Led Zeppelin IV

The fourth album of the group Led Zeppelin left the November 8th 1971. Its small pocket not comprising any indication of title, it is generally called Led Zeppelin IV , in the continuity of the three preceding albums of the group. The catalogs of Atlantic Records employed the names Four Symbols (“four symbols”) and The Fourth Album (“the fourth album”), and it is sometimes called Untitled (“without title”), Sticks , Man with Sticks (in reference to its small pocket, an old transporting man of the wood faggots), Runes , Four or ZoSo (according to the first of the four symbols which appears on the small pocket). The guitarist of the group, Jimmy Page, frequently calls it Led Zeppelin IV in his interviews, while the singer Robert Plant is satisfied to call it “the fourth album”. It is about one of the most sold albums history, with more than 23 million copies run out with only the the United States (RIAA); the estimates of the world sales generally turn around 37 million.

The album was recorded and mixed with the Basing Street Studios of Island Records, with London, Headley Grange, a residence victorienne isolated in the East Hampshire, and with Sunset Sound (Los Angeles).

After the tepid reception that criticism with Led Zeppelin III had reserved with the autumn 1970, Jimmy Page decided that the following album of the group would not have a title, except four symbols inside the small pocket and on the disc, each one chosen by a member of the group. “We decided deliberately to minimize the name of the group on the fourth album, and that there would be no information, whatever it is, on the external jacket, explained Page. The names, the titles and all that, that wants nothing to say”. Because of absence of an official title, Atlantic Records distributed reproductions of the symbols of various sizes to the press for their articles. The album was one of the first to being produced without conventional identification, and this anti-commercial attitude at the time was discussed, in particular for certain frameworks of Atlantic.

Two individual S of it were drawn: Black Dog / Misty Mountain Hop the December 2nd 1971, which was classified 15th in the United States ( Billboard Individual Pop), and Rock-and-roll / Four Stick the February 21st 1972, which reached the 47e place.

In 1998, the readers of Q élirent Led Zeppelin IV 26e better album of all times; in 2000, the same magazine placed it at the 26e row in its list of the 100 best British albums of all times. In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine made the 66e of it its list of the 500 better albums of all times. It is seventh on the list of the 100 best albums of the years 1970 drawn up by Pitchfork Media. In 2006, the album was classified at the head of the 100 larger British albums established by the magazine Classic Rock ; the same year, it reached the same place in the survey of the 100 larger albums of the readers of Guitar World .

Symbols

Each member of the group chose a personal symbol for the small pocket of the album.

That of Jimmy Page is generally called ZoSo , although it does not represent letters. Conceived by itself Page, its significance remains mysterious. It is resulting from the Ars Magica Arteficii (1557 of Gerolamo Cardano, old a black book of Alchimie, where it is about a seal made up of signs of the zodiac. The symbol in the shape of Z would symbolize the planet Saturn, or Capricorne signs it, controlled by Saturn, which is that of Page. The form oSo is similar to the alchemical symbol of the mercury, also associated with Saturn. What it meant exactly for Page is dubious, but it is possible that it is related to the interest which he carried to the Occultisme, and in particular with works of Aleister Crowley.

The symbol of John Paul Jones is a simple circle recutting three vesica pisces . Taken in a book of runes, it symbolizes a trustful and qualified person

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