Jimmy Page & Robert Plant
No Quarter: Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded

"In fourteen years, I had missed Jimmy's way of playing so much that as soon as we started again, I realized we had wasted a lot of time." These are the words of Robert Plant. The year is 1994. And the news created a stir and enthusiasm: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant together again. But this time, not for a one-off performance at some local festival, but to create a new album, 15 years after the release of the last Led Zeppelin album. It all started with the proposal to participate in the "MTV Unplugged" program. Page & Plant seized the opportunity: to reunite and play Led Zeppelin songs rearranged in an oriental style.
In the past, they had already toyed with this idea: in 1972, they went to Bombay to record with Indian musicians "Four Sticks" and "Friends". It was more out of curiosity than anything else, and it was an experiment that didn't continue in the following years. Then came Bonzo's death, the breakup of the band, and solo careers.
But now Jimmy and Robert were together again to propose something new, something no one had ever done before them: they wanted to "experience a new youth." They did just that: recorded four new songs in Morocco with local musicians ("Yallah", "City Don't Cry", "Wonderful One", and "Wah Wah") and participated with about forty oriental and other musicians in the show on October 12, 1994, receiving great success.

"No Quarter: Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded" is thus a very interesting album because it shows an uncharted territory in the realm of music, unknown to many of us, and opens the doors for us Westerners to a new reality, perhaps one we didn't even know existed. Page & Plant also deserve credit for making a choice that appeared very courageous and ambitious 12 years ago, as it does now: in the years of commercial-trash-music, who would have ever thought of doing something like this? It is in aspects and choices like these that 50-year-old Page and 46-year-old Plant reaffirm themselves as absolute geniuses, outshining all those mediocre people (both of today and then) who earn billions making trash music, if it can even be called music, and prioritizing money over the art of making music. Well, with this album, Page & Plant did the exact opposite. And the difference is noticeable, indeed.

In the album, of the four new tracks recorded in Morocco, one is unbearable ("Wonderful One") while the other three ("Yallah", "City Don't Cry", and "Wah Wah") are overall catchy and enjoyable. The Zeppelin songs, however, are all masterfully reinterpreted: particularly praiseworthy are "Thank You", "Since I've Been Loving You", "Kashmir", "Four Sticks", and especially a fantastic "Nobody's Fault But Mine" that becomes completely unrecognizable from the original on "Presence", if it weren't for the words that remained (at least those!!!) identical, and which alone are worth listening to the entire album.

Less than a month after the performance on MTV, on November 8, 1994, the album "No Quarter: Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded" was released, achieving success worldwide (it would reach the top ten in both the UK and the States) and was followed by a long world tour lasting a year. It's a pity that no one has since continued the path that Page & Plant opened with this album, but then again, it is known: today's music only cares about money.