10 Best Hard Rock Albums Of The 1970s

When you think of hard rock in the 70's, you typically start describing the heavy drums, screaming vocals, and instantly catchy guitar riffs. While those are pretty good attributes, you more often than not just describe Led Zeppelin.

At the tail end of the 60's, Zeppelin burst onto the British blues scene with their hard-stomping brand of hard rock. Across their first three offerings, the band toyed with folk, blues, and Eastern sounds before refining their identity on their untitled fourth release. From song to song, the record provides heavy-hitters from the off-kilter groove of "Black Dog" to the blues-rock badass of "When the Levee Breaks." Even spur-of-the-moment jams from the album sessions produced nuggets of brilliance like on the 50's rock pastiche of "Rock and Roll."

The album is also known to have what many consider to be the greatest classic rock song of all time in "Stairway to Heaven." Spanning 8 minutes, the song takes you on a journey through the countryside before delivering a spectacular hard-hitting finale with Jimmy Page's fiery guitar solo. With just one record, Led Zeppelin offered a masterclass on how to write hard rock and created a legion of bands in their shadow trying to follow suit.