Led Zeppelin II by Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin II came out on Atlantic on 22 October 1969 in America, with Britain getting it on the 31st, and for a record pieced together in scattered sessions on both sides of the Atlantic between January and August, it hits like one long bulldozer run. Jimmy Page, the band's guitarist and chief songwriter, took the production credit, Olympic Studios is among the rooms in the credits, and it was the first time Eddie Kramer sat in as their engineer.

This is the blues cranked until it buckles. The riff rules everything here, and plenty of writers reckon it's the heaviest thing the band ever put down. Six of the nine songs are their own; the other three wrench Chicago blues by Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf into shapes those old men never imagined. "Whole Lotta Love" kicks the door in, "Heartbreaker" and "The Lemon Song" strut and grind, and "Ramble On", "Thank You" and "What Is and What Should Never Be" prove Page and company can ease off the throttle without losing the thread.

"Whole Lotta Love" was the one single, issued everywhere except Britain, where the band never put out singles at all, and it went top ten in more than a dozen countries. The album became their first to go all the way to number one in both the UK and the US, David Juniper's sleeve drew a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package in 1970, it went double gold in France, and by November 1999 the RIAA had it at 12 million sold in America alone.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.