Status Quo Album: “Complete Pye Collection”

This excellent three-disc set perfectly shows the Quo's transition from psychedelic pop of the late 60s to the hard blues and boogie rock that would take them into the 70s and all the way up to the present day. Personally, I like the early Status Quo better, and there's plenty of rarities here for like-minded fans, lots of tracks by the earlier incarnations of the group, Traffic Jam and the Spectres.

There's also enough of the boogie rock here, as well, with disc three totally dedicated to their harder rocking stuff, and disc two bridging the gap.

This is the perfect anthology of Status Quo if you want an overview of their early career, with good liner notes and pictures and a well-presented package. Most people have a definate preference over which version of the band they prefer, though, so if the psychedelia is your thing you might just want to go for the two-disc repackaging of Picturesque Matchstickable Messages instead of getting lumbered with the early 70s stuff, and vice versa for the 70s fans.

Overall, though, an excellent anthology for those who like all parts of the Quo, and an interesting document of their early times.

There must be nearly a dozen Status Quo cd albums featuring these songs from the earliest incarnation of the band ( there's "Early Years", "Psychedelic Years", "Singles Collection", "Down The Dustpipe", "Technicolor Dreams" to name only a few). However, none of the previously mentioned sets are as complete and sound as good as this digitally remastered 60 plus song set. The sonic pleasure of hearing Status Quo morph from a psychedelic, "flower power" band on the beginning of disc one into a kick-@ss, rock n' roll, boogie monster by the end of disc three can not be understated.

This 3 disc set is essential for any Status Quo fan, even if you have similar releases on cd (like me). Sure many of the tracks are already on "Ma Kelly's" & "Dog Of Two Head", but for 20 bucks and three cds so what! Again, to here the transformation of the band over these 3 discs is well worth the cash.

For anyone who has yet to add any Status Quo cds to their collection (shame on you), this is the set to purchase for a retrospective of their early years. If you can afford it, add "Piledriver" & "Hello" to your shopping cart too.

You'll be hooked and end up working your way down the Status Quo Discography on future purchases.

This collection sums up all of Status Quo's songs before their 1972 breakthrough album "Piledriver".

All the songs are good, but not remarkable. And that's the only thing you might be disappointed on, because there is a reason why no songs before the classics "Pictures of Matchstick Men" and "Ice in the Sun" were hits - they are simply not memorable enough to be consistently enjoyable (the lone exception being the B-side "To Be Free" which should have been included on their first album.)

Sanctuary Records has screwed up the mixing a little bit. It's not the remastering that is the problem - the sound quality is nothing but excellent - but they have more or less taken away certain instruments that can be heard on the regular album releases.

Throughout the whole collection, the bass boost is cranked up way too high; the bass is so loud that it starts to get really annoying halfway through the first disc. It sometimes even makes it difficult to hear the rest of the band, and once you make it to their boogie material on disc two and three - especially on "Spinning Wheel Blues" and "In My Chair" - it becomes almost unlistenable because it feels like your ears are soon going to start bleeding.

But the most striking thing to me is that the organ/keyboards on "Pictures of Matchstick Men" has been deleted. It doesn't help that this "Wall of Bass" is there the whole time to bury the wah-wah guitar. The acoustic guitar on "Gerdundula" has also been deleted.

11 October 2012 UPDATE: I recently saw the movie "

" for the first time, which takes place in the late 60's. To my disappointment, the "faulty" version of "Pictures of Matchstick Men" is in the movie, not the "complete" album version (the organ/keyboard is missing on the "faulty" version.) Why is it still so hard to pick the correct version? It's not that hard to hear the difference!

Also, the final complaint comes to the packaging. While it does contain some nice photos - like when Francis Rossi is tuning his guitar in the studio - along with some covers of early singles, the liner notes leave a lot to be desired. It basically just tells the story of Status Quo from the formation of the band in 1962 to their signing with Vertigo Records in 1972. But there are no comments on when these songs were first released, nothing on how the studio sessions were, no interviews with band members and no history at all behind when these takes were written and recorded.

Nevertheless, all these tracks are enjoyable in one way or another and it should be in every Quo fans' collection. It's just a shame that there are so many minor problems with it, which is why I only rate it 3 out of 5. If you only want the good material on these discs and in better mixes, go and buy the four individual albums instead.