Album of the Day

Without the keyboard and acoustic textures of their most recent albums, Led Zeppelin's seventh studio set, PRESENCE, was a return to the elemental blues-based rock of their debut. That was less by design than by necessity; when the quartet went to Munich, Germany to record the album, Robert Plant was recovering from a car accident (he was in a wheelchair for the sessions), and like the band's first album, it was cut quickly. Even under duress, Led Zeppelin could deliver great songs like “Nobody's Fault But Mine” and the epic “Achilles Last Stand,” and Jimmy Page's solos here rank among his very best. Thanks to this resilience, PRESENCE soared to the top of the Billboard chart on this day in 1976, eventually going triple-Platinum in the U.S.