Disco de Status Quo: “XS All Areas-Greatest Hits”

This album is probably the best Quo collection currently available. Despite persistent rumours, Quo actually have more than 3 chords at their disposal! One listen to '4500 Times' should help convince any listener of that. There is a good selection of classic Quo material here, particularly from their days when they were as powerful a draw as Purple, Heep, Rory Gallagher, Nazareth, Alex Harvey, Family, Thin Lizzy, Budgie etc. This double disc set is great value for money - the tracks sound fresh and I defy anyone to sit and listen to this without tapping their toes or indulging in a spot of air guitar. Pure entertainment!

It could very well be the best 'greatest hits' album of 2004! As any british person know, Status Quo have had more hit singles than any other band in England (even beating the rolling stones!), and this album provides a great collection of their songs and some album tracks that weren't even singles! Although there are some of their Top 10 tracks that arn't on this (Rollin' Home, Ol' Rag Blues, Dear John), it still is a great album by any standards. Ideal for parties (as you don't need to keep skiping through the CD to find a decent song), or just a loud, beer drinking afternoon with your mates. No faults with this. Even if you only know 'Caroline' or 'Rocking All Over The World', buy it and get yourself hooked to the great riffs and catchy choruses of Status Quo..... "Get down, deeper and down!"

Awesome collection, one of the most successful bands in UK rock history, yet almost unknown in the US. Many of the Quo's songs are kind of similar, but this collection includes many of the best.

It's hard to believe that the core of Status Quo, Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, have been crunching chords for forty years, but the band, originally formed in 1970, is still going strong.

Their playing is simplistic, yet infectious. After abandoning the psychedelia of Carnaby Street ("Pictures of Matchstick Men" being their first and only U.S. hit), they decided to concentrate on what they loved, and what they love is "Boogie Rock." Definitely not "Heavy Metal" -- "Boogie Rock" is wonderful fun that can still generate head-banging, foot-stomping mania, and these guys wrote the book on boogie. Even better, Rossi and Parfitt have a unique vocal delivery that when blended, sounds totally unique.

In many ways, one can easily envision "Spinal Tap" as being modeled on their career, except "Status Quo" have had a long string of huge hits throughout the U.K. and Europe during their 40 year run, and still show no signs of slowing down.

Take the simplicity of The Troggs mixed with the rhythms of Foghat to get a crude approximation of what you might hear--but truly, no words can describe the joy, fun, exuberance, and just plain rock 'n' roll butt kickin' music these guys still deliver.

If all you are familiar with is their recording of "Pictures of Matchstick Men" (also on this cd), then you DEFINITELY must buy this disk just for the shock value.

If "Rock" is ageless, then these two veterans prove it beyond a doubt!

L C Vincent

I am not reviewing this CD, as a Status Quo fan or because I am particularly spellbound by the quality of their songwriting and musical creativity. This is just a template that could apply to any of SQ's albums as they all sound painfully repetitive.

It is now more than thirty years, if I am not mistaken, since SQ has been blaring out the same three chord, tiresome, bland songwriting. This is the sort of music that would make a bagpipe-playing Scot, in a snowy winter landscape, look like an exercise in melodic invention, musical variety and colour. The culinary equivalent of living on a diet composed of three ingredients only. Such diet, however meagre it may seem, could have health-promoting virtues unlike Quo's music which, in all its overpowering repetitiveness, has the potential to cause medical conditions likely to induce heart bypass surgery and tinnitus.

Apparently, they are still touring and recording and will undoubtedly continue to do so, as long as there undiscerning music consumers willing to buy their so-called music and be subjected to this kind of aural torture.

The fact that they can count prince Charles among their fans, further discredits them, for this is a man whose hidiously outdated dress sense, is only matched by his taste in music.

Never has a band, in the history of rock music , managed to survive for so long by offering so little, in terms of creative output.

Status Quo will have the dubious honour, to go down in the annals of rock music, as the only band in the world that achieved the astonishing yet unenviable feat of carving a career out of three chords, releasing the same record many times over, under different titles, while fooling in the process their unsuspecting, musically deaf fans, overwhelmed by sheer musical dumbness.

The UK has produced its fair share of "here-today-gone-tomorrow", manufactured pop bands amid others of little or no artistic merit, but they also gave the world some exceptional and highly innovative rock bands. Sadly, Status Quo is not one of them.

Jose Luis

London