Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

After the sledgehammer riffs of their first two records, Led Zeppelin threw fans and critics for a loop in 1970. Following a grueling North American tour, Robert Plant convinced Jimmy Page to retreat with him to Bron-Yr-Aur, a remote 18th-century cottage in the Welsh hills overlooking the Dyfi Valley. With no electricity and nothing but acoustic guitars, the pair wrote much of the album that would become Led Zeppelin III, and the result was the band's most unexpected pivot yet.

The record opens with a gut punch: "Immigrant Song," built on a unison Page and John Paul Jones riff with John Bonham locked in behind it and Plant's Viking war cry riding on top, remains one of the great album openers in rock. From there, the band turns almost entirely acoustic, moving through the folk stomp of "Gallows Pole," the intimate "That's the Way" and "Tangerine," and the slow-burning "Since I've Been Loving You," proving there was far more to this band than volume.

At the time, the shift confused plenty of listeners expecting another round of blues-rock bombast, and initial reviews were mixed. History has been kinder: Led Zeppelin III is now recognized as a genuine turning point, the record that showed the band's range and set up everything that followed. That trajectory carried Led Zeppelin to more than 300 million albums sold worldwide, induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, and the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm the year after.

This pressing is a digitally remastered edition housed in a gatefold sleeve with an eight-page booklet, a proper way to sit with the album that first showed Led Zeppelin's quieter side.