Happy Anniversary: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin

46 years ago today, one of the most famous rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time released one of the most famous self-titled debuts of all time. In fact, it’s so famous that we’re not going to write anything else about it. Good night, folks!

Nah, just kidding. We have to write at least a little bit about the anniversary of Led Zeppelin’s first album’s being released, because if we don’t, we’ll never hear the end of it.

With that said, we also know that most fans already know the story about how the album came to pass, but if we’re going to do this thing, we’re going to cover that, too. Picture it: the Yardbirds had effectively broken up, with guitarist Jimmy Page – the last man standing – left with both the rights to the name and the contractual obligation to perform a handful of concerts in Scandinavia. Faced with a sudden need to pull together a new lineup, Page drafted the three gentlemen whose names you already know so well: bassist John Paul Jones, drummer John Bonham, and frontman Robert Plant. They did the concert dates, they played some Yardbirds songs, and then they also road-tested some new material, including “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” “Communication Breakdown,” “How Many More Times,” “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” and “You Shook Me.” Not long after they returned to the UK, they changed their name to Led Zeppelin, headed over to Olympic Studios in London, and settled in to record their first album.

Thanks to having performed so much material over the course of those live dates, Led Zeppelin proved relatively easy to record: Page has said that he knows it only took about 36 hours from start to finish, including mixing, because he saw the bill from the studio. And why did a big-time rock star see the bill? Because the band hadn’t yet signed on the dotted line with Atlantic Records, so Page and Peter Grant paid for the sessions all by their lonesome. (Word has it that the whole thing cost all of £1,782 to put together, a bargain by any estimation.)

With Page producing and Glyn Johns engineering, the proceedings were exactly what the band wanted – a live album recorded in the studio, effectively – and, as it turned out, it was what the critics and the fans wanted, too. It’s been called not just one of the greatest debut albums of all time but one of the greatest albums, period, of all time. And, really, how can you argue? In addition to the aforementioned tracks tested out in Scandinavia, you also get “Good Times Bad Times,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Your Time is Gonna Come,” and “Black Mountain Side.” It’s a classic, plain and simple, and its release is an anniversary well worth celebrating…even if you probably did already know most of this stuff.

So enough with the reading: let’s get to the listening. 46 years on, and it’s still just as great as it ever was.