Release and Critical Reaction
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| BBC Music | Favourable |
| Blender | |
| Billboard | Favourable |
| Robert Christgau | A |
| Entertainment Weekly | A+ |
| Q | |
| Rolling Stone | Favourable |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
| Spin | Favourable |
In the lead-up to the album's release, a series of teaser advertisements depicting each symbol was placed in the music press.
The album was a massive instant seller. It entered the UK chart at No. 1 and stayed on the chart for 62 weeks. In the US it stayed on the charts longer than any other Led Zeppelin album and became the biggest selling album in the US not to top the charts (peaking at #2).
"Ultimately," writes Lewis, "the fourth Zeppelin album would be the most durable seller in their catalogue and the most impressive critical and commercial success of their career". Music critic Robert Christgau has dubbed it "a genre masterpiece".
Read more about this topic: Led Zeppelin IV
Famous quotes containing the words release and, release, critical and/or reaction:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The disaster ... is not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect—this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they’re not critical to a culture’s existence.”
—Twyla Tharp (b. 1941)
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)