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Led Zeppelin

English rock band (1968–1980)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ2331
Source-derived summary

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bass-guitarist and keyboardist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. Their combination of a heavy electric-guitar sound with elements of blues and folk music popularised album-oriented rock and stadium rock and established them as the progenitor of hard rock and heavy metal. They are amongst the best-selling music artists of all time, with an estimated 200 to 300 million records sold worldwide.

Led Zeppelin evolved from a previous band, the Yardbirds, and were originally named "the New Yardbirds". They signed a deal with Atlantic Records that gave them artistic freedom. Although it was initially critically unpopular, their music achieved both critical and commercial success in eight studio albums over ten years.

Their 1969 debut, Led Zeppelin, was a top-ten album in several countries and features such tracks as "Good Times Bad Times", "Dazed and Confused" and "Communication Breakdown". Led Zeppelin II (1969), their first number-one album, includes "Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker", and "Ramble On". In 1970, they released Led Zeppelin III which opens with "Immigrant Song" and contains "Since I've Been Loving You".

Editorial summary

“Led Zeppelin” enters the record as english rock band (1968–1980). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Zeppelin, English and rock can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1968, 1969, 1970—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1968. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Zeppelin, English and rock.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Led Zeppelin” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Zeppelin, English and rock provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2331. VIAF identifies the subject as 149063005. The Library of Congress control number is n82059248. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 1969 and 1970.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Led Zeppelin primary sources, Led Zeppelin archive and Zeppelin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Led Zeppelin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.