Given how many times their songs have been played on the radio over the years, it may surprise you to learn that today only marks the 17th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin’s first UK single, “Whole Lotta Love,” a song which came out 28 years after the album on which it appears, Led Zeppelin II, first hit record store shelves.
Why did it take so long? You can blame it on the band, if you wish…or, if that makes you uncomfortable, blame it on their manager, Peter Grant, instead. (That’s what managers are there for, after all.)
In Led Zeppelin: The Story of a Band and Their Music, when author Keith Shadwick writes about the struggle to get “Whole Lotta Love” released as a single back in 1969, he notes that “(Jimmy) Page and Grant were not entirely against any thought of a single being released, although they genuinely felt it was better to stick to their albums-only position.” After Atlantic Records put out the album version of the song as a single in the States, however, an edited version of the song was released by the label in order to earn more radio airplay. “Weeks before its release, they sent me an acetate of the edit,” Page told The Wall Street Journal. “I played it once, hated it and never listened to the short version again.”