Robert Plant has described his 2002 covers album "Dreamland" as a personally important record, made not to disguise a lack of ideas but because he had long wanted to perform songs by artists he admired, such as Tim Buckley. Rather than repeating the heavier sound of his Led Zeppelin days, the album reflected Plant's continued preference for exploring folk and blues-rooted material, a direction that traced back to his pre-Zeppelin band The Band of Joy and that he pursued throughout his solo career.

On "Dreamland", Plant reinterpreted tracks including Buckley's "Song to the Siren" and Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe", giving them a markedly softer, more folk-inflected treatment than the originals. The record is framed as a bridge towards his later, more celebrated roots-leaning work with Alison Krauss on "Raising Sand", showing an artist deliberately moving away from his old band's legacy rather than trying to replicate it.