Rasputina Archives

The 35 Best Led Zeppelin Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 10:00 am 7 Responses »

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

The 25 Best Goth Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 11:00 am 4 Responses »

May 312024

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

As regular readers know, here at Cover Me we put together a Best Covers Ever list every month for a celebrated artist. We’ve recently done the Pet Shop Boys and Sheryl Crow. And before them we did the biggie – The Beatles – and before them, Bob Dylan! But every now and again, there’s a particular genre that’s crying out for the Best Covers Ever treatment – and this month it’s the Dark Genre. It’s goth!

So why now, you ask? Are goth covers really a thing? And why don’t Alien Sex Fiend or Fields of the Nephilim have their own Best Covers Ever features?

Fair questions, all. First off, goth music is everywhere right now. It may have emerged out of the UK post-punk scene and enjoyed its most innovative period from 1980 to 1982, but it’s now the reason we have Whitby Goth Weekends in April and November (well, that and Count Dracula), World Goth Day on May 22, and goth nights down the Hatchet Inn in Bristol most nights, particularly Thursday. It’s also why we have heaps of goth books on the market right now, from John Robb’s The Art of Darkness to Lol Tolhurst’s Goth: A History and Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch, all trying to explain goth’s lasting influence as a musical subculture: the fixation with death, the dark theatricality, the Victorian melodrama, the leather, the thick black eyeliner, the fishnet tights, the deviance, the sex, the deviant sex, and, of course, spiders. Continue reading »

The Best Pink Floyd Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 4:00 pm 36 Responses »

May 302018

‘The Best Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

Coming in at 40 tracks, our third ‘Best Ever’ countdown is our longest yet. This feels appropriate; Pink Floyd’s songs tend to be a whole lot longer than Talking Heads’ or Fleetwood Mac’s. A band whose default length was set at “epic” deserves a list just as winding.

Luckily, the covers community has obliged, allowing us a list as discursive as Pink Floyd itself. A band that, for better or worse, can get pigeonholed into a specific sound and era, gets transformed into a whole host of other genres and moods. Psychedelic rock is represented here, of course, but so is bluegrass, soul, and disco. One cover even includes a “featuring Tupac Shakur” credit, which is probably not what Gilmour or Waters envisioned. Though the latter would certainly appreciate the walls being torn down.

Twenty-minute tracks that might seem intimidating to some don’t phase these artists. Some turn them into tight four-minute pop songs. Others, if you can believe it, extend the songs further. So strap in, and set the controls for the heart of the cover… Continue reading »

Review: Dr. Demento Covered in Punk

Posted by Seth Lorinczi at 9:53 am 1 Response »

Jan 232018

Let’s be blunt: No one needs novelty songs.

Loosely defined as “a satirical or comedic parody of popular music,” most people instinctively leave the room – or the house – at the first whiff.

Or do they? What, then, explains the enduring popularity of Dr. Demento, querulous-voiced prankster and legitimate, if puzzling, cultural icon? A rock ’n roll writer, label A&R man, and sometime roadie, he began broadcasting a rock and oldies show at Pasadena station KPPC in 1970. He quickly found that the novelty songs he slipped in – notably Nervous Norvus’ “Transfusion,” a truly demented tale about reckless driving, and a precursor to the Cramps’ psychobilly – were what his listeners really wanted to hear.

Now 76, Dr. Demento – a.k.a. Barret Eugene Hansen – ceased terrestrial radio broadcast in 2010, though his program persists online. And now we’re treated to Dr. Demento Covered in Punk, by some counts his 15th official album release. If you’re already hooked on the good doctor’s offbeat charms, you’re likely not in need of encouragement to purchase this collection of supposedly “punk” covers (more on that later) interspersed with the Doctor’s commentary. But can we rightfully recommend this 2+ hour compilation to the rest of the record-buying public? The answer, surprisingly, is: “Yes!” Sort of.

Five Good Covers: American Girl (Tom Petty)

Posted by Ray Padgett at 10:00 am 3 Responses »

Oct 092017

On Friday, we rounded up the best Tom Petty covers to come since his passing. And today, we begin to dig deeper into the archives for a series of Petty tributes featuring older covers.

Petty tended to write songs more crisp and economical than many of his peers – no Dylanesque word salad or proggy flights of weird instrumentation – which lent themselves to abundant covers. You could play any number of Petty songs within a few months of picking up a guitar (being able to solo like Mike Campbell – well, that might take a little longer).

There are many amazing Petty deep cuts to mine. Why, just in the past year we’ve heard two fantastic covers of songs from his obscure 2006 solo album Highway Companion (by Jane Kramer and The National). But we figured we’d start with a classic, a song so obvious I was frankly surprised to dig through the archives and discover we hadn’t given it the Five Good Covers treatment years ago. Well, better late than never. Rest in peace, Tom. Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of 1996

Posted by Ray Padgett at 12:00 pm 10 Responses »

Sep 302016

They say nostalgia works in 20-year cycles, and this year the music of 1996 has been in the media a lot. And if you believe the music blogs, it turns out 1996 was a truly groundbreaking year for every possible genre. Over at SPIN: “The 96 Best Alternative Rock Songs Of 1996.” Complex: “Best Rap Songs of 1996.” Junkee: “Ten reasons 1996 was a great year for dance music”. Loudwire: “10 Best Metal Albums of 1996.” Red Bull Music: “1996: Why it was a great year for pop”. Suck it, 1995! (Kidding; similar articles were of course written last year too.)

We’ll be honest: 1996 was not some magical, pioneering year for cover songs. It was also not a terrible year. It was just, you know, another year. There’s no overarching theorem of 1996’s cover songs that wasn’t true in ’95 or ’97. But even so, Cover Me wasn’t around in 1996, so we never made a Best Cover Songs of 1996 list (our first year-end list came in 2009, with the Kings of Convenience’s “It’s My Party” topping it, and you can catch up on all the lists here). So we decided, before the year ends and we take our look at the best covers songs this year, why not take a nostalgic rewind and do 1996 just for fun, twenty years too late. Continue reading »