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Admission impossible

From page 89 of Classic Rock Magazine February 2007

Cover of February 2007 issue.

Rossi and Parfitt come clean about that late-80s career decline.

STATUS QUO Just Doin’ It This lavish coffee-table book covers Quo’s career, mainly in souvenir/photographic form, and it’s lovingly compiled and gorgeously laid out. There are some fantastic shots of Quo in all their heads-down, no-nonsense glory, plus every album cover, ticket stubs and hilarious early photos. And the short chapters on their various eras are reasonably well-written and illuminating despite being somewhat abridged. While hardly their equivalent of the Truth And Reconciliation Committee, these words come as close as Quo ever will to officially admitting their output took a downturn from the late 80s onwards. Parfitt and Rossi are regularly quoted as admitting the music declined, that they were often “just coasting” and that the likes of the dreadful In The Army Now left many fans “so fucked off”. This admirable frankness is countered by Rossi claiming Marguerita Time is his favourite Quo single. Which presumably means this loveable lunatic thinks that this cheesy 80s party track is better than Rain , Down Down , Paper Plane and every other example of boogified genius that this once-superb band made sound so easy. Ex-members Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan get their say, including Lancaster’s assertion that 1978’s Rockin’ All Over The World album was “the beginning of the end”. As this book admits, the 70s were their heyday, pinpointing classic albums like Hello as from the time when they were the ultimate people’s band. Parfitt admits their 1994 Man U single Come On You Reds – a re-recording of hideous 80s Christmas novelty hit Burning Bridges – “made Francis squirm to a degree”. Then why do it? Lars Ulrich’s slavish foreword and focus on the drastic improvement of 2002’s Heavy Traffic smack of reputation management, especially when followed by another manky covers project. Rossi admits, “Somewhere along the way the music had stopped coming first.” Yup, in about 1984 when the original band reached the end of the road at Milton Keynes. Nice photos, mind.

Paul Ging