Mary J Blige Covers Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway To Heaven'

Mary J. Blige's international release of Stronger With Each Tear includes covers of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven," and "Whole Lotta Love."

In February, Blige recorded "Stairway To Heaven" with an all-star ensemble of musicians. Travis Barker played drums. Steve Vai and This Is It newcomer Oranthi were on guitar. Geffen Records chairman Ron Fair played piano, and American Idol judge Randy Jackson, who assembled the band, handled bass.

Blige said she wanted to remake a Zeppelin classic as a bonus for her overseas release. "Ron Fair and myself and my label all were brainstorming about what is the next big rock 'n' roll record that Mary can take on for the U.K.," Blige said in a behind-the-scenes video about the song. "I remember doing 'One' for the Breakthrough album and everyone really receiving it and loving it."

Fair believes U2 lead singer Bono originally suggested the idea. "Mary J. Blige has a lot of great friendships with musicians around the world, one of which is Bono," Fair said. "They were all hanging out and the subject of Led Zeppelin came up. And I think Bono's the one who threw the gauntlet down and said, 'You've got to do 'Stairway To Heaven.'"

Listen to the song here.

Read the entire article at Music.Yahoo.com.

Comments

[Eirien]

Another terrible idea by Bono... It should be illegal to listen to what he says.

[Minkaro]

Led Zep fanboy rage in 3...2...1...

(She does a decent job on it.)

[Honky]

TAINTED!!!!!

[flaphead325]

Bono should be in prison now !

[bleumurle]

I am a huge Led Zeppelin fan, and though I'm not going to bash Mary J. Blige as a musician, I am going to say that I listened to the covers, and they weren't good.

[Raizer Sabre]

i'm rather into cover versions, so i gave this a listen purely out of curiousity. i will say now that in my opinion, the music is really good, though i wasn't a fan of the horns during the guitar solo. that said, the rest sounds amazing, an interesting take on a classic song.

however, it's the singing where i get critical. granted, she does have a powerful voice and she does sing with a passion, but i think thats where she goes a little over the top. not a big fan of the vocals at all

thats my opinion anyway

[Galvatron]

HAHA.

Lame.

[Shredder666]

I think this song could be WAY worse, and people shouldn't freak out about it. I respect that Mary J. Blige used real instruments here and didn't turn the classic into some s****y electronic pop song. Nobody could truly do Stairway like Zeppelin, so there's no point trying to compare the two versions.

One criticism I have is that Blige failed at trying to amplify the emotion of the song with her singing. She changed up the vocal line too much (singing different harmonies to notes instead of the root for example); it doesn't really make sense anymore.

[Shredder666]

Excuse the double post, but I listened to Whole Lotta Love, and THAT is truly murder...

[Grohlism]

I'm now disgusted with Bono. And also, Blige murdered One so it is safe to conclude she doubly murdered these songs.

Did any one notice it took Steve Vai AND another guitarist to play it? And I thought Vai was possibly as good as Page.

[Pete13]

What a pile of wank. Disgusting musical age we now live in and this is coming from a 21 year old!

[Pete13]

And also Vai isn't fir to kiss Page's left nut.

[Pete13]

Fit* Sorry 3 posts now

[Shredder666]

Pete13 wrote:

What a pile of wank. Disgusting musical age we now live in and this is coming from a 21 year old!

Man, that's the truth...I'm 19 and I totally agree! :P

[highwind5150]

I'm agreeing with shredder666...that is murder indeed...I don't think I've ever seen a more butchered cover than that one. :-/

[savolic]

Mary J. Blige has a lot of great friendships with musicians around the world, one of which is Bono

Someone's trying pretty hard to seem cool

Seriously though, this is a stupid, stupid idea, you can't touch the original, you just can't. And the solo, why did Vai try and change one of, if not the greatest guitar solo's of all time? This proves once and for all that Bono is a tool.

[iKill_Audio!]

Oh God..... I don't mean to sound like a close-minded twat, but that just sounds terrible. Don't mind hearing Steve Vai play Jimmy Page but I don't know if that could save it. Probably should listen to it first.....

[the_white_bunny]

NO one should cover led zeppelin.
that's it period.
same with the beatles.
its a NO NO

[Declan87]

Its not as bad as I thought it would be, especially after she butchered and raped "One." Nice to hear some more Oranthi - I like that chick. Actually I think Travis Barker's part is my least favourite part of this song.

[grantjames]

TBH I really enjoyed it! She sings it well. The instruments are really polished so it does sound more like a pop song, but hey, that's why it's a COVER, right?

[RozaSG]

yeah the music behind it is awsome perfect. but blige totally takes away from what the song is all about Stairway is NOT a ballad it is one of the single most defining ROCK songs in history. there is no attitude no passion nothing.

[BlackRebelMC85]

I've listened to it and its terrible. Stupid Bono.

[gerbil_mastr]

wtf...this hurts my ears

[Andragon]

Dig it. Mary's soulful. Bash on, Zep die-hards.

[abhishekpaul]

It is horrible. Horrible. What an insult to Zeppelin.

[Niiko]

Listened to both songs, and they're pretty good from a musical stand point (Which is what virtually everyone here seems to miss) But I have to agree that people shouldn't try and cover Zep songs, you can't recreate what such a unique band did. Still, credit to them and I think they should just tie up Bono, give him cement shoes and throw him in a deep, deep, really deep river.

[waysay]

well well... you don't get to many zeppelin covers do we!

[ZeGuitarist]

Checked.

[SIEGE312]

It's not that it is not well done, all members are very talented, Steve Vai is amazing as usual, and Blige's voice is without issue.

It's just something that shouldn't be done... Just like many movies that should not be remade, the original should be left in all its own glory... Damn, Bono, why don't you just go away for good... Please? Pretty please?

[SIEGE312]

* I was referring to the Stairway version, Whole Lotta Love is downright disrespectful to Zeppelin

[iSlash]

the_white_bunny wrote:

NO one should cover led zeppelin.
that's it period.
same with the beatles.
its a NO NO

I don't agree with that. Tons of people have covered Beatles amazing. You just don't cover the classics.

[aurocella]

Orianthi's solo sucked. I think Steve Vai's participation was quite minimal with no creative input from his side. She ****ing butchered the song and I saw the "making of" and she said "To me, the song is about shopping for shoes." WTF. You wanna cover a classic, do it in a karoke bar. Travis Barker trying to do Bonzo? Seriously? The guy who was drumming for Lil Wayne at the Grammy's? THAT guy? When Jason Bonham can't even match up to his father?

Mary J. Blige is so not suited for this song! They had to change the key for God's sake! The perfect song in Am, now in Dm.

And Randy Jackson on bass? The American Idol guy?

When you cover a song, and you mess it up, you always say "It's not supposed to sound like or be compared to the original." Yeah. Right. And if you are intentionally changing it, do it like Zeppelin themselves did. After all, if you look at whole lotta love, it was, in some sense, a cover of a blues classic. But did we vomit on hearing whole lotta love? No. 40 years later, 19 year olds like me still think its one of the greatest ever. You don't take whole lotta love and make it some techno garbage for pop consumption.

She sold out. Big time. I don't listen to U2, so I dunno anything about Bono. But since this was his idea, he's probably a very sadistic person or just trying to wage a war of wits with an algae.