Led Zeppelin

You can basically divide rock 'n' roll into two periods: before and after the arrival of Led Zeppelin. The term rock gods was invented for them, and 40 years later, they still personify it more than any other band. Which is why we've scaled Mount Zep to bring back the Essential elements of their staggering story. Every kid who ever harbored guitar-hero dreams began by cranking out the unmistakable intro to "Stairway to Heaven," rock's original epic suite. No hard rock or heavy metal band on the face of the planet would exist if these musical marauders hadn't blown up blues tunes like "When the Levee Breaks" to mountainous proportions via drum demon John Bonham's wooly-mammoth wallop, Robert Plant's electric-banshee wail, and Grim Reaper of rock Jimmy Page slicing the air with lethal, scythe-like guitar licks. And though it's seldom acknowledged, Zeppelin even prefigured punk, with the pent-up-frustration and manic drive of "Communication Breakdown." Discover the deeper secrets inside Zep's rock 'n' roll soul in Next Steps.

Though the faces of Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham, and Robert Plant are chiseled into hard rock's own Mount Rushmore, Zeppelin could scale down for folk-flavored ballads or amp up the atmosphere with art-rock ambition in the blink of an eye. Page's mandolin wind and Brit-folk diva Sandy Denny's haunted harmonies swirl around Plant's Tolkien-tinged folk-rock fables in "The Battle of Evermore." Plant's myth-making lyrical mystique floats through the haze of Jones' creepy keyboards on the moody, majestic prog-rock of "No Quarter." But the window opens to the warm, sun-kissed breeze of sweet, soulful organ swells and sob-suppressing declarations of love on the unabashedly pretty slow-dance staple "Thank You." Experience the full range of the original rock gods' gifts in Deep Cuts.

Led Zeppelin's meat and potatoes was undeniably the blues, and they set the pace for legions of long-haired blues-rock warriors by working their mojo on Windy City classics; crank up "You Shook Me," which they transform into an earth-shaking stomp where Plant's soaring, sexed-up cries duke it out note-for-note with Page's Muddy Waters-meets-Jimi Hendrix axe acrobatics. But digging just a little deeper, you'll discover that the hard-rockin' heroes could funk it up, too, getting on the good foot by mixing a mighty James Brown groove with "Bonzo" Bonham's steely slam on "The Crunge." Along with their other breakthroughs, Led Zep even spiced things up with international flavors by indulging in exotic Eastern textures, like the ones Jones' serpentine synth riffs conjure up in the moody masterpiece "In the Light."

Led Zeppelin stormed out of the '60s U.K. scene to define the sound of '70s rock. These four horsemen of the sonic apocalypse took all the elements floating around the late-'60s rock world — blues, folk, conceptual epics — and pumped them up to dizzying dimensions. Their gargantuan sound made them both musically and materially bigger than any band before them, ushering in a new era of larger-than-life arena rock. Even today, the helium-voiced sex appeal of Robert Plant, the utterly original constructions of visionary guitarchitect Jimmy Page, and the titanic-times-ten rhythm section of John Bonham and John Paul Jones are the bedrocks upon which the entire classic-rock canon is built. We've combed through the Zeppelin vaults to bring together the Essentials of their senses-shattering canon; here's your opportunity to experience the majesty, the mystery, the mighty rock mastery of Led Zeppelin in one fell swoop.