The one album Robert Plant couldn’t live without: “It’s confrontational and it soothes”
When we think of Robert Plant, we’re too early to conjure up memories of his screaming falsetto that ran riot during the days of Led Zeppelin. Rightly so, in many ways, as his voice was one of the trademark factors that made Led Zeppelin so instantly recognisable. However, limiting Robert Plant’s ability to that screaming singing style would be doing him a disservice.
The fact is that Robert Plant is one of the best vocalists on the planet. He had to be when he was performing in Led Zeppelin, given how adamant Jimmy Page was about having a mix of genres present in their sound. It wasn’t enough for them to be a rock band; their music was a combination of acoustic music, the blues, and hard rock. Plant needed to be able to adapt to suit all of these different styles, and he did it seamlessly.
Led Zeppelin was always happy to experiment with various sounds, taking from genres of music from around the world to achieve whatever innovative sound they were trying to accomplish at the time. It was important that Robert Plant was open enough to this experimentation and was willing to sing the songs they threw his way and embrace their experimentation, too.
This continued after Led Zeppelin broke up. For instance, in 1988, he released the album Now and Zen, which saw him lean away from his rock ‘n’ roll roots and instead opt to sing over more electronic music. This was a different sound for Plant, which he pursued in a bid to prove electronic music could carry with it the emotion that many music critics said it was devoid of.
He also continued to push himself vocally after Led Zeppelin broke up. His voice changed over time, so he couldn’t continue with the regularly scheduled screaming that fans were accustomed to, but he continued to sing the songs that fit his evolving voice and was never content with singing simple songs. He confessed that the most challenging track he’s ever had to sing came after Led Zeppelin, in the form of the Dillan & Clark cover ‘Polly Come Home’.
“It’s just the most difficult piece of music to sing at the tempo that we sang it at,” said Plant when discussing how tricky it was to sing the song, “It’s one of the toughest calls I’ve had.”
When you consider his varied range, it should be clear that Robert Plant isn’t an artist willing only to submerge himself in one genre of music. While he might be most famous in the world of rock music, his listening stretches much further beyond the realm of hard rock. He listens far and wide, so when you talk about the one album he couldn’t live without, it’s worth remembering how much he listens to.
When asked about the album he loves the most, he was quick to give the award to Forever Changes by Love. “It’s confrontational and it soothes,” he said, singing the record’s praises, “Tracks like ‘Old Man’ give me a bit of hope for our time, our condition. And I might take a little Vaughan Williams or Elgar to remind me that I’m English.”
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