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
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“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
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