Disco de Status Quo: “Piledriver”

I saw Status quo on TV a year ago for the first time at the Concert for Princess Diana and I loved their performance. I had never even heard of them before! I checked them out on Youtube and found a ton of their songs that I really liked. And was surprised to know that they never had any North American success but are actually one of the most successful UK acts of all time! I tried looking for their CDs at the local record store but I couldn't find anything. This got me to look on Amazon where I bought their albums "12 Gold Bars", this Piledriver album, On the Level, and the outstanding live album, "Live!" All were really solid and full of great songs. This album has 4 great songs and a few ok songs. The really great songs are:

Don't Waste My Time: a brilliant song with lots of sprit and a great guitar melody,

Big Fat Mamma: AWSOME guitar solo; and Rick's vocals are great on this. A fantastic hard rock song.

Paper Plane: this was their first top 5 single. It's a really fast cool song.

Roadhouse Blues:The classic Doors song covered brilliantly, and more raw than ever. Great guitar solos,great vocals from bassist Alan lancaster, and I just love that harmonica in there. The version of this on the "Live!" album is incredible.

So make no mistake, Piledriver was one of Quo's best studio albums get this and all of the albums they did in the late 60's and 70's, and you will have the true best of Quo. The album cover features the band infront of the drumkit onstage just hamerring away on the guitars and headbanging away; and that's what this album is all about.

EDIT: Ok, I take back what I said about the rest of the songs being only OK, they are also phenominal! Especially "A Year" and "All the Reasons" - Get this album!

The high energy riffs andvocals really come throughin this work,and are nicelymixed with mellower,thoughtful tracks such as "A Year."Their best album I feel.

PileDriver for me represents the best of their work. Apparently recorded virtually live in the studio in just a few days, this album really contrasts the range of style that Quo are capable of. Rossi's lead guitar is just incredible and when combined with Parfit's vocals you have an awesome combo. Shame they went kinda pop a couple of albums later....

I don't have any family tales to tell, but I do know from personal experience that this band played a large part in my musical taste. As a kid in the early '70s I loved Sabbath, Deep Purple, Montrose -- you can see where I'm going here -- But these guys always knocked my shorts off, and honestly, I didn't really understand why. I was the guy down in front of the house speakers banging. I began to realize that simplicity isn't simple;it's complex. Take the Stones, for example. On Exile on Main Street they did not go progressive or Rush-like (which I love)-- They went basic. That is not a bad thing, but a rare few can pull off what Status Quo did. They pulled up to the "what-do-we-have-here-line" and stopped. It turned out to be a damn good decision. They realized their strengths and went head-on. Players -- guitar players -- make discoveries here that can't be had at other terminals. Quo lets you dig in your heels. This is a junction for FEEL and for VOLUME. Some would label them redundant, and I can understand why. But we're not all MC Hammer. Some of us out here like to boogie.

Rick Parfitt & His Gang, namely STATUS QUO... Lots of powerful guitar riffs.

Nice songs. JUST GOOD ROCK MUSIC.

Simply, as good as other 1970s British Rock bands... Name any you like the most: The Who, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, The Kinks...

Status Quo MUST BE considered as one of the greatest British Rock bands for sure!!!

The CD sound quality is really good.