Robert Plant won't go away

I swear, you can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting Robert Plant somewhere or another, pimping his latest CD Band of Joy.

We appreciate anyone who covers Los Lobos ("Angel Dance", one of their better old nuggets), but haven't had much interest in the rest.

Honestly, the guy has been out there doing his Americana-roots shtick nonstop, interviews all over the place for the CD release, tapping into this thoughtful-elder pose about rediscovering Americana, blah blah blah. This is all following up on the unexpected success of his collaboration with country/bluegrass songbird Alison Krause, which was a decent record but arguably in spite of Plant, not because of him.

I think Plant in general has mostly lost his deep talent for re-imagining American roots music after the first Zeppelin record - when he was channeling Willie Dixon through Promethean post-psychedelia. What he and his band created back then was far more interesting and enduring than this kind of Tony Bennett-in-a-hayshed routine. And I'm not even much of a Zeppelin fan. That was at least him - this stuff fails as trib and mostly fails as interpretation. Talk about someone trying as hard as possible to be someone else.

Fine, he's 62 and rock 'n roll bores him. We got it. The problem is, most of the shit he's doing now bores the rest of us.

OK GO

Coming to the Fox. Time to dust off and get back in the ring?