Creativity Quote by Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page’s “totally impossible” isn’t just about track limits or runtime; it’s a sly defense of artistic mythology against the consumer-friendly logic of the compilation. A greatest hits CD is supposed to be a clean product: one disc, one narrative, one tidy version of a career. Page’s resistance reads like a refusal to let Led Zeppelin be flattened into a playlistable brand. He’s protecting the idea that the work isn’t a sequence of “hits” but a world with internal weather, pacing, and mood swings that matter as much as the big riffs.

The compromise - splitting into Early Days and Latter Days - is where the subtext gets interesting. He’s still giving the market what it wants, but on his terms: not “best of,” but a curated arc that implies evolution, eras, and taste. It’s a framing device that turns commerce into a kind of history lesson, separating the band’s blues-driven breakthrough from the later, more sprawling ambition. Page isn’t only choosing songs; he’s choosing which story of Zeppelin gets told, and how a listener is invited to travel through it.

There’s also a quiet flex here. “I just couldn’t do it” positions him as both archivist and gatekeeper, the person with the authority to say what fits and what can’t be reduced. In an age that keeps shrinking music into units of convenience, Page insists that scale is the point - and that any real “greatest hits” for Zeppelin is, by definition, too much to fit.