LP REVIEW: Boomer Rock, with Status Quo, The Best Of Status Quo (2015)
BMG, EUROPE ISSUE, BMGRM070LP, 2015
ARTIST
From l2r, Parfitt, Coghlan, Lancaster & Rossi
Status Quo has been on the planet since 1962 when Francis Rossi formed the band at school. Status Quo was rocking all over the world in the seventies. Someone described their sound as ‘boogie rock’ which sort of captures their combination of pop, blues, country, and rock very well. They had a very recognizable sound, nothing complicated, brilliant in its simplicity, and always rocking. They never really strayed away from that and remained immensely popular. And the band lives on, be it in a different composition of course.
The sheer amount of songs they made and the huge number of albums and versions of albums that are available is almost dizzying, see their discography on allmusic.com.
LABEL
BMG is a global music conglomerate, originally known as Bertelsmann Music Group. They have hundreds of sub-labels. They do books, movies, everything. They currently feature the new Iggy Pop album (old is new again 🙂 on their website. Take a look for yourself https://www.bmg.com/de/
KNOWLEDGE NUGGETS
/1\ They called themselves The Scorpions in 1962, The Spectres in 1963, and Traffic Jam in 1967. In 1969 they became The Status Quo and later dropped ‘The’ to become Status Quo – and ruled the 70s.
/2\ Francis Rossi always had a green Telecaster. Initially, he painted it black using a pot of furniture polish he had lying around at home, but the paint did not last, so he did it again in green, but never finished it so it looked pretty rough. It became its signature look. ‘At least people would not steal it’, he said in a 2014 interview with Vintage Guitar Magazine 🙂
/3\ In a career spanning >60 years, Quo recorded 64 hit singles, 22 hit the Top Ten. They passed the 100 singles mark in 2013 with “Bula Bula Quo”. They spent more than 415 weeks on the British Singles Chart, made 106 appearances on Top of The Pops (more than any other band), had 33 albums in the British Albums Chart (second only to The Rolling Stones in terms of quantity), and King (then Prince) Charles is a fan. Not bad 🙂
/4\ The classic line-up of Rossi, Parfitt, Lancaster, and Coghlan reunited for a series of live concerts in 2013, billed as “The Frantic Four Reunion”. In 2016, Rick Parfitt died in Spain at age 68 and in 2021 Alan Lancaster passed away at 72 in Australia. Francis Rossi is still touring with Status Quo, see wikipedia page
MUSIC
I never expected to enjoy this album that much. It’s good old-fashioned, uncomplicated blues-rock, full of power chords, strumming, and great hooks. This type of music is basically timeless.
What makes this 2015 ‘Best Of’ album interesting is that it is not one of those omnipresent greatest hits compilations of later years. You won’t find Down Down on here (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It’s more of their early work, from before the mega-hits arrived.
Allow me to steal a paragraph from the blurb on Amazon: “This excellent compilation gathers together the best of the post-psychedelic ‘boogie’ period material which Status Quo recorded for Pye. Classic album tracks rub shoulders with bona fide hits (‘Mean Girl’ and ‘Gerdundula’) and the superb non-album 45 ‘Down The Dustpipe’. Long since deleted, this essential part of the Quo canon is remastered and finally available again.” Now we know that, let’s have a listen…
This album gets better the more you listen to it, and it also gets better as it progresses, with Side B really rocking and blueseing :-). There is even a track that sounds like a rock version of an Irish folk song (A2). It works. These songs have withstood the test of time because they are rooted in the classic blues, country, and rock traditions and they are simply head-banging good with familiar and infectious guitar riffs. No wonder Status Quo is stuck with this formula.
There is brilliance in Status Quo’s seemingly simple approach to music and as with most things that are made to look (or sound ) easy, they are not. It may be straightforward in its approach, but they have a unique sound signature which is pretty clever.
YOUTUBE LINK
There is so much Status Quo on youtube, let me link you to a live gig in the UK, 1984
RAW MUSIC STORE
This LP is available to order from the RAW MUSIC Store website for 70 AED.
PERSONNEL
- Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals – Alan Lancaster
- Drums, Percussion – John Coghlan
- Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Piano, Organ, Vocals – Richard Parfitt
- Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals – Francis Rossi
- Harmonica – Bob Young (the unofficial fifth member of the band)
TRACKS
A1 Down The Dustpipe
A2 Gerundula
A3 In My Chair
A4 Umleitung
A5 Lakky Lady
A6 Daughter
B1 Railroad
B2 Tune To The Music
B3 April, Spring, Summer, And Wednesdays
B4 Mean Girl
B5 Spinning Wheel Blues