Ranking the 5 Best Album-Closers by Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin only released eight albums in their time together (nine if you count Physical Graffiti as two, and 10 if you count the odds-and-sods Coda, which you really shouldn’t). They jam-packed a lot of memorable music into that span, which is why they’re so revered within the hierarchy of classic rock.

Led Zep often went with somewhat unorthodox choices for the songs they used to close out their albums. But many of those choices turned out to be just right anyway, as evidenced by this impressive list.

5. “Hats off to (Roy) Harper” from Led Zeppelin III (1970)

Led Zeppelin III is generally known as the album where the band began to show off their versatility, easing back on the throttle now and again instead of going full-bore hard rock all the time. In “Hats off to (Roy) Harper,” the band found just the right off-kilter finale for this change of pace. Actually, it’s pretty much only Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on this one. Page does some furious acoustic blues work to set the musical pace, while Plant’s voice, which was otherworldly enough on its own, is funneled through effects to really take it into the ether.

4. “Bring It on Home” from Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Zep released four albums in relatively quick succession from 1969 to 1971. You can kind of excuse them for dipping into the covers well as often as they did to churn out material. They put most of their efforts into arranging songs like this one, which was written by Willie Dixon, in transformative ways. It comes staggering out of the gate, so that when Page’s main riff kicks into gear, it’s a thrilling moment. The rhythm section of bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham don’t lock in together so much as they go their separate ways and cross paths once in a while.

3. “I’m Gonna Crawl” from In Through the Out Door (1979)

We’re willing to put our two cents in for In Through the Out Door as an underrated record from the band. The songcraft by the writers (mostly Plant and Jones on this record) is at a peak, even if some of the heavier moments are missing. Jones’ sweeping synthesizer strings add something special to this blues/soul hybrid, and it’s a nice contrast to when Page and Bonham arrive on the scene with the thunder. Give credit to Plant as well, who had lost some of his vocal range by this point, but made up for it with the subtle nuances he brings to the lyrics.

2. “The Ocean” from Houses of the Holy (1973)

Instead of trying to match the behemoth of an album that was Led Zeppelin IV, the band wisely took a different approach and crammed as many stylistic twists and turns as possible into eight songs’ worth of material on Houses of the Holy. The final song “The Ocean” is the one that most hearkens back to the spirit of the previous record. The way Page’s crunching riff bobs and weaves with Bonham’s snapping beat seems to nod to the funk music that was peaking circa 1973. Like many Zep songs, they throw a lot of ideas at the wall, including Plant’s quiet na-na-na breakdown and the strutting coda.

1. “When the Levee Breaks” from Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

Zeppelin’s fourth, “untitled” album would have been an all-time great even if they had closed it out with the hushed “Going to California.” But thankfully, they went back to the blues-rock well one more time for a song that’s on the short list of their best recordings ever. Of course, every discussion of “When the Levee Breaks” begins with John Bonham’s drum beat for the ages (and the recording techniques the band devised to make it sound so). But every element is on point, from Page’s searing squeals through Jones’ rumbling lines to Page’s earth-rattling riffs.

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