Every Led Zeppelin Album, Ranked
Rank Led Zeppelin's albums, from a 1969 debut cut in roughly 36 studio hours to the leftovers issued as Coda. Every studio album credited to the band is here and nothing else, whatever its sleeve prints, none dropped for weakness. A record counts if issued on its own and made mostly of unissued studio takes cut for the band's records: Coda passes (six studio recordings, two concert ones), while best-ofs, boxes, reissue bonus discs and 2018's Sunset Sound Mix, alternate mixes of album tracks, fail. Concert and BBC radio sets go, as do Page's records with Plant or Coverdale, under other credits. The gate decides membership; Stereogum, Paste, Far Out, Louder and classical-music.com rank the records, one placed top three by at least 3 of the 5 joins the upper band, anything else sits beneath it, and your vote orders both. Each link is the earliest Spotify edition holding every original track by title, none over eight seconds short, whatever year the page shows, and an item whose carrier isn't clean says what got added or lost.
Led Zeppelin — Physical Graffiti (1975) is #1 on “Every Led Zeppelin Album, Ranked”.
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Led Zeppelin — Physical Graffiti (1975)
Two five-storey buildings on Manhattan's St. Mark's Place make the sleeve, with windows cut out of the facade so the title shows through once the inner covers are slid inside. Ten Years Gone sets Plant's song about an old love affair over a Page instrumental of layered electric and acoustic guitars. Paste and classical-music.com both seat it first, and with the other three placing it second or third it places top three on all 5.
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Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Cut in pieces at studios in London, Los Angeles, Memphis and New York, often between concerts. Ramble On has lyrics inspired by Tolkien, and Spotify's older 1994 edition clips it to 4:23 against the original 4:35, which is why the later remaster, where it plays whole, gets the link. Stereogum, Far Out and classical-music.com put it top three while Paste and Louder have it fourth, which makes 3 of the 5 and sits right on the line.
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Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
Billboard never let it top the album chart, where it stalled in second place, though the RIAA has certified it 24 times platinum. The Battle of Evermore is Page on a mandolin borrowed from John Paul Jones, with Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny duetting with Plant. The linked carrier tags seven tracks 1990 Remaster and Four Sticks 1993 Remaster, and Stereogum, Far Out and Louder rank it first with Paste and classical-music.com no lower than third: 5 of 5.
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Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin III (1970)
Plant got Page to hole up at Bron-Yr-Aur, a Snowdonia cottage built in the 18th century with neither running water nor mains power, so the record leans acoustic. Since I've Been Loving You is a C minor blues with John Paul Jones handling Hammond organ and bass pedals together. This 1994 edition tags seven tracks 1990 and That's the Way 1993, two untagged, and Stereogum's fourth place is its best showing, leaving it with 0 of 5 top-three finishes.
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Led Zeppelin — Houses of the Holy (1973)
Hipgnosis made the sleeve, a collage of Aubrey Powell's photographs from the Giant's Causeway. The Rain Song came out of George Harrison complaining that the band never did any ballads, and John Paul Jones played its string section on a Mellotron. The linked 1994 edition carries 1990 remasters, plus a 1993 one of The Crunge, and Paste's second place is the only top-three finish it gets, 1 of the 5, while Stereogum and Louder have it sixth.
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Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin (1969)
Olympic Studios in London, autumn 1968, with Page and manager Peter Grant paying the reported £1,782 bill themselves before the band had a record deal. Dazed and Confused began as a song Jake Holmes wrote and recorded in 1967. Louder alone ranks it inside a top three, at third, for 1 of the 5, and Far Out has it as low as sixth.
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Led Zeppelin — Presence (1976)
Eighteen days at Musicland Studios in Munich, with Plant singing from a wheelchair after a car crash on Rhodes, and it still topped the album chart in both Britain and America, while Achilles Last Stand opens the record and runs 10:31 on this carrier. Far Out and classical-music.com put it seventh, its best showing, Louder prints it eighth behind a live album, and its tally of top-three spots is 0 of the 5.
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Led Zeppelin — In Through the Out Door (1979)
Three weeks in Stockholm late in 1978, at ABBA's Polar Studios, with Page and Bonham often missing and John Paul Jones sharing writing credit on six songs out of seven. Carouselambra runs past ten minutes, mostly Jones on keyboards. The linked 1994 edition mixes 1990 and 1993 remasters, and with Stereogum and Paste placing it seventh and Far Out and Louder last, it collects 0 of the 5.
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Led Zeppelin — Coda (1982)
Owed to Atlantic under contract and issued almost two years after the band split over Bonham's death, it gathers six studio recordings from 1970 to 1978 and two Royal Albert Hall recordings from January 1970, in 1990 and 1993 remasters. Bonzo's Montreux is a Bonham drum piece cut at Mountain Studios in 1976, treated by Page with a harmonizer. Far Out puts it eighth of nine and Louder twelfth of thirteen, so its top-three tally is 0 of the 5.
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How this list was ranked
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