Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Led Zeppelin II is the second studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released on 22 October 1969 in the United States and on 31 October 1969 in the United Kingdom by Atlantic Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at several locations in both the United Kingdom and North America from January to August 1969. The album's production was credited to the band's lead guitarist and songwriter Jimmy Page, and it was also Led Zeppelin's first album on which Eddie Kramer served as engineer.

The album exhibited the band's evolving musical style of blues-derived material and their guitar riff-based sound. It has been described as the band's heaviest album. Six of the nine songs were written by the band, while the other three were reinterpretations of Chicago blues songs by Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf. One single, "Whole Lotta Love", was released outside of the UK (the band would release no UK singles during their career), and peaked as a top-ten single in over a dozen markets around the world.

Led Zeppelin II was a commercial success, and was the band's first album to reach number one on charts in the UK and the US. The album's cover designer David Juniper was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package in 1970. On 15 November 1999, the album was certified 12× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales reaching 12 million copies in the US. Since its release, various writers and music critics have cited Led Zeppelin II as one of the greatest and most influential albums of all time.

Background

Led Zeppelin II was conceived during a busy period of Led Zeppelin's career from January through August 1969, when they completed four European and three American concert tours. Each song was separately recorded, mixed and produced at various studios in the UK and North America. The album was written on tour, during periods of a couple of hours in between concerts, a studio was booked and the recording process begun, necessarily resulting in spontaneity and urgency, which is reflected in the sound. Several songs resulted from improvisation while touring and were recorded mostly live in the studio.

Recording sessions for the album took place at a wide variety of studios in the UK and US, including Olympic and Morgan Studios in London, England; A&M, Quantum, Sunset, Mirror Sound and Mystic Studios in Los Angeles; Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee; A&R, Juggy Sound, Groove and Mayfair Studios in New York City; and R&D Studios. Some of these were ill-equipped, leading to one Vancouver studio, which had an 8-track set-up without even proper headphone facilities, being credited as "a hut". A more favourable set-up was Mystic Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles with Chris Huston engineering.

Lead singer Robert Plant later complained that the writing, recording, and mixing sessions were done in many different locations, and criticised the writing and recording process. "Thank You", "The Lemon Song" and "Moby Dick" were overdubbed during the tour, while the mixing of "Whole Lotta Love" and "Heartbreaker" was also done on tour. Page later stated, "In other words, some of the material came out of rehearsing for the next tour and getting new material together."