Top 10 Best Songs by Led Zeppelin

This is more than music, this is religion. It begins as a whispered fairy tale in the woods and ends as a storm on Mount Olympus. The buildup from quiet strumming to that explosive finale is unequaled. When Plant sings "And she's buying a stairway to heaven", you feel the impact of all of rock history. The solo by Page is emotion in pure form. It is the perfect example of the magic that happens when four geniuses play together.

Epic, oriental, and majestic. The riff is not fast, but rises and falls like a caravan in the desert. The orchestration gives it enormous grandeur. Robert Plant called this the ultimate Led Zeppelin song. It is about a spiritual journey through a timeless landscape. The rhythm is hypnotic and heavy. A monumental work of art.

The riff of all riffs. Simple, brutal, and immediately recognizable. The song is pure sexual energy. The middle section is experimental chaos of theremin sounds, groaning, and echoes, which was revolutionary for a hit single. When the guitar comes back in, it feels like a liberation. The blueprint for hard rock.

The song where Jimmy Page introduced the bow to his guitar, creating that spooky, screeching sound. It is dark, paranoid, and heavy. The bass line descends slowly into madness. The middle section is a psychedelic trip that explodes into a fast jam. This song defined the early, heavy sound of the band.

A slow, dragging blues lasting more than seven minutes. The organ wails and the guitar is drenched in sorrow. Robert Plant delivers perhaps his best vocal performance here; he groans, whispers, and screams his love grief. You can hear the drum pedal squeak in the recording, so raw is it. Blues at its absolute best.

The primal scream from the north. Inspired by a concert in Iceland. The riff is short, repetitive, and hypnotic. Plant sings about Vikings sailing west. "Valhalla, I am coming!" It is short, fierce, and aggressive. One of the first songs to couple heavy metal and mythology.

That riff is so complicated that the band sometimes lost count, but it grooves like crazy. It is a call-and-response game between Plant's vocals and the band. The song drips with lust and energy. Plant's outbursts ("Ah-ah, ah-ah!") are iconic. It is dirty, complicated blues rock that sounds like it comes from the hips.

A perfect mix of their acoustic folk side and their hard rock. The bass line is melodic and leading. The lyrics are full of references to The Lord of the Rings (Gollum and Mordor), which strengthened their mystical image. The chorus is smooth and compelling.

It begins with that drum intro that sounds like a starter motor. This is rock-'n-roll reduced to its essence: energy, speed, and fun. Robert Plant screams about loneliness and the urge to dance. The piano of Ian Stewart (Rolling Stones) hammers along. It is a song made to break things.