The album was initially recorded at Island Records's newly opened Basing Street Studios, London at the same time as Jethro Tull's Aqualung, before further recordings took place at Headley Grange, a remote Victorian house in East Hampshire, England, as well as Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, CA.
After the lukewarm, if not confused and sometimes dismissive, critical reaction Led Zeppelin III had received in the autumn of 1970, Jimmy Page decided that the next Led Zeppelin album would not have a title, but would instead feature four hand-drawn symbols on the inner sleeve and record label, each one chosen by the band member it represents. "We decided that on the fourth album, we would deliberately play down the group name, and there wouldn't be any information whatsoever on the outer jacket", Page explained. "Names, titles and things like that do not mean a thing."
In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Led Zeppelin IV the 26th greatest album of all time; in 2000 "Q" placed it at #26 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 66 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It is #7 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. A 2005 listener poll conducted by Toronto, Ontario classic rock station Q107 named Led Zeppelin IV the #2 best classic rock album of all time. In 2006, the album was rated #1 on Classic Rock magazine's 100 Greatest British Albums poll; that same year it was voted #1 in Guitar World 100 Greatest Albums readers' poll and was ranked #7 in ABC media's top ten albums.