Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut is an album full of firsts. Released in the U.K. on Jan. 12, 1969, Led Zeppelin may not match the historical stature of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but it remains the prototypical hard-rock album.
It also could well be named the first album of the ‘70s, aesthetically speaking – and it’s certainly one of the first watershed albums released after the Batles
Less than six months earlier, guitarist and Led-leader Jimmy Page was still figuring out what to do about the fast-disintegrating Yardbirds – and his career, in general. His old band’s demise, though it had in fact been coming for quite some time, was finally made official in August 1968. That left Page with nothing but the legal rights to the Yardbirds name and the responsibility of recruiting new musicians capable of fulfilling a slew of pending Scandinavian tour dates.
The sequence of events that followed in quick succession still defies belief. “My whole life is moving so fast at that point. Absolutely just a roller-coaster ride,” Page told the Chicago Tribune in 2018. “I just knew what way to go. It was in my instinct.”
Even decades later, Jones still sounded taken aback by the sounds they made that day. “Just instant ‘This is fantastic,'” he told CBS’ Anthony Mason in 2012. “And just like, whoa. The room exploded.” But first came those previously scheduled September 1968 dates, which gave the group – who were still billed as the “New Yardbirds” – a much-needed opportunity to try out new material and test their mutual on-stage chemistry. By October, they were busy recording these new songs at London’s Olympic Studios for the bargain-basement budget of £1,782.
