10 Perfect Hard Rock Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

Any good rock and roll song usually ends up trailing all the way back to the blues. The likes of Chuck Berry and Little Richard always started off with a decent blues riff to get everything started, and even the second wave of rockers like the Rolling Stones were always trying to tap into the low down and dirty sound of Muddy Waters. Blues definitely had its place, but Led Zeppelin took that 12 bar formula in a much darker direction on their second outing.

While Led Zeppelin I still holds up as one of the heavier albums to come of the British Blues Boom, Jimmy Page hit on something a lot more visceral on this record, knocking out some of the most classic guitar lines ever made, whether that's the maniacal solo at the end of the song Heartbreaker or laying as far back into the groove as he can on Whole Lotta Love. Outside of just the riffs though, each member became the gold standard of what hard rock would become, from Robert Plant's golden god persona every time he took to the stage to John Bonham letting his animal instincts run wild behind the drum kit on Moby Dick.

With John Paul Jones holding everything together, this is when rock and roll started to turn a corner, giving us a teaser as to what the harsh sounds of the '70s were going to be a few months early. Zeppelin may have been walking in the footsteps of their heroes here, but this is still the benchmark of everything hard rock stands for.