‘Communication Breakdown’ – Iron Maiden

As one of the forefathers of heavy metal, it’s impossible to discount Led Zeppelin’s effect on an entire genre. If you needed proof, listen to Iron Maiden‘s cover of ‘Communication Breakdown’. It is as ferocious and furious as it gets. In the process, it feels like a time traveller going back to meet their former selves. Without the roaring 1969 original, Iron Maiden might not have existed.

Interestingly, Bruce Dickinson confessed that it was actually the softer side of their sound that appealed to him. “I was always a bigger Purple fan than Zeppelin. But I never saw either Zeppelin or Purple when I was a kid, when they were in their heyday,” he told Metal Hammer. “Zeppelin were adopted by American radio big-style. But I’ve got to confess that the thing I loved most about Zeppelin was their English folk roots. Not their copies of American blues tracks. ‘Ramble On’ is one of my favourite Led Zeppelin songs.”

Karen O, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Rose – ‘Immigrant Song’

It’s hard to quantify the musicianship of Led Zeppelin. All four members of the band were incredibly gifted in their fields. However, we’d suggest the mini-supergroup of Karen O, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Rose has a bounty of credentials on their side, too. With all three renowned for their sonic invention, they take ‘Immigrant Song’ off on an unconventional route.

The track takes on a decidedly more industrial sound with Reznor at the helm of proceedings, but did you expect anything less? Karen O also does her best screeching siren act. And Rose’s compositional tweaks fold into the mix. The result is a roaring epic, crafted for the film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, that is full of confrontational rage and justified vengeance.

‘Stairway to Heaven’ – Frank Zappa

Of course, we couldn’t have a list of Zeppelin covers without visiting ‘Stairway To Heaven’, the band’s most recognisable hit. Not the most popular choice on our list, many people have labelled Frank Zappa‘s cover of Zeppelin’s most famous song as disrespectful, perhaps even a deliberate attempt to make fun of the group, but being easy to parody was always part of their appeal.

If you truly believe that in 1988, backed by a full band, Zappa would be making fun of one of the biggest bands on the planet… well, you’d probably have a fair point. But this charming effort still ranks as one of the most memorable covers. It’s a fun cover, and in its own ironic way, it encapsulates the mammoth position of the song within pop culture.

‘Heartbreaker’ – Nirvana

One of the few songs to be credited to all four members of Led Zeppelin, ‘Heartbreaker’ is a behemoth song on Led Zeppelin II and has remained a fan favourite ever since. The song’s solo inspired Eddie Van Halen to create his ‘Tapping Technique’ and sent countless other guitarists back to the drawing board.

Often regarded as a sloppy guitar player, Kurt Cobain‘s solo work on this live cover of Led Zeppelin’s track shows he was a match for any player out there. Taking on a famous Page lead line may be scary, but Cobain gives it a good old-fashioned try. In the process, he leaves the power of the original still pulsing, but imbues it with a roughshod youthfulness along the way.

‘Night Flight’ – Jeff Buckley

First recorded in 1971, the song was meant for Led Zeppelin IV, but it only found a home years later on Physical Graffiti. It’s a track about a man trying to dodge the draft and was composed largely by John Paul Jones. Yet, its stark ambition meant that it had to be carefully honed. Jimmy Page once commented, “To be able to fuse all these styles was always my dream in the early stages, but now the composing side of it is just as important.”

The enigmatic character and voice of Jeff Buckley would endear him to a generation bereft of the rock star ideal. Buckley may have been a tortured soul, but he got himself up and raring to go on this wonderful cover of ‘Night Flight’ from 1993. Buckley’s soaring vocal performance is truly quite special, and it floored Page and Plant when they went to see the late singer perform.

‘Four Sticks’ – Rollins Band

If there’s one man in rock capable of matching Led Zeppelin’s intensity all on his own, then it has to be Henry Rollins. The former Black Flag leading man was in his own group by the time he attempted a cover of one of his favourite bands. Never one to back down from a fight, Rollins lets rip with a cover of a song so complex that even the originators struggled to nail it.

Taken from the Led Zeppelin tribute album Encomium, the song became a part of Henry Rollins’ repertoire as his 1995 version smacks of everything that makes him great and Zeppelin undeniably brilliant: power and lots of it. It might be a more basic recital, but it could still rattle the Colosseum to the ground.

‘Thank You’ – Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell had a voice that could stir honey into tea from a thousand paces. That gruff power paired perfectly with ‘Thank You’. Recorded unplugged in Sweden, the song hangs off every varnished and soulful vocal fleck Cornell gives us. It’s damn near perfect in timing and pitch, and keeps the song lingering longer than it maybe should.

Featured on Led Zeppelin II, the song has always stuck out as perfect for Plant’s impressive vocals. But Cornell strips things back even further. Somehow it is both tender and heavy as hell, like being crushed under a ton of feathers. He does such a good job, in fact, that soon after the cover rose to the fore, rumours started to swirl that he was set to front a Led Zep reunion.

‘Communication Breakdown’ – Flaming Lips

A full-frontal assault that never lets up, that’s what The Flaming Lips are all about. The bulging band provide the most like-for-like cover on our list with this classic Zep song from ’69, utilising their ensemble approach to capture the same power that four blokes provided a few decades earlier. It’s a bulbous cover from start to finish, never relenting, not even for a second. Fitting for a song that dominated the band’s early live shows.

The track will go down in history as one of the band’s best, but it was only released as a B-side to ‘Good Times, Bad Times’, seemingly not good enough for the A-side release. Nowadays, you will be hard-pushed to find a Led Zep fan who doesn’t count it as one of the band’s best tracks. John Paul Jones even went as far as to say it was one of their defining tunes, saying, “You can tell [that it is a Jimmy Page riff] instantly.”

‘Stairway to Heaven’ – Rodrigo y Gabriela

‘Stairway To Heaven’ holds a polarising position in pop culture these days. It is so ubiquitous and overblown that Plant has turned his back on it. Yet, there are rare occasions when its beauty shines through the over-exposure, and you get a sense of what it was like to hear it for the first time once again.

This incarnation by Rodrigo y Gabriela really brings that home. Beloved in their native Mexico, the duo (who actually began their career in Dublin) imbue the classic track with South American flair. Stripped down to an acoustic, their version brings out the almost ‘Bourrée in E minor’ adjacent classical edge to the song.

‘Kashmir’ – Songhoy Blues

Is ‘Kashmir’ the ultimate Led Zeppelin anthem? Robert Plant certainly seems to think so. It was also partly inspired by the music of the Sahara, so it makes sense that Songhoy Blues would serve up a rendition more captivating and mystic than the dance of sand dunes and a mirage. The band from Timbuktu, Mali, go for a more mellow and withdrawn approach, but they don’t lose any of the power in the process.

“I wish we were remembered for ‘Kashmir’ more than ‘Stairway to Heaven'”, Plant once proclaimed, “It’s so right; there’s nothing overblown, no vocal hysterics. Perfect Zeppelin.” It is almost as though Songhoy Blues took that appraisal as inspiration. They reduce the song even further, until you’re left with something silken and ethereal.