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How Mike Myers Introduced Beyoncé to Led Zeppelin

Mike Myers starred alongside Beyoncé in 2002’s Austin Powers in Goldmember, the third installment in the Austin Powers film series. While Beyoncé was a handful of years away from becoming the…

Mike Myers, Robert Plant and Beyonce
Frazer Harrison, Roger Jackson/Central Press, Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Mike Myers starred alongside Beyoncé in 2002's Austin Powers in Goldmember, the third installment in the Austin Powers film series. While Beyoncé was a handful of years away from becoming the icon she is today, Myers accomplished a unique feat with the singer: He introduced her to Led Zeppelin.

Myers recalls the moment in a video feature with Vanity Fair where he looks back on some of his most memorable characters.

"Beyoncé was a dream," said Myers. "She was the loveliest person in the world and just knocked it out of the park. She would always listen to music and she said to me, 'Mike, what are you listening to right now?' And I said, "Oh, I'm just listening to Led Zeppelin at the moment.' And she said, 'I think I'll listen to that Led Zeppelin.' She had never heard of it. She was so young, and the crew was all, 'Awww!'"

Myers continued, "And then the next day, she was doing this [miming holding onto headphones], and I said, 'What are you listening to?' She went, 'Led Zeppelin! They're great!'"

Interestingly enough, Beyoncé would go on to sample Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" on "Don't Hurt Yourself," a track featuring Jack White from her acclaimed 2016 album Lemonade.


Led Zeppelin and their catalog as a whole have become more beloved and revered with time as they've been passed down through generations and become standards for which future bands are measured.

So, how do you honor one of the greatest, most influential bands of all time? Hunker down with a fifth of Jack Daniel's, a 2-liter of Coke and dive headfirst into the "Zep-a-Thon." Dubbed so by Jack Black when the band received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, the "Zep-a-Thon" is a musical binge session where you listen to all of Zeppelin's eight studio albums (plus the 1982 compilation album Coda) in one sitting.

"Led Zeppelin: The greatest rock and roll band of all time," said Black. "Better than The Beatles, better than the Stones, even better than Tenacious D."

Black continued, "If you don't agree with me, it's because you never did the 'Zeppelin Marathon.' The 'Zep-a-Thon' is when you sit your ass down and listen to all nine Zep albums in a row ... [It's] the thing every true fan must do at least once in their lifetime. The pilgrimage to heavy metal Mecca."

 

For the author, this binge wasn't all for pleasure, even though it was oddly fulfilling. The purpose of doing this was for research in order to rank all 92 original Zeppelin tracks.

Exhausting? Yes. A bit much? Maybe, but crazier things have likely been committed in the name of Zeppelin throughout the past five decades. We're positive a simple Google search will yield many things that prove this statement correct. However, we're almost too afraid even to find out what those things are.

Where do your favorite Zeppelin tracks rank? Scroll through the gallery below to find out!

Additional song descriptions by Brian Ives.

 

Erica Banas is a news blogger who's been covering the rock/classic rock world since 2014. The coolest event she's ever covered in person was the 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. (Sir Paul McCartney inducting Foo Fighters? C'mon now!) She's also well-versed in etiquette and extraordinarily nice. #TransRightsAreHumanRights