Presence, possibly the most adventurous and certainly underrated record from the mighty Led Zeppelin, is now available on CD from Amazon right now for only $5.00. The CD is an AutoRip, which means with this purchase, you also get a FREE MP3 download of the entire album.

Originally released in 1976, Presence was born out of sort of a time filler management situation, the band had originally intended to tour their double magnum opus, 1975’s Physical Graffiti, until those plans were derailed after lead singer Robert Plant suffered serious injuries in a car accident in Rhodes, Greece, where he had been vacationing with his family. Wheelchair-bound, Plant suggested they utilize the time of his being incapacitated by making a new record, and thus, Presence was created.

But by no means is this some sort of slap it together puff job. In fact, some of the band’s most strongest and complexly arranged songs exist on Presence. Guitarist and producer Jimmy Page (who turns 70 today) overlaps multiple guitar tracks in each song, creating a cacophony of cadences from the amplifiers, almost attempting a kind of “wall of sound” that was created by the Madcap Genius, producer Phil Spector. Taking the kind of hints of mythology treaded on in earlier records and blending them with white man’s blues right from the river banks of the Southern Delta, and throwing in their own signature heavy rock strut, Presence is like a multi-layered, multi-directional and multi-faceted piece of work. With songs like the now-classic “Achilles Last Stand,” in which the band flirts with Prog Rock in a way that shakes that genre’s foundations and then some; the pungent “Candy Store Rock,” which is what Gene Vincent would have sounded like had he lived and kept recording; “Tea For One,” which may be the loudest, diamond on glass alpha ballad, taking cues from the band’s earlier “Since I’ve Been Loving You”; and the fun shuffle of “Royal Orleans” to name a few, Presence may certainly be the juggernaut in the band’s rich catalog, the dark horse if you will, but even the darkest horses have been known to effortlessly sprint across the finish line from time to time.

For guitarist Jimmy Page’s birthday today, so be sure to read our tribute to the guitar god from last year.

Track Listing

1. Achilles Last Stand
2. For Your Life
3. Royal Orleans
4. Nobody’s Fault But Mine
5. Candy Store Rock
6. Hots On For Nowhere
7. Tea Is For One

Browse hundreds of albums on sale this month in MP3 format for only $5 each!

MP3 Purchases: When you purchase MP3s through Amazon, it stores your purchases to Amazon’s Cloud Drive; from there you can stream the music right from their online player. Also, if you have a Kindle Fire, your MP3 purchases will automatically be available for you to stream on your device. All your purchases are backed up and available for you to download at any time. You can download the files to your computer to load to an MP3 device and to your iTunes account if you have one. If you’d like to gift these MP3 purchases, you can – just click the “Give album or song as gift” button on the right on the product page. From there you enter the recipient’s email address and then select either specific songs to gift or the entire album.

CD AutoRip Purchases: After you complete a purchase of an AutoRip CD, a free MP3 version of that album will be added to your Amazon Cloud Player library and will be available on your PC/Mac, Kindle Fire, Android phone, iPhone & iPod Touch, and iPad. Albums eligible for this offer are marked on Amazon.com with an AutoRip logo. If you do not yet have a Cloud Player account, you can activate one for free. Available to US customers only.