Physical Graffiti

Sessions at Headley Grange in November 1973 were halted when Bad Company took the studio time. The band returned in January and February 1974 and recorded eight new tracks with engineer Ron Nevison. That material nearly filled three sides, so earlier unreleased tracks from Olympic (May 1972), Stargroves (1972) and Island (1970 to 1971) were added to make a double album. Keith Harwood mixed it in July 1974. Swan Song, a song of the same period, was left off and never officially released.

Plant called the eight 1974 tracks "the belters". The November 1973 stall also left Jones, who had grown tired of touring, wondering about quitting, and Grant asked him to take time off. Page coined the title. The die-cut sleeve, designed by Peter Corriston and Mike Doud around two tenement buildings at 96 and 98 St. Mark's Place in New York, delayed the release. The band launched Swan Song in May 1974, played new songs in Rotterdam on 11 January 1975, and toured the US to 27 March, with Earl's Court tickets selling out in four hours.

Several tracks grew from older material. The Rover was written at Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970. In My Time of Dying is based on a traditional song Bob Dylan recorded in 1962 and was recorded live, ending with Bonham's cough and his shout that it had to be the one. Trampled Under Foot grew from a Jones jam on the Clavinet. Bron-Yr-Aur is a solo acoustic Page piece cut at Island in mid-1970. Night Flight and Boogie with Stu date from the 1971 Headley Grange sessions, and Boogie with Stu is a jam with Ian Stewart on Ritchie Valens's Ooh My Head, credited to Valens's mother after Bob Keane sued. Black Country Woman was recorded in the garden at Stargroves in 1972 with an aeroplane left on the tape. An early arrangement of Custard Pie was reworked as Hots on for Nowhere on Presence, and Page's 1980s band The Firm recorded a version of the unreleased Swan Song instrumental under the name Midnight Moonlight.

Rolling Stone's Jim Miller called it the band's bid for artistic respectability, and NME's Nick Kent praised its tonal density. It reached number one in the UK. In the US it debuted at number 3 and then spent six weeks at number one, and it is certified 16x Platinum. Rolling Stone ranked it 70th in 2003 and 144th in 2020. The single Trampled Under Foot reached the US top 40.

Plant has said it is his favorite Led Zeppelin album, and Page called it a high-water mark. Pitchfork's Mark Richardson named it their best album and called it the band's White Album. It was the first album to go platinum on advance orders alone, and all the earlier Led Zeppelin albums re-entered the chart after its release. The Grammy nominations for best album package came in 1976.