Status Quo The Early Years

This fantastic four-CD set from the veteran British rockers includes all 75 of their A-sides (many of them being radio edits not available on the original albums) plus Jump That Rock (Whatever You Want), their 2008 collaboration with the German techno act Scooter. Love 'em or hate 'em, Status Quo have been rockin' the charts for four decades. While they remain living legends and rock icons in the U.K., Europe, South America, and elsewhere, they can't even get arrested in the States! The "hip" U.K. press love to take as many potshots at them as possible, which is all the more reason to loveQuo. But we all know that, deep down (deeper and down), those critics probably have a soft spot for quite a few of Quo's hits but will never admit to it in public. At any rate, the band has always managed to maintain a certain quality level that may not always touch the stars, but, at the least, will always rock the house!

Talk about rockers rollin'! This fantastic four-CD set from the veteran British rockers includes all 75 of their A-sides (many of them being radio edits not available on the original albums) plus Jump That Rock (Whatever You Want), their 2008 collaboration with the German techno act Scooter. Love 'em or hate 'em, Status Quo have been rockin' the charts for four decades. While they remain living legends and rock icons in the U.K., Europe, South America, and elsewhere, they can't even get arrested in the States! The "hip" U.K. press love to take as many potshots at them as possible, which is all the more reason to loveQuo. But we all know that, deep down (deeper and down), those critics probably have a soft spot for quite a few of Quo's hits but will never admit to it in public. At any rate, the band has always managed to maintain a certain quality level that may not always touch the stars, but, at the least, will always rock the house!

Status Quo are one of Britain's longest-lived bands, staying together for over 40 years. During much of that time, the band was only successful in the U.K., where it racked up a string of Top Ten singles across the decades. In America, the Quo were ignored after they abandoned psychedelia for heavy boogie rock in the early '70s. Before that, the band managed to reach number 12 in the U.S. with the psychedelic classic "Pictures of Matchstick Men" (a Top Ten hit in the U.K.).

Status Quo are one of Britain's longest-lived bands, staying together for over six decades. During much of that time, the band was only successful in the U.K., where it racked up a string of Top Ten singles across the decades. In America, the Quo were ignored after they abandoned psychedelia for heavy boogie rock in the early '70s. Before that, the band managed to reach number 12 in the U.S. with the psychedelic classic "Pictures of Matchstick Men" (a Top Ten hit in the U.K.). Following that single, the band suffered a lean period for the next few years, before the bandmembers decided to refashion themselves as a hard rock boogie band in 1970 with their Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon album. The Quo have basically recycled the same simple boogie on each successive album and single, yet their popularity has never waned in Britain. If anything, their very predictability has ensured the group a large following.

Woe betide the psychedelic groover who picked up the third album by Status Quo, dreaming of further picturesque matchstick messages! A mere three hits in a long three years had completely exhausted the bandmembers' patience with the whimsy of yore, and their ears had long since turned in other directions. It was the age, after all, of Canned Heat's relentless boogie and Black Sabbath's blistered blues, and when the Quo's first new single of 1970, the lazy throb of "Down the Dustpipe," proved that the record-buying public wasn't averse to a bit more down-home rocking, their future course was set…