Robert Plant has been making music for the vast majority of his life. There is, as he sees it, simply no other way to exist in the world.”I made my first record in 1966, and to be honest I don’t think I can hack not doing it,” the former Led Zeppelin singer told Mojo in 2023. “It’s motion. It’s like, do you want to go home and read about it? Do you want to go home and speculate on whether it was wrong not to do this or that? No, you just do it. The communion, for me, is the game.”Plant’s time in Led Zeppelin is, numerically and artistically, just a fraction of his career. He released his debut solo album, Pictures at Eleven, in 1982, and has since released 10 more, plus two Grammy-nominated collaborations with Alison Krauss.Extra attention is often paid to the period in Plant’s life — the early ’80s specifically — in which he attempted to find his own sound. To develop a new identity after spending a decade crafting one of the loudest and boldest in rock is no easy feat. In the below list, we’re focusing on songs Plant released from the year 2000 onwards, after roughly 20 years of solo work already under his belt.1. “Song to the Siren”From: Dreamland (2002)Among those who have covered Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” is John Frusciante, Sinead O’Connor and Bryan Ferry. But Plant’s version, released on 2002’s Dreamland, is certainly a memorable one with a stunning vocal. “These songs are infinite really,” Plant said of it during a 2020 episode of his Digging Deep podcast, “and I wanted to sing it.”2. “Last Time I Saw Her”From: Dreamland (2002)We’re working in chronological order here. Another gem from Dreamland is “Last Time I Saw Her,” one of just a few originals on the album. Special attention should be paid to the “out of this world” rhythm section, made up of Charlie Jones on bass and Clive Deamer on drums, not to mention a really sizzling guitar part by Justin Adams.3. “Shine It All Around”From: Mighty ReArranger (2005)In 2005, Plant released Mighty ReArranger, his first original album in close to a decade, and what a force it was. “Shine It All Around,” the album’s lead single, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can take the man out of the world famous blues-based rock band, but you cannot take those influences away from him. “Shine It All Around” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance.4. “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)” With Alison KraussFrom: Raising Sand (2007)Some people just click — Plant and Alison Krauss are a perfect example. Their first album together, 2007’s Raising Sand, was nominated in five Grammy categories and won in all of them. Perhaps the best example of their yin and yang nature is in their cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On).” “[Krauss’] much more pristine,” T Bone Burnett, who produced the album, said to Variety in 2021, “so I think her goal is to get it to a certain level of excellence that you don’t really aspire to in the blues. And Robert is the other way: He’s loose like the blues. She’s much more rehearsed and he’s more improvisational; she’s much more clean and he’s dirty.” Opposites attract — and win Grammys, evidently.5. “Turn It Up”From: Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar (2014)As someone who saw this song performed live from the front row just about a week after it came out, this writer can attest to how downright dirty of a rock ‘n’ roll song “Turn It Up” is. It was inspired largely by the music Plant heard as he was traveling in the American south. “I was searching to see if I could find out what the character of the area was from the radio that was on in the car,” Plant said in a short clip about 2014’s Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar. “So I wrote the lyrics to this piece against an amazing sort of link to those days, if you like, back then in the ’30s and ’40s, when Clarksdale [Mississippi] was the center of the Black revolution in music, before the Great Migration up to Chicago.”6. “Rainbow”From: Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar (2014)”Rainbow” is the softer side of Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, which isn’t to say it’s any less powerful or doesn’t suit the mood of the album. “It’s really a celebratory record, but it’s very crunchy and gritty, very West African and very Massive Attack-y,” Plant explained to Rolling Stone in 2014. “There’s a lot of bottom end, so it might sound all right at a Jamaican party, but I’m not sure it would sound all right on NPR.”7. “The May Queen”From: Carry Fire (2017)It was Plant who once sang “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now / It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.” That was way back in 1971 when Led Zeppelin recorded “Stairway to Heaven.” Almost 50 years later, that name came up again, but interestingly, Plant claimed he didn’t do it on purpose. “I didn’t even see it like that to begin with,” he said to BBC 6Music’s Matt Everitt (via NME). “It’s just there was a big hawthorn bush outside the studio. There were no spring cleans or anything. … I never even thought about that. Do you think anybody can remember laughter? I don’t know.”8. “Bluebirds Over the Mountain” With Chrissie HyndeFrom: Carry Fire (2017)Ersel Hickey wrote “Bluebirds Over the Mountain” back in 1958, and for whatever reason, Plant seems to sing rockabilly songs particularly well with American women, in this case with Chrissie Hynde. “She’s quite a profound woman,” Plant said of her in 2021. “She’s like a gem, a diamond, ’cause…the light comes off from different angles.”9. “High and Lonesome”From: Raise the Roof (2021)The second Plant-Krauss collaboration, Raise the Roof, consisted of mostly covers, apart from “High and Lonesome,” which Plant wrote with T Bone Burnett, who once again served as producer. It’s an excellent group of musicians: Jay Bellerose on drums, Dennis Crouch on bass, Marc Ribot on guitar, Russell Pahl on pedal steel, Viktor Krauss (Alison Krauss’ brother) on mellotron, Jeff Taylor on bass accordion and Burnett himself on electric guitar and mellotron.10. “Don’t Mind” With Patty GriffinFrom: Tape (2022)We’re bending the rules just a little bit here since this isn’t a release by Plant himself, but instead by a frequent collaborator of his and former girlfriend, Patty Griffin. “Don’t Mind” comes from a 2022 album of Griffin’s called Tape, which features recordings she dug up during the pandemic months. “She’s such a tiny, beautiful character, but she’s just enormous in her passion and her writing,” Plant said to The Guardian in 2017. “Her writing’s staggeringly beautiful.”Led Zeppelin Solo Albums RankedThere have been vanity projects, weird detours and huge disappointments – but also some of the best LPs of the succeeding eras.Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso