page_title: Led Zeppelin
section_title: Achievements
hierarchical_section_title: Led Zeppelin / Achievements
caption_attribution_description: English: United States President Barack Obama speaks with the surviving members of Led Zeppelin – John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page – at the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors event.
context_page_description: Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group consisted of vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With their heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are regularly cited as one of the progenitors of heavy metal, although their style drew from a variety of influences, including blues and folk music.
  After changing their name from the New Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin signed a deal with Atlantic Records that afforded them considerable artistic freedom. Although the group were initially unpopular with critics, they achieved significant commercial success with eight studio albums released over ten years, from Led Zeppelin to In Through the Out Door. Their untitled fourth studio album, commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV, and featuring the song "Stairway to Heaven", is among the most popular and influential works in rock music, and helped to secure the group's popularity.
  Page wrote most of Led Zeppelin's music, particularly early in their career, while Plant generally supplied the lyrics.
context_section_description: Led Zeppelin have collected many honours and awards throughout the course of their career. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006. Among the band's awards are an American Music Award in 2005, and the Polar Music Prize in 2006. Led Zeppelin were the recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, and four of their recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. They have been awarded five Diamond albums, as well as fourteen Multi-Platinum, four Platinum and one Gold album in the United States, while in the UK they have five Multi-Platinum, six Platinum, one Gold and four Silver albums. In addition to listing five of their albums among "the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", Rolling Stone named Led Zeppelin the 14th-greatest artist of all time in 2004.
  In 2005, Page was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his charity work, and in 2009 Plant was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to popular music. The band are ranked number one on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and Classic Rock's "50 best live acts of all time". They were named as the best Rock band in a poll by BBC Radio 2. They were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding Contribution to British Music" in 1977, as well as a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 42nd Annual Ivor Novello awards ceremony in 1997. The band were honoured at the 2008 MOJO Awards with the "Best Live Act" prize for their one-off reunion, and were described as the "greatest rock and roll band of all time". Led Zeppelin were named as 2012 recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors.
caption: Led Zeppelin were honoured by US President Barack Obama at the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors.
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