Forget The Tennis Racket Because You'll Break It. (Hello - Status Quo)

Member Name: Farting Weasel

Product:	Hello - Status Quo
Date:	25/09/05 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clears the ear wax.

Disadvantages: What disadvantages?

Performer – Status Quo
The Album – Hello.

Originally released in1973 on Vertigo.
LP 6360 098 De Luxe
CD 848 172-2

For this one you’ll need a broom handle. Forget the tennis racket because you’ll break it. Oh yes! Slip the disc on the death deck and whilst it’s loading, take up the stance. That’s it, legs apart, head down, broom handle slung low. Got it? Good. Now press play and prepare to shunt.

If someone where to ask me to list the sounds that would sum up the English, ‘Hello’ would be on the list.

‘Hello’ is Status Quo at full tilt and at their best. They’ve never bettered it and, for that matter, neither has anyone else. With the dying chords announcing the close of ‘Piledriver’ a year earlier, Quo waved a fond farewell to the blues, in the studio at least. On ‘Hello’, their second album for Vertigo, they turned the humble 12 bar into an instrument of mass rock destruction. With the blues gone, the guitars bark and howl, growling out the rhythms, and the bass and drums rumble and clamour, driving the whole thing along remorselessly.

Two years of ceaseless touring had by 1973 honed Quo into a tight unit, and you can tell. They may not have been virtuoso players, nor did they claim to be, but what they could do was produce forty minutes of hard driving, tight, heavy rock ‘n’ roll music. And with the release of ’Hello’ Quo were confirmed as the undisputed holders of the boogie crown.

From the opening chords of ‘Roll Over Lay Down’ to the frantic fade-out of ‘Forty Five Hundred Times’ this album just does not let up. Things do get a little quieter on ‘And It’s Better Now’ but that’s only to let you catch your breath before ‘Fort Five….’ kicks in. There are no ballads, as such, no acoustics guitars, no string arrangements. Just forty minutes of some of the best boogie any band has ever produced.

The overall sound is chunky and the production is biased in favour of the now-familiar Quo wall-of-noise. Even on the quieter moments, the guitars still have that certain chunky quality that refuses to let the proceedings lighten up. Apparently, this album was recorded more or less live. ‘Forty-Five Hundred Times’ is said to have been recorded in one take as the band sat around in a circle with their gear stacked around them, turned up to full volume. You can hear it too, with the ringing of the guitars as they hover dangerously close to feeding back. It’s has a raw, jagged aggressiveness that is sadly missing from much of today’s rock music. ‘Hello’, in short, is a master class in the ‘plug in, switch on and go’ philosophy of rock music. You’ll not find a better example.

And believe it or not, despite the sheer quality of everything, ‘Hello’ does have a standout track. Yep, check out ‘Blue Eyed Lady’. This song is an out and out monster. Three minutes of fast hard 12-bar bliss. Why this track wasn’t a single I will never know. Utterly awesome!

As I’ve already said, no one, in my humble opinion, has bettered this album. Some have tried, but for sheer grit, exuberance and quality, ‘Hello’ stands head and shoulders above them all. The live sound they captured, the tightness of the playing, the production…in fact everything here combines to make ‘Hello’ a guaranteed inclusion under the Every Home Should Have One tag. A truly classic album.

This review is taken from the old cd release. This is a straight copy of what went onto the vinyl equivalent. It has now seen a cd re-release, re-mastered, with extra tracks. But I prefer the original, and it’s still on the shelves too. Otherwise, there are still loads of second hand copies of the vinyl knocking around, for as little as 50p too. Worth hunting down. And if you are really lucky, you’ll find a copy of the album with the poster.

Don’t even try to sit and listen in contemplation to this album. You won’t stay in your seat long enough. This is an album to listen to whilst driving or working, or you’ll end up shunting yourself about the house, imagining you’re on stage at the Glasgow Apollo.

Personally, when life gets a little too much I don’t need gods to pray to, or drugs, or even a shoulder to cry on. No; I’ve got a copy of this album, which guarantees me forty minutes of freedom from my woes and worries whenever I need them. Quality!

Enjoy.

Summary: Unbeatable