Led Zeppelin IV released

Led Zeppelin IV Led Zeppelin

Released: November 8, 1971 Charted: November 27, 1971 Peak: 2 US, 12 UK, 13 CN, 2 AU, 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 23.0 US, 1.8 UK, 44.5 world (includes US and UK), 59.16 EAS Genre: classic rock/metal

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Black Dog [4:54] Rock and Roll [3:40] The Battle of Evermore [5:51] Stairway to Heaven [8:02] Misty Mountain Hop [4:38] Four Sticks [4:44] Going to California [3:31] When the Levee Breaks [7:07] Total Running Time: 42:34 The Players: Robert Plant (vocals, harmonica) Jimmy Page (guitar) John Paul Jones (bass, keyboards) John Bonham (drums) Spotify Podcast: Check out the Dave’s Music Database podcast The 50th Anniversary of Led Zeppelin IV. It premiered November 9, 2021.

Rating: 4.731 out of 5.00 (average of 35 ratings) Quotable: “This is the definitive…heavy metal album.” – Robert Christgau Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album Before the released of their fourth album, Led Zeppelin “was a well-established mover and shaker in the music world, with Robert Plant’s overtly sexual posturing and wailing voice, Jimmy Page’s spectral presence, John Paul Jones’ unassuming skills, and John Bonham’s ridiculously inhuman drumming.” CQ Prior to IV, critics “were slow to warm up to the British rockers.” CQ In his book Hammer of the Gods, author Stephen Davis called Led Zeppelin “a mystery cult with several million initiates.” ED-7 “Several million” may be a bit modest, considering this album – which author Erik Davis called “the Himalaya of heavy rock” ED-9 – has soared past the 40 million mark in worldwide sales. It transformed Led Zeppelin “from mere superstars into giant behemoths of the rock world.” AZ1 It is the band’s biggest seller by far (Led Zeppelin II comes in next with 24 million in sales) and most celebrated album (one of the top 10 albums of all time). Mixing and Defining Genres: While “the first four Led Zeppelin albums are all air-curdling classics, monolithic slabs of sleazy sweat-riffs and heavy gravity, [this] is their most staggeringly ambitious.” DK Jimmy Page called it “the first fully realized Zepplin album.” CM It “not only [defined] Led Zeppelin, but the sound and style of ‘70s hard rock,” AM serving as “an important stylistic template for everything from heavy metal to grunge.” BN It “is a staggering, genre-bending record with influences from proto-heavy metal, folk and blues.” PM It features “bluesy riff-slinging” AZ2 rockers marked by “ear-smashing bombast” BN alongside “bucolic strums” BN featuring the traditional sounds of “mystical, rural, English folk.” AM “Out of eight cuts, there isn’t one that steps on another’s toes, that tries to do too much all at once.” RS It “has a grand sense of drama…deepened by [lead singer Robert] Plant’s burgeoning obsession with mythology, religion, and the occult.” AM “The poetic, often Tolkien-influenced lyrics combined with a musical orgy of metal, progressive rock, and even country was a winning formula to stand the test of time.” CQ The Title: The British heavy metal foursome had become big enough that, in an effort to downplay the hype from previous releases, CRS they opted to release their fourth album with no title or even an indication who the band was. Jimmy Page said, “I remember one agent telling us it was professional suicide.” CM Any record company hand-wringing over the seemingly bad move was for naught. Fans had no difficulty finding the album; “Cashbox noted that this ‘un was a gold disc on its first day of release.” RS The album has come to most commonly be called Led Zeppelin IV, but also the Runes album, the Four Symbols, or Zoso because of the ancient-looking runes on the inner sleeve that looked like the letters z-o-s-o. The occult symbols on the spine of the record were to represent each of the members’ mystical identities. TL Here’s a more detailed explanation of each of the symbols. The Cover: The album cover features a picture “famed and nailed to a crumbling wall papered with a drab floral pattern.” ED-27 The image is of “a grizzled geezer…bent over a rough cane with the weight of the wood he lugs.” ED-26 Page, who found the print in a junk shop in Reading, explained, “The old man on the cover carrying the wood is in harmony with nature. He takes from nature and gives back to the land. It’s a natural cycle.” ED-27 Recording of the Album: The album was “rehearsed and partially recorded in Headley Grange, three stories of stone gloom in the middle of nowhere.” ED-73 It was built in 1795 to house “the poor and infim, and was sacked by disgruntled workingmen in 1830.” ED-73 In 1870, it became a private home. A century later, “bands like Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, and the Pretty Things started renting the place out, attraced by the place’s isolation and unique acoustics.” ED-73 Led Zeppelin came in December 1970 to work on their fourth album and “found the place cold and damp and rather the worse for wear…Plant and Bonham didn’t like the place and engineer Andy Johns reportedly thought it was haunted. Page…dug it. ‘It was a pretty austere place, but I loved the atmosphere.’” ED-73 To capture that atmosphere, Page and Johns “invaded every nook and cranny…with their mics and amplifiers.” ED-73 For example, on “When the Levee Breaks,” they ran mics ten and twenty feet overhead from the large open stone stairwell where Bonham played his drums. As a result, “what you hear is not just the drums, but the drums reacting to the acoustic space of the room.” ED-74 Headley Grange, 1970 Its Legacy “Led Zeppelin made other fine albums, but this one remains the core of their canon;” BN it is “the definitive Led Zeppelin recording” HE and “a masterclass of pure rock ‘n’ roll.” PM “Led Zep have had a lot of imitators…but it takes cuts like this to show that most of them have only picked up the style, lacking any real knowledge of the meat underneath.” RS In fact, “this is the definitive…heavy metal album.” RC Reissue A 2014 deluxe edition included a second disc of alternate mixes. The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Black Dog Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant (see lyrics here) Released: single (12/15/1971), Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 15 BB, 9 CB, 10 HR, 1 CL, 11 CN, 9 AU, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.20 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 105.54 video, 447.89 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Led Zeppelin IV “explodes…with the lusty Black Dog, a ubiquitous favorite on classic rock stations.” RV In 2007, Q magazine rated it the greatest guitar track of all time. WK Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash said, “It was the biggest, baddest, sexiest riff out there.” BL It is an “endlessly inventive [and] complex, multi-layered” AM “mutant blues” ED-77 song. With a “fast-and-furious” AZ2 “riff and three quarters…Page is the man here.” AD With “tricky time changes – a Zeppelin trademark” AZ2 and “one hell of a rhythm section,” AD the song is “unpredictable.” DBW Bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones wrote the main riff. He was inspired by Muddy Waters’ 1968 album Electric Mud. He said, “I wanted to try electric blues with a rolling bass part.” BL Guitarist Jimmy Page then “turned it into a chain-saw ballet on his Les Paul over Bonzo’s stealth groove, with snarling multitracked rhythm guitar tearing up the midsection.” RS’19 The tension of the song “emerges from the disjunction between the gnarly riff and Bonham’s almost defiant refusal to budge from the floor.” ED-82 Of the intro, Page said, “That’s the guitar army waking up: Rise and shine.” BL The song is built around a call and response between singer Robert Plant, who delivers an “utter classic…vocal performance,” AD and the rest of the band. WK Page suggested the start-and-stop a cappella verse, inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s 1969 song “Oh Well.” BL Lyrically, it was “essentially an essay on relationships that could’ve been written by a caveman – the author bemoans a long-legged girl who’s good at sex but otherwise unreliable,” BL “boasting about how he’s ‘gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove,’” BN “a sentiment that set the tone for the rest of Zeppelin’s career.” RV This is “the sound of frustrated lust bending the singer out of shape.” ED-77 Fans familiar with Page’s interest in the occult figured “black dog” had some Satanic meaning. BL Author Erik Davis theorized that “black dog” could be a reference to “hellhounds.” ED-85 Instead, it was named after a black Labrador retriever wandering the grounds of Headley Grange, the Hampshire, England mansion where the band recorded most of the Led Zeppelin IV album. SF

Rock and Roll Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant (see lyrics here) Released: single (3/18/1972), Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 47 BB, 42 CB, 38 HR, 1 CL, 38 CN, 51 AU, 3DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 52.33 video, 326.27 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Led Zeppelin IV is full of “touchstones to generations of head-bangers” BN like the “muscular, traditionalist” AM Rock and Roll, which “is as straightforward as the title implies.” DBW Coupled with “Black Dog,” this provide an “opening sucker-punch [that] is ludicrously satisfying, a pair of blues mutants all pumped up with insane levels of testosterone.” DK “This sonuvabitch moves.” RS In a review of a 1972 Led Zeppelin concert, rock critic Robert Christgau called the band “the personification of heavy rock,” RC’72 specifically referring to “Rock and Roll” as “simply the most dynamic hard-rock song in…music.” RC’72 Rolling Stone said “the music recasts rock & roll as something fierce and modern.” RS’19 In 2002, Q magazine selected the song as one of the 50 most exciting tunes ever. From 1972 to 1975, Led Zeppelin used “Rock and Roll” as the opener for their concerts. WK The song “is based on one of the most popular structures in rock and roll; namely the 12-bar blues progression in A.” SF Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page said the song grew out of a spontaneous jam session. Drummer John Bonham started playing Little Richard’s “Keep A-Knockin,’” which became “the now-famous snare and open-high-hat drum intro to ‘Rock and Roll.’” RS’19 Page followed with a Chuck Berry-style guitar riff. WK Page says the song was “written in minutes and recorded within an hour.” SF Singer Robert Plant wrote the lyrics in response to critics who said their previous album, the more acoustic-folk-sounding Led Zeppelin III, wasn’t really rock and roll. SF He muses “on how ‘It’s been a long, lonely lonely time’ since last he rock & rolled, the rhythm section soaring underneath.” RS He longs “to return to the time when he ‘did the stroll,’ which was the name of a corny line dance made famous on American Bandstand.” ED-91 He also references the Monotones’ 1958 doo-wop classic “The Book of Love.” RS’19 He told Creem in 1988, “We just thought rock and roll needed to be take on again…It was time for actually kicking ass.” SF The song also allows Page to “indulge in the rockabilly music etched onto the folds of his brain.” ED-88 He said the song grew out of a spontaneous jam session. Bonham started playing Little Richard’s “Keep A-Knockin,’” which became “the now-famous snare and open-high-hat drum intro.” RS’19 It also featured pianist Ian Stewart, CM best known for his work with the Rolling Stones since their 1962 beginning. Led Zeppelin were using the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording unit to record the Led Zeppelin IV album. Stewart came as a technician to assist in recording but came in handy when the band “needed some serious boogie-woogie piano.” SF

The Battle of Evermore Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant (see lyrics here) Released: Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 9 CL, 5 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 6.99 video, 41.28 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The transition from “Rock and Roll” to “The Battle of Evermore” is like “stumbling out of a rockabilly night at a biker bar and finding yourself in a sylvan glade with [hobbits] Frodo and Sam, hushed and reverent as a troop of high elves pass by on their way to the western lands.” ED-94 It is one of Led Zeppelin’s “most arresting displays of their love of folk music.” RS’19 The “elegiac folk ballad” UCR “about the everlasting battle between night and day, which can also be interpreted as the battle between good and evil.” SF It was inspired by a book Plant was reading about the Scottish wars. UCR This was also Led Zeppelin’s “fullest evocation of The Lord of the Rings” RS’19with references to the Dark Lord and the Ringwraiths and potentially the elf-queen Galadriel (“Queen of Light”). Plant is a Tolkien fan, having also referenced his work in “Ramble On” and “Misty Mountain Hop.” There are also references to King Arthur in lines like “I’m waiting for the angels of Avalon.” SF Guitarist Jimmy Page came up with the music on the spot when he picked up John Paul Jones’ mandolin, an instrument he’d never played before. UCR They “both loved acoustic music; before meeting the singer, Page wasn’t sure whether he wanted to form a hard rock group or an Anglo-folk combo.” ED-95 Page said, “it sounded like an old English instrumental first off. Then it became a vocal.” UCR Plant explained that it was a story with two parts, an “impending sort of travesty” and “the triumph and the rallying.” UCR His initial effort to sing both parts didn’t sound right, so they recruited singer/songwriter Sandy Denny from the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention. It is the only song in Led Zeppelin’s catalog to enlist an outside guest vocalist. UCR As he “narrates the battle…Denny…serves as the town crier, interjecting in her haunting croon.” UCR She “sings perfectly, not trying to be the main event, but still really aiding the haunting beauty of the song.” AD “Page’s hallucinogenic 12-string is the perfect back-drop for her sweetly dramatic voice.” DK Denny said, “We started out soft, but I was hoarse by the end trying to keep up with him.” UCR

Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant (see lyrics here) Released: digital single (11/24/2007), Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 30 US *, 1 CL, 37 UK, 17 CN *, 1 DF (* digital song chart) Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.70 US, 0.60 UK, 1.20 sheet music, 10.00 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 3.0 radio, 166.0 video, 1177.74 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Dazed and Confused” was the centerpiece of Led Zeppelin’s early live performances SJ but when they tired of it, the group set about creating “suitably epic song that would rival the reception and glory of ‘Dazed and Confused’ during live performances.” AD “The expertly constructed and deftly executed classic, ‘Stairway to Heaven’” AZ1 became the band’s “magnum opus” AZ1 and the song against which “all epic anthems must measure themselves.” RS500 “Stairway to Heaven” was arguably the pinnacle of rock album marketing. Until the late ‘60s, rock albums were largely collections of singles, B-sides, and fillers. However, groups like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin started marketing albums as a whole and promoting them with songs at radio that were never released as singles. It was “a brilliant marketing ploy” HL because convincing record buyers that “albums had to be taken as a creative whole” HL meant more money was spent on albums and less on singles. Atlantic Records certainly pushed for a single for “Stairway to Heaven,” but the band refused to edit the song down from its eight-minute running time. WK The only chart appearance for “Heaven” came in 2007 when it hit #37 on the UK charts, prompted by downloads of the song in conjunction with the release of the Led Zeppelin Mothership compilation. WK The song consistently tops classic rock radio best-of lists and no song has received more airplay in the history of FM radio. KN It has also sold over a million copies of sheet music, averaging 15,000 a year. WK Astonishingly, the song is “sturdy enough to withstand and rise above all the overexposure.” SS It is the One, the quintessence, the closest AOR will ever get you to the absolute.” ED-105 The song kicks off with “an acoustic intro that sounds positively Elizabethan.” RS500 “From its familiar opening chord progression, the song steadily grows in intensity,” HE “gradually transforming itself from a folkish ballad into a rocking anthem” HE marked by “a storming torrent of guitar riffs” AM and “an explosive, finely-chiseled blues-rock solo.” BN The lyrics reflected the band’s “growing interest in metaphysical imagery” HE “in what has been interpreted as a song of hope, spiritual fulfillment and drug use. Plant leads the listener through a “quasi-medieval story” TC drawing influence from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and “full of allusions that go nowhere.” TC She “seems to represent the ‘everyperson’ in search of truth but distracted and tempted along the way be deceit and greed” SS although Plant says it is “about a woman who gets everything she wants without reciprocating.” TC It doesn’t matter much what the song is about when it’s “couched in such a stately tune and performance.” TC Besides, “the song’s enigma is part of its charm.” TC Plant largely improvised the lyrics sitting in front of a roaring fireplace SS while Page taught Bonham his drum part. HL Page says the song “crystallized the essence of the band…Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with ‘Stairway.’” RS500

Stairway to Heaven Heart

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant (see lyrics here) Performed: December 26, 2012 Peak: 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 85.0 video, 35.54 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: In 2012, Led Zeppelin were celebrated with the Kennedy Center Honors. The band Heart gave a notable performance, complete with a full-fledged choir, of “Stairway to Heaven” that had Jimmy Page grinning ear to ear and a very subdued Robert Plant wiping away a tear.

Misty Mountain Hop Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones Released: Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 2 CL, 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 52.41 streaming About the Song: “How can a song about flower people and Tolkien be so crushingly funky?” RS’19 “the pounding hippie satire Misty Mountain Hop” AM showed that “Zep were more than just heavy.” WR “Jones’ humid electric piano locks in with Page’s headlong riff and Bonham’s slippery avalanche of a groove” RS’19 on this slice of “slanted and enchanted acid-metal.” WR “Plant evokes a fracas between cops and hippies that makes him want to escape to the fantastical peaks alluded to in the title. Plant later said the lyrics were about ‘being caught in the park with wrong stuff in your cigarette papers.’” RS’19

Four Sticks Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant Released: Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 13 CL, 17 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 22.65 streaming About the Song: “The rolling, apocalyptic Four Sticks” DK is “the oddest, most exotic, and by far the least pleasant song” ED-137 on the album. It “is a bit of avant-garde experimentalism tucked inside a vaguely psychedelic riff-rocker.” ED-138 It is “another riff monster” AD with “a locked groove of voodoo-boogie.” WR “Page built this exotic song around a series of needle-stick guitar salvos, but because the meter shifts from 5/8 to 6/8, Zeppelin found it difficult to record and almost ditched it. Then Bonham came into the studio after spending some time in a pub and nailed it, holding two drumsticks in each hand (hence the song’s title).” RS’19 Bonzo “earns his nickname with his awe-inspiring performance.” RV

Going to California Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant Released: Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 1 CL, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 286.21 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The “delicate Going to California” AD has been called “the best thing they ever played at a pace below ‘manic.’” TL Rolling Stone called this “Zeppelin’s prettiest song” RS’19 and AllMusic.com said it was the “group’s best folk song.” AM “Page’s gentle acoustic fingerpicking weaves together” RS’19 with Jones’ “euphonious mandolin” PM “while Plant tries on some country twang. Rumored to be written about Joni Mitchell, it could just as easily be about any California girl ‘with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.’ And for Led Zeppelin in 1971, there were many.” RS’19 Plant also seems to be “mocking his own soft-focus sentiment,” ED-150 “trawling for a figiment, for an idealized figure who has ‘never been born.’” ED-151

When the Levee Breaks Led Zeppelin

Writer(s): Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jason Bonham, Memphis Minnie Released: Led Zeppelin IV (1971) Peak: 3 CL, 9 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 165.86 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The foreboding” AZ1 and “impossibly heavy” DK When the Levee Breaks “is Zeppelin’s definitive blues song on record.” ED-157 With its “the slow-mo boogie avalanche” WR and “one of the most ceaseless riffs of any Zeppelin song” ED-163 is “the one song truly equal to ‘Stairway.’ AM With “surprising, almost poisonously bashing drums, vicious slide guitars and electronically affected harmonicas,” GS this “apocalyptic slice of urban blues…is as forceful and frightening as Zeppelin ever got, and its seismic rhythms and layered dynamics illustrate why none of their imitators could ever equal them.” AM The song was first recorded in 1929 by Memphis Minnie, a blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The song was about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, a catastrophic natural disaster “that marks blues consciousness the way the sinking of the Titanic marks American consciousness.” ED-164 Led Zeppelin covered blues songs throughout their career, but didn’t always give proper credit. Here, however, they listed Memphis Minnie as one of the songwriters. “Bonzo’s drums, recorded in a stairwell at Headley Grange, are so ginormous they became a classic sample (most famously opening the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill). ‘The acoustics of the stairwell happened to be so balanced we didn’t even need to mic the kick drum,’ Page recalled.” RS’19

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine AZ1 Amazon.com review by Billy Altman AZ2 Amazon.com review by Don Waller BN Barnes & Noble review by John Milward BL Blender (2/2005). “The Greatest Songs Ever! Black Dog” by Michael Odell RC Robert Christgau RC’72 Robert Christgau (6/15/1972). Newsday CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Page 66. TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 517. AD Adrian Denning ED Erik Davis (2007). 33 1/3: Led Zeppelin IV. Contiuum International Publishing Group Ltd.: New York, NY. HE Half.Ebay.com. Review no longer online. EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Page 98. KN Steve Knight (2007) “The Top 25 Rock Songs of All-Time are…” CRS Tim Morse (1998). Classic Rock Stories: The Stories Behind the Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. Pages 181-195. PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher RS Rolling Stone review by Lenny Kaye (print issue #98: 12/23/71). RS’19 Rolling Stone (1/13/2019). “The 40 Greatest Led Zeppelin Songs of All Time” RS500 RollingStone.com (2011). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” (“Stairway to Heaven”) SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Warner Books, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 53. SF Songfacts page for “Black Dog” SF Songfacts page for “Rock and Roll” SF Songfacts page for “The Battle of Evermore” GS George Starostin SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 131-2. DK Sunday Herald (3/01). By David Keenan DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 231. TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (11/3/2021). “The Story Behind Every Song: The Battle of Evermore” by Bryan Rolli DBW David Bertrand Wilson, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews WK Wikipedia page for “Stairway to Heaven” WK Wikipedia page for “Black Dog” WK Wikipedia page for “Rock and Roll” WK Wikipedia page for “The Battle of Evermore” WR The Wire (June 1992). “The 100 Most Important Records Ever Made” Related DMDB Pages: First posted 11/8/2012; last updated 9/10/2025.