Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin arrived at Headley Grange in the winter of 1970 to find that the heating didn't work, the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, and the house was reportedly haunted. Headley Grange was a former Victorian workhouse in the Hampshire countryside, and it was absolutely freezing. The band made fires in the sitting room to stay warm. Robert Plant took to an armchair in front of one of those fires to write the lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven." Engineer Andy Johns later recalled Jimmy Page telling the band he had seen a ghost on the stairs. Johns said he was too busy with the cook in the attic to investigate.

The drum sound on "When the Levee Breaks" was captured by placing John Bonham's kit at the bottom of the mansion's stairwell and putting the microphones two floors up. What came out is one of the most imitated drum sounds in the history of recorded music. Dozens of producers have tried to recreate it. None have. The raw, cavernous boom of that recording is the entire reason the song sounds the way it does, and it could only have happened in that building.

Led Zeppelin IV arrived after Led Zeppelin III received lukewarm reviews, and the band was so irritated by critics that they released the album with no title, no band name on the cover, and no information whatsoever, represented only by four symbols chosen by each member. It sold over 37 million copies anyway. "Stairway to Heaven," "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll," and "When the Levee Breaks" are four of the greatest rock songs ever recorded, and they all live on the same album. This is the record that defined what heavy rock could be.