Houses Of The Holy - Led Zeppelin

Vinyl L.P - Atlantic Records SD 7255.

1973 - U.S.A

Sleeve, photography (A. Powell): HIPGNOSIS.

Hand tinting: Philip Crennell.

Back cover

Gatefold

Inner getafold

Inner sleeve

Inner sleeve

Disc side 1

Disc side 2

Labels

Led Zeppelin

John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, John Bonham & Robert Plant

About the artwork:

The cover features only two children, despite looking like a crowd of many different people: siblings Stefan and Samantha Gates. At the time, Stefan was five and Samantha was seven.

Because the original photography lacked color and lighting depth, Powell resorted to an intricate post-production collage process: took the best poses of Stefan and Samantha from different shots and manually cut and pasted them together onto a single background plate of the Causeway to create the illusion of a larger group.

The entire combined image was printed in black-and-white and then meticulously hand-colored by a tinting artist. The vibrant, glowing orange-and-pink sky was actually a mistake made during the coloring phase. When the band saw the accidental neon-hued proof, they loved its distinctly psychedelic, sci-fi atmosphere and insisted on keeping it.

Hipgnosis wanted to capture that eerie, innocent, yet powerful sense of ascension. Aubrey Powell chose Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland—a dramatic natural formation of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns—as the perfect ancient, geometric stage for the shoot.

The crew scheduled a ten-day shoot in late 1942, hoping for a beautiful, golden sunrise to create a mystical dawn effect. Instead, it rained constantly. The children had to crawl naked over freezing, wet stone columns at 4:00 AM every morning while sprayed with water and grease to look radiant.

Phil Crennell

Robert Plant

Jimmy Page

The visual concept was heavily inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's classic 1953 science fiction novel Childhood's End. In the book's climax, all the children of Earth merge into a singular cosmic entity and ascend into space from a changing landscape.

The inner gatefold artwork of Houses of the Holy serves as the dramatic, narrative climax to the outer cover. While the front and back sleeves show the children crawling up the geometric stones of Giant's Causeway, opening the record reveals what awaits them at the very peak of their journey.

If the outer cover is about the mysterious ascension of youth, the inner image represents a sacrificial or presentation ritual. Set against the jagged, imposing ruins of Dunluce Castle (located just a few miles down the coast from the Causeway), a silver-skinned, adult figure stands on the fortress walls.

Bathed in a single, eerie beam of light cutting through a deep indigo sky, the figure holds a child high above his head. It evokes an unsettling mix of ancient pagan worship, science-fiction abduction, and ultimate triumph.

To make the figures look otherworldly, Powell used solarization and high-contrast printing techniques. This gave the adult figure a metallic, "silver surfer" sheen, erasing human features to make him look like a statue or a cosmic entity.

The dramatic beam of light breaking from the clouds onto the figure wasn't real; it was meticulously airbrushed into the composition during post-production to create a focal point within the sprawling dark fortress.

Dunluce Castle is a medieval fortress built precariously on the edge of a basalt cliff, accessible only via a bridge. Hipgnosis designer Aubrey Powell chose it to give the inner sleeve a grounded sense of history, contrasting the alien, geometric nature of the Causeway stones.

The children from the outer cover (Stefan and Samantha Gates) were not involved in this shoot. The figures in the castle are actually an adult model and a completely different child.

Locations:

The Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, U.K.

Dunluce Castle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, U.K.

Dunluce Castle & The Giant’s Causeway

County Antrim, Northern Ireland

The models:

Stefan & Samantha Gates

Samantha & Stefan Gates with their parents

Stefan & Samantha Gates

Stefan Gates

Samantha Gates

Photos:

Aubrey Powell

Storm Thorgerson

Memorabilia:

Store display

Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records

D'yer Mak'er - Single advert

   About the artist and the album:

Led Zeppelin fundamentally reshaped the landscape of modern music, the group fused heavy, blues-driven rock with folk, psychedelic, and world music elements, laying the foundational blueprint for hard rock and heavy metal.

In 1968, when guitarist Jimmy Page found himself the sole remaining member of the pioneering blues-rock outfit The Yardbirds. Tasked with fulfilling remaining tour dates, Page set out to construct a new lineup. He recruited session bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, a powerhouse young vocalist from the Midlands named Robert Plant, and, at Plant’s urging, a ferocious drummer named John Bonham.

Initially billed as "The New Yardbirds," they quickly rebranded. The name Led Zeppelin allegedly grew out of a joke by Keith Moon (drummer for The Who), who quipped that the band would go over "like a lead balloon."

The band releases Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II in 1969. Driven by Page's heavy riffs and Bonham's thunderous groove, II knocks The Beatles' Abbey Road off the top of the charts, fueled by the success of "Whole Lotta Love". In 1971 they release their fourth album, officially untitled but known as Led Zeppelin IV. It features "Stairway to Heaven," a track that becomes the most requested song in rock radio history without ever being released as a commercial single.

Albums like the sprawling double album Physical Graffiti (1975), Presence (1976), In Through the Out Door (1979) solidify them as the biggest touring act on Earth, breaking attendance records previously held by The Beatles. On September 25, 1980, drummer John Bonham tragically passes away at age 32. Recognizing his drumming as an irreplaceable pillar of their sound, the remaining members issue a simple statement declaring they can no longer continue as a band.

Houses of the Holy is their fifth studio album by Led Zeppelin, released on March 28, 1973. It marks a critical turning point in the band's history. Coming right after the monolithic success of Led Zeppelin IV, the band chose not to repeat themselves. Instead, they broke away from their heavy, blues-driven roots to experiment with reggae, funk, progressive rock, and layered synthesisers.

Oddly enough, the song titled "Houses of the Holy" does not appear on this album. It was recorded during these sessions but held back because the band felt it didn't fit the flow of the record. It was eventually released two years later on their 1975 double album, Physical Graffiti.

Despite early mixed reviews from critics who were confused by the sudden stylistic left turns into reggae and funk, the album was a massive commercial success. It immediately knocked Elvis Presley and The Beatles out of the top spots on the charts, hitting No. 1 on both the US Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart, eventually going Diamond (over 10 million copies sold in the US alone).

The sleeve artwork for Houses of the Holy is one of the most famous, striking, and technically complex album covers in rock history, it presents a surreal, otherworldly landscape that looks like a painted alien world but was actually built from a real-world location and real photography.

The original vinyl release was a full gatefold sleeve with no band name or album title anywhere on the outer artwork, a bold move insisted upon by the band and manager Peter Grant to let the art stand alone. When opened up, the outer gatefold reveals a continuous panoramic view of the children reaching the summit.

Because of the nudity, Atlantic Records was incredibly nervous about the release. In many territories, the album had to be shipped with a paper strip (or "obi strip") wrapped around it to hide the artwork and display the titles, which ironically made it stand out even more on record store shelves.