STATUS QUO/ HELLO! 6360 098 (-73) GERMANY

Their sixth studio album and second for Vertigo. After starting as a more or less psych band with their first two LP:s and moving over to heavy blues for the next two, they finally landed in their own signature three bar boogie rock on the fifth - "Piledriver" - and have continued doing that ever since. Now their records mostly frowned upon or even ridiculed by many posh collectors, but still played, loved and danced to at parties and joints in a large part of the world. From the 1972 "Piledriver" till today they have an almost unpresidented success story. In UK alone managing twentyone top ten albums, where of four #1, and further thirteen top twenty and eight top fifty. They also had twentyone top ten singles, and a multitude of sold out concerts. About the same on lists in the rest of Europe and Australia, while they for some reason never made it in US. I was all in with with their four Pye issues and stayed faithful up till about "Rockin' All Over The World", but after that my interest started to vane. Further on, as they kept doing the exact same thing for almost forty more years, they may be called reliable but not the most exciting act in the book. With this I'm still in, at least parts of it. Though superficially monotonous there's still portions that lifts it beyond oridinary. Like "Softer Ride", best described as a kind of hard rock enforced rockabilly. I also find the guitar intro to "Blue Eyed Lady" quite irresistible and "Caroline" has a groove that makes it impossible to sit still. The latter also released as 45, reaching #5 in UK 1973 and #13 again 1982. Back then, when all this was new, I used to listen a lot. Today it's a must have for the memories and the groove. Whatever anyone may think about the band at large they did hit the right nail at the right time and it's still perfect if you wanna dance or just drink beer and howl at the moon. Issued pretty much all over the world, except US (?), on vinyl, cassette, and CD through the years. Japan 2016 2xCD (Mercury UICY 77629/30)had seven bonus tracks. Very first German came on swirl label as shown here and imported UK Robor Ltd. cover with silvery fonts on front. (Note. As a rule I always scan pics from my own copies for the posts, but in this case it was impossible to get an ok one of the front sleeve so I borrowed one from the net instead.) (GÖXÄ*) (WLÖ*) (STÄQ*)