Original released on LP Swan Song SSK 59402
(UK 1976, March 31)
"Presence" is the seventh studio album by Led Zeppelin, released by Swan Song Records on 31 March 1976. The cover, inside sleeve and back of the album features various images of people with a black obelisk-shaped object. Inside the album sleeve, the item is referred to simply as "The Object" aka "The Obelisk". It was intended to represent the "force and presence" of Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page explained: «There was no working title for the album. The record-jacket designer said 'When I think of the group, I always think of power and force. There's a definite presence there.' That was it. He wanted to call it 'Obelisk'. To me, it was more important what was behind the obelisk. The cover is very tongue-in-cheek, to be quite honest. Sort of a joke on [the film] 2001 A Space Odyessy. I think it's quite amusing.» Jimmy Page made the decision to record the album after Robert Plant sustained serious injuries from a car accident on the Greek island of Rhodes on 5 August 1975, which forced the band to cancel a proposed world tour that was due to commence on 23 August. At this point, Led Zeppelin were arguably at the height of their popularity. When he was taken to a Greek hospital after the accident, Plant recalled: «I was lying there in some pain trying to get cockroaches off the bed and the guy next to me, this drunken soldier, started singing "The Ocean" from "Houses of the Holy".» The background used in the cover photograph is of an artificial marina that was installed inside London's Earl's Court Arena for the annual Earl's Court Boat Show that was held in the winter of 1974–75. This was the same venue where the band played a series of concerts a few months after the boat show, in May 1975. In 1977 Hipgnosis and George Hardie were nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of best album package. (in Discogs)
Created at a time of intense turmoil for Led Zeppelin - they scrapped a planned international tour in the wake of Robert Plant's car accident in Greece in August 1975 - "Presence" is a strange, misshapen beast of a record that pulls upon its own tension. With Plant somewhat on the sidelines - he recorded many of the vocals while in a wheelchair - Jimmy Page reasserted himself as the primary creative force in the band, helping steer "Presence" toward a guitar-heavy complexity, perched halfway between a return to roots and unfettered prog. This dichotomy means it feels like "Presence" sprawls as wildly as "Physical Graffiti" even though it's half its length: the four epics tend to overshadow the trio of lean rockers that really do hark back to the Chess boogie and rockabilly that informed Zeppelin's earliest work. Each of these three - "Royal Orleans," "Candy Store Rock," "Hots on for Nowhere" - plays as snappily as the throwaways on the second half of "Physical Graffiti", containing a sexy insouciance; the band almost seems to shrug off how catchy Page's riffs and how thick the grooves of John Bonham and John Paul Jones actually are. No matter how much fun this triptych is, they're lost underneath the shadow of "Achilles Last Stand," a ten-minute exercise in self-styled moody majesty and the turgid blues crawl of closer "Tea for One." In between, there are two unalloyed masterpieces that channel all of the pain of the period into cinematic drama: a molten blues called "Nobody's Fault But Mine" and "For Your Life," as sharp, cinematic, and pained as Zeppelin ever were. Added together, "Presence" winds up as something less than the sum of its parts but its imbalance also means that it's a record worth revisiting; it seems different upon each revisit and is always compelling. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)
At the time Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' debut was released in 1976, they were fresh enough to almost be considered punk. They weren't as reckless or visionary as the Ramones, but they shared a similar love for pure '60s rock and, for the Heartbreakers, that meant embracing the Byrds as much as the Stones. And that's pretty much what this album is - tuneful jangle balanced by a tough garage swagger. At times, the attitude and the sound override the songwriting, but that's alright, since the slight songs ("Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll," to pick a random example) are still infused with spirit and an appealing surface. Petty & the Heartbreakers feel underground on this album, at least to the extent that power pop was underground in 1976; with Dwight Twilley providing backing vocals for "Strangered in the Night," the similarities between the two bands (adherence to pop hooks and melodies, love of guitars) become apparent. Petty wound up eclipsing Twilley because he rocked harder, something that's evident throughout this record. Take the closer "American Girl" - it's a Byrds song by any other name, but he pushed the Heartbreakers to treat it as a rock & roll song, not as something delicate. There are times where the album starts to drift, especially on the second side, but the highlights - "Rockin' Around (With You)," "Hometown Blues," "The Wild One, Forever," the AOR staples "Breakdown" and "American Girl" - still illustrate how refreshing Petty & the Heartbreakers sounded in 1976. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)
