After 29 studio albums, eight compilations, four live albums, amounting to a total of 41 at pretty much one for every year of their existence, the denimosaurus we know as Status Quo has issued a release the title of which is entirely, and for the first time ever, in Latin. Unless you count Quo (1974). Quid Pro Quo, one very much suspects, does not translate in Rossi-Parfitt speak as “this for that”. Indeed “quid” looks to be a reference to lucre, which the Quo have been raking in for what feels like centuries on an unvarying diet of three- and, when they can get away with it, two-chord stonewashed boogie. (And sometimes even one.) If it ain’t broke etc: Quo erat demonstrandum.
Listening to Quid Pro Quo is not an unpleasant experience. It's a bit like poring over the fossilised remains of mammoth vertrebrae or sifting through rubble for Stone Age flint tools. The archaeological evidence suggests that organic life was here once in the chugging Jurassic echoes of “Caroline” to be found in “Rock’n’Roll’n’You”, of “Rockin’ All Over the World” in “Let’s Rock”. Heard the lyrics “I like it, I like it” before? (If so, you are middle-aged, by the way. At the very least.) Here they are again. The Quo have even gone to the trouble of re-recording “In the Army Now”, a bit like Kate Bush only not. It plods along at military medium all over again, only with slightly more bombastic backing.
Who will give their quid for Quo, whose cupboard emptied of fresh ideas when the PM was Jim Callaghan, if not Ted Heath? Shoppers at Tesco is who. The band have entered into an exclusive deal with the supermarket chain, telling you a large proportion of what you need to know re contemporary Quo. Tesco ergo sum. Punters can lob the CD into the same shopping trolley as their incontinence pads and bunion kreem. Quid Pro Quo comes with a second, live disc entitled Official Bootleg Quo – Greatest Hits Live, in which the status quo would be restored were it not for the truth universally acknowledged that Status Quo never upset it in the first place.
Listen to "Rock'n'Roll'n'You"
