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"I put a lot of work into my lyrics," Robert Plant told ROLLING STONE in 1975. "Not all my stuff is meant to be scrutinized, though. Things like 'Black Dog' are blatant let's-do-it-in-the-bath-type things, but they make their point just the same." On their towering fourth, rune-titled album, Led Zeppelin match the raunch of "Black Dog" with Plant's most scrutinized lyrics ever for the epic ballad "Stairway to Heaven," while guitarist Jimmy Page leads Zeppelin from the extreme heaviness of "When the Levee Breaks" to the mandolin-driven "Battle of Evermore." ("It sounded like a dance-around-the-maypole number," Page later confessed.)
Total album sales: 22 million
Peak chart position: 2