The five greatest Robert Plant vocal performances
When Jimmy Page originally decided to start Led Zeppelin, he knew that he wanted to make a band with a lot of range. This meant labelling themselves as a rock band and introducing various elements that separated them from the other bands making music at the time.
“I had a lot of ideas from my days with The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds allowed me to improvise a lot in live performance, and I started building a textbook of ideas that I eventually used in Zeppelin,” said Page, “I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music.”
Page was ambitious in his approach. He was a fantastic guitarist who had worked with a range of different artists as a session musician, but just because he had the range necessary for Led Zeppelin didn’t mean he would be able to find other musicians with that could complement him. He got fortunate with the band members he ended up playing with. John Paul Jones and John Bonham were easily equipped to keep up with Page and bring their own sense of personality to the band. Then, on vocals, they had Robert Plant, who remains one of the greatest rock singers of all time.
Regardless of the feel of a Led Zeppelin song, whether it was one of their slower acoustic numbers or something upbeat, messy and chaotic, Plant was equipped to handle all of it. He could go from subtle and soft to tortured and energetic in a matter of moments, and it tied the music of Led Zeppelin together in the most beautiful way. Plant’s vocals changed over time, but he adapted to continue to perform, which has led to an array of exemplary vocal performances that listeners can feast on. Here, we will look at five of his very best.
Robert Plant’s best vocal performances:
‘Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You’
What better way to start than by contradicting the man himself? Robert Plant has commented previously that he isn’t a fan of a lot of his early vocal performances, picking out specifically, ‘Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You’. He criticises a lot of his early work, chalking it off as a “Manly approach to singing” that he struggled to identify with now. When reflecting on ‘Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You’, he said, “I find my vocals on there horrific now. I really should have shut the fuck up!”
Considering Plant’s comments, this early Led Zeppelin track is still one of his best vocal performances. It highlights his range beautifully, and though elements seem a bit chaotic and exaggerated, it is a perfect foreshadowing of what Plant has to offer and what sound he will refine throughout his career. All of his range is on display on this track, and though there may be a few corners cut and unfinished sections, it stands as the perfect start to what would be a thriving career.
‘The Ocean’
Jimmy Page had a lot of experience working with various effects that were applied to his guitar. He would often cite the roar of feedback you can hear before he starts playing as “Waking up the army of guitars,” and he wasn’t afraid to take the lessons he had learned from being a session musician and apply them to the instrumentation on Zeppelin tracks. It wasn’t too often you heard effects being added to Plant’s vocals, though, probably because he already had his very own built-in version of distortion. That said, when different effects were added, they escalated his voice to something beautiful beyond comprehension, which can be heard on ‘The Ocean’.
“The more you listen to rock n roll and early rockabilly, [you realise] there’s some incredible echo effects,” said Plant, “They were promising you something that actually wasn’t for real, you know? The very idea of putting an effect on the voice, in this dream wonderland, this promise of safe love and no tears, whatever it is. That’s what it all started from.”
‘Stairway to Heaven’
This is another track that Plant himself isn’t too fond of, but its legendary status, paired with its undeniable legacy, means it’s impossible to leave off this list. ‘Stairway To Heaven’ is the perfect song to use when highlighting the range that Led Zeppelin had that made them so great. Each member brings their own added flair to the song that highlights why they’re one of the best at what they do, and Plant is no different.
His vocals start off as fragile as the silence they break. He is hesitant in his approach to the words, almost as if he’s cautious about saying them, but that doesn’t stop every word from being beautifully in tune. As the song progresses and grows more aggressive, so does his voice, as his entire range is on display, and he elevates the track, making what would have been a great song a legendary moment in rock history.
‘The Rain Song’
Given that there are so many different aspects to Led Zeppelin, Plant’s vocals are swallowed up in the mix a lot of the time. This isn’t the case in ‘The Rain Song’. The instrumentation is much more muted, so Plant’s lyrics are front and centre. There is nowhere for the singer to hide, and the result is stunning.
Plant himself, who was no stranger to self-criticism, said that he thought his vocals on ‘The Rain Song’ were some of his greatest. “I’d say that on [Led Zeppelin’s] ‘Rain Song’ I sounded best. I’d reached a point where I knew that to get good I couldn’t repeat myself. The high falsetto screams had become quite a kind of calling card.”
‘Funny in My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ To Die)’
Of course, Robert Plant has had a successful career outside of Led Zeppelin. When he left the band, he continued exploring a range of different styles of music that allowed him to alter and challenge himself vocally. We saw him return to some of his more folk-inspired roots on the album Dreamland, all of which gives us a new side to Plant, which is out in full force during the opener, ‘Funny In My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ To Die)’.
“With Dreamland, I think I sang better and more effectively and naturally than I have done since ‘The Rain Song’,” said Plant when discussing recording the album. This is probably one of the most important records Plant ever made, as without exploring this side of his voice, we likely wouldn’t have the current partnership with him and Alison Krauss, which is working so well.
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