Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin

Categorizing an album as “the best” work of a given artist is a tough and wildly objective task. How do we give an album such a title when there are so many factors to consider? I’ve spent copious amounts of time arguing with my friends about which Zeppelin album has earned the title of “the best” and it's always a heated, lengthy argument that has caused very real rifts between my friend group. Most of my friends argue that Led Zeppelin IV gets the top spot simply due to the iconic-ness of the tracks on it, but is that really all that makes a good album? I argue that being popular doesn’t make an album good, especially not “the best” when there are so many factors that also attribute to earning that title. This idea of gauging greatness solely based off popularity can’t be the only indicator of good because then we would be considering songs such as Grammy song Nom.“Yummy” by Mr. J Biebs some of “the best” music out there. Like, that is legit one of the single worst songs to ever reach such a stature. It has absolutely no redeeming qualities— it does nothing right. However, I do agree there is totally something to be said about musical popularity— for the most part, with the exclusion of “Yummy,” a song and artist must be doing something right if a given song is able to achieve such amazing prominence like some of the songs on Led Zeppelin IV (i.e. Stairway to heaven, Black Dog, Rock and Roll… really almost every song off this LP). But I’m not here today to argue which Zeppelin album is “the best,” I’m simply here to write about why Houses of the Holy should be a contender for the title based off of its ….