Status Quo

If any single song sums up Status Quo in the hearts and the minds of the millions, it's "Down Down." Other songs may have been bigger, others may have more resonance, and some ("Rocking All Over the World " comes to mind) may be so permanently ingrained that it's hard to remember that Status Quo cut anything else. But, if you want to nail the very essence of Status Quo, only "Down Down" will do. It was their first British number one and their first all-time classic. And it was also their first grinning, winking acknowledgement that not only was there a formula to the records they made, but they were not afraid to list its ingredients. "Down Down" is the perfect Status Quo record, and the fact that it doesn't arrive until six songs into the band's eighth album just proves how much fun it had coming up with it.

Released in March 1976, Status Quo's ninth album was, depending upon how one viewed the last six years of relentless boogie, either the last of the band's "classic" LPs or the first step toward absolute household name-dom that the group has enjoyed ever since…

Status Quo 'One And Only' contains rare and previously unreleased material charting the band's history from their early blues roots (as seen in 1970's Doing Their Thing) up to the current line-up in 2002's The One & Only Status Quo, a TV special featuring the band playing live to a specially invited audience and interspersed with interviews with the band. Also included is a 1982 German concert filmed for TV and the 2000 special Top Of The Pops 2, made to celebrate Quo's status as the act that had appeared on TOTP the most. The show includes archive performances, specially filmed performances and interviews with Rick and Francis.

After seven years at the top of the British charts, even Status Quo fans were beginning to wonder whether the band wasn't simply rewriting the same riff over and over again, then putting it out with a new catch phrase for a title…

After the turn toward a more accessible sound that Rockin' All Over the World supposed, the British band returned to its hard rock approach on its next work. If You Can't Stand the Heat isn't so hard and heavy as Quo or Blue for You, but it incorporates subjects – the electric guitars filling everywhere again, the groovy boogie spirit – that recover the rocking essence they seem to have lost only one year before…