Today marks the 38th anniversary of the Led Zeppelin album that, despite being the slowest-selling studio album in the band’s catalog, has been cited by Jimmy Page as the most important. Why? Because it showed that the band could persevere in the face of turmoil.
In this case, the turmoil came from Robert Plant’s unfortunate car accident while on the Greek island of Rhodes in August 1975, which took him out of commission for a fair while, but even as he convalesced, Plant was writing lyrics. He soon reunited with Page in Malibu to get their ducks in a row, songwriting-wise, and in short order the twosome was back together with John Bonham and John Paul Jones to begin rehearsals of the new material.