Jun 012026
May 142026
Jason Isbell has a history of singing with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. They’ve combined their voices before for some truly wonderful moments of live music.
Isbell is currently touring the US with his band, the 400 Unit, and is being supported on some dates by Welch and Rawlings. Saturday night at Red Rocks in Colorado, the two came out during Isbell’s encore to join him in a cover of a John Prine classic. The three joined together to sing Prine’s “Paradise.” Continue reading »
Mar 272026
‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.
Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were veteran session musicians. Robert Plant and John Bonham hadn’t turned 21 yet. The first time the four of them got together, they played “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” and in Jones’s words, “the room just exploded, we could see the grins spreading, and we said, ‘Right. We’re on, this is it, this is going to work!'”
Eleven years and change later, the band released a statement: “We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were.”
In between, the band that someone predicted would go over like the world’s biggest lead balloon became the biggest band in the world. Led Zeppelin were pioneers in so many ways. Hard rock, AOR, studio wizardry, stadium touring, album cover design – all saw the band at the forefront. Most importantly, their music was what brought people to them, and what kept them there. All the members were among the best in the world at what they did, and together their alchemy made their songs, whether loud or soft, catch in their listener’s minds and hearts.
When Francis Malofiy called Led Zeppelin “the greatest cover band in all of history,” he didn’t mean it as a compliment. Malofiy was the attorney suing Zeppelin for stealing “Stairway to Heaven”‘s opening riff from the Spirit song “Taurus,” and he certainly wasn’t the first to take the band to court to get songwriting credit. But whether the greatest cover band in all of history synthesized, swiped, or supplanted their influences, the cover bands that came after them were given deep, deep cupboards to plunder, and plunder they did.
We’ve come up with thirty-five top covers of Led Zeppelin songs. Like the band, they branch into blues, country, reggae, folk, and hard rock (and, unlike the band, even jazz). Like the band, they take something great and make it greater. And like Robert, Jimmy, John and John, once you hear it working, your grin is going to spread.
–Patrick Robbins, Features Editor
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Dec 192025
Follow all our Best of 2025 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.
Last year’s unexpected theme was Tom Petty covers. For no obvious reason, he popped up again and again on our 2024 year-end list. And whaddya know, Tom’s back this year, with two more Petty covers on our list. This year, however, he is not the most-covered artist on our list.
That’s a tie between two artists, one extremely of-the-moment, one timeless. With three covers apiece, Chappell Roan and Neil Young share the most-best-covered crown. (Artists with two covers apiece this year, in addition to Petty, are Gillian Welch, John Prine, and—this one’s surprising—Nelly Furtado!)
Spoiler alert: None of those appears in the number-one position. Number one covers an artist who I don’t think has ever appeared on one of our year-end lists. But don’t skip ahead. There are 49 equally (well, almost) as good covers to get through first, spanning genres and sounds and eras and ages. Here we go.
Cover art by Hope Silverman
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Oct 312025
The Dollyrots — You Don’t Own Me (Lesley Gore cover)
“It’s My Party” was the bigger hit, but these days it feels like “You Don’t Own Me” gets covered more. It’s become something of a feminist anthem (probably an unlikely future for “It’s My Party”…). Dollyrots singer Kelly Ogden said, in sharing her band’s new revved-up cover, “The song is an anthem for female empowerment, about willing to be defiant in the face of something that’s just plain wrong. Sadly, it’s still just as timely as when Lesley sang it over 60 years ago.”
Folk Bitch Trio — Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon cover)
Remember “Sex on Fire”? Gotta be one of the dumbest singles of the 21st century. Folk Bitch Trio covered it for Like a Version, and they, against all odds, manage to redeem it. “It’s an underrated song,” they said. “It rocks. It’s filthy without you really knowing. The Folk Bitch Trio twist is kind of easy: We just sing it in three-part harmony, lock in, look at each other and we’re there.” Continue reading »
Jun 022025
Chewy Rodriguez — Wildest Dreams (Taylor Swift cover)
This beautiful performance aired on South Dakota Public Broadcasting and, as of this writing, has 81 views, half of which are mine. (To be fair, presumably more people saw it when it aired on actual TV). But this Sioux Falls singer-songwriters beautiful Taylor Swift cover deserves a far bigger audience. It’s simply done, no frills or gimmicks, but he sells the hell out of it. Continue reading »