Led Zeppelin‘s second album, the imaginatively named Led Zeppelin II, is one of the most influential records of all time. Across its 41-minute duration, the band started to move away from their explicitly blues-oriented sound and moved into the direction of the esoteric gargantuan they would become. Released in October 1969, the album features some of their best-loved tracks such as ‘Ramble On’, ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’. Sonically, it can be taken as the band acknowledging the end of the 1960s and the dawn of the ’70s. One of the band’s heaviest records, it is hailed as a progenitor of hard-rock and metal. Famously, the writing and recording sessions for the album came during a hectic period for the band. It was conceived between January and August 1969, and, remarkably, Led Zep had completed three American and four European tours whilst writing the record. This sense of always being on the move bled into the album’s sound. Each song was recorded, mixed and produced at a mixture of studios in the UK and America, including Olympic in London and Sunset in LA. Never before or after had a record been created so literally on the fly.
Source: The one song that proved Led Zeppelin were “avant-garde”
