Despite having no official title and an album cover that looks like your grandmother’s living room if your grandmother lived in Budapest during the Crimean War, the album that Led Zeppelin released today in 1971 is one of the gold standards by which other rock albums are measured. The album featured an eight song lineup that other bands would be happy to call their greatest hits collection. Some call it “Led Zeppelin IV” and some call it “Zoso” but everyone called it the best selling album in history until Pink Floyd released “Dark Side of the Moon”.

Coming on the heels of the folk-acoustic curveball “Led Zeppelin III”, Led Zeppelin leaves no doubt that they are the premier rock band in the world with “IV”. Iconic riffs start to hit the listener a mere 15 seconds into the album and don’t let up until the 42 minute course is run. Even if you don’t like Led Zeppelin you know these songs - “Black Dog”, “Rock and Roll”, “Stairway to Heaven” – and those are only on side one.

“IV” set the tone for much of what rock music would become in the 1970s. It influenced genres as diverse as heavy metal, the blues, rock/hard rock and folk. To some degree it even influenced punk, if for nothing else as something concrete to reject. The album has sold over 30 million copies and is Zeppelin’s highest seller by a wide margin (Physical Graffiti 16 million).

Here is the track that closes the album, “When the Levee Breaks”: