1973 Hard Rock Classic, Ranked Among 'Greatest Albums of All Time,' Hit No. 1 53 Years Ago Today
It's basically an official fact that Led Zeppelin was the biggest rock band in the world in 1972. (Sure, some might argue otherwise, but they'd be wrong.) So when the group started working on their fifth studio album, expectations were high; after all, their fourth and untitled record (generally referred to as Led Zeppelin IV) contained "Stairway to Heaven," which has probably been ranked the best rock song ever hundreds of times by now.
Luckily for Led Zeppelin fans, Houses of the Holy - released on March 28, 1973 - didn't disappoint. In fact, some even preferred Houses of the Holy to the album that came before...like Robert Plant.
"There was a lot of imagination on that record," the singer told High Times in 1991. "I prefer it much more than the fourth album. I think it's much more varied and it has a flippance which showed up again later."
By May 12, 1973, Houses of the Holy had climbed all the way to #1 on the Billboard 200, where it stayed for two weeks. It's not like the album went out of style after it slipped from the top spot, though...far from it. In fact, Houses of the Holy was ranked #278 on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Albums of All Time.
"Led Zeppelin stuck close to their core sound on earlier albums - supercharged blues, celestial folk - but here they got into a groove," the RS article noted, going on to praise Plant's performance on "The Rain Song" as "one of [his] most amazing vocals."
What Robert Plant said about his own vocals
In a 1980 interview with Tony Bacon, Plant shared a different opinion on his best vocal performance, citing another song from Houses of the Holy.
"I don't know. I suppose 'The Ocean' was great," he said. "Because it was on one of those daft riffs, one of those silly time thingbobs...There's so many different ways of working a vocal across that kind of riff. And maybe 'Immigrant Song' I quite like."
"'The Rain Song' was - well, it's fodder for sarcasm now," Plant continued. "Because, surely, you can't look at all this too seriously. But looking at it now as some sweet little thing, which it was in its directness and its sincerity - it was a nice little vocal. But it's very hard to sing it as the springtime of my loving at 39 in my manager's kitchen."
All these years later, Plant is still singing "The Rain Song" live onstage...and fans still can't get enough.
Related: 1969 Hard Rock Hit With 'Greatest Guitar Riff of All Time' Went Gold 56 Years Ago Today
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This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 5:50 PM.