Customer Reviews

Ultimate Collection

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It's called the ultimate collection for a reason. The song selection is near perfect. The 32 bit mastering is simply amazing and has to be heard and the bonus disc is a true bonus.

Here is a great collection of songs from a excellent hard rocking band.
This is a collection of their hits and alot more.
Starts off with Pictures of Matchstick men right up to the more modern version of Status Quo.
Those earlier tunes here were excellent,and they realy had a style and sound of their own.
You can hear the changes musicly they went through with this compillation of songs.

For years back in the 70's I'd seen photos of Status Quo and thought they were a heavy metal band. Living in Europe, I was exposed to them all over the place, yet it wasn't for a long time that I ever actually heard them, or at least heard their music and was able to tie their name to the image. When I did I was quite taken aback. Instead of something hard and heavy, what I heard didn't match what I saw. The music was laid back British boogie and quite mild compared to their long-haired rather rough appearance. All in all, it was quite good, just a surprise.

I became a fan and have since gathered a few of their albums. What I am reviewing here is not actually this CD but one of a myriad of their greatest hits collections on cassette, this version actually a Spanish compilation that happens to have a few of the songs that match what is on this CD. Like Motorhead, their music has been pirated and cloned endlessly which, in a way, is a tribute to their popularity, at least in Europe, though they never really had much of an impact in the states.

The music is blues based boogie woogie. They are sort of a British-accented version of ZZ-Top with a bit less variety in the guitar department. That is one description I can give for them though I think of them more in terms of being just a great boogie band, probably closer to Britain's answer to Canned Heat... maybe? Or, maybe I'm looking too deep into this. However you want to think of them, I think they are a great band.

I'm just sorry the original band broke up as they had some magic that they have never been able to replicate. I like the latest version of the band with Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi, but the era from which most of these songs were taken (with Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan) was them at their best. Chugging songs with a British accent. Well done. Their classic material is definitely their best. Highly recommended.