th, 1971. Technically IV is not the album’s title: it has no name (and was supposed to be simply referred to by the four symbols pictured on the LP label), nor does the band’s name appear on the cover and no catalog number on the spine. Despite this, it is probably one of the easiest recognizable and best-known (and best-selling) records of all-time and considered one of the best albums ever recorded, charting at #1 and #2 in the UK and US.

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? 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 “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.”