Encore

AMG Review of Encore

Dave Thompson
All Music Guide

By 1974, Status Quo were established among the biggest-selling bands in British chart history, the boogie-down purveyors of a stream of monster hits, and the standard-bearers of the entire back-to-basics ock & roll boom that was trying to shove glam rock out of everybody's faces. What better time, then, to remember the days when even a three-chord shuffle was far from the bandmembers' minds, and all was psychedelic and shiny? In common with so many subsequent Status Quo compilations, but something of a /p>

ovelty at the time of its release, Encore reprises the three-year span during which Status Quo were but infrequent visitors to the charts: "Pictures of Matchstick Men," their eternally memorable debut hit, "Ice in the Sun," "In My Chair," "Down the Dustpipe." -- there's a little proto-oogie creeping in towards the end, but the bulk of Encore reflects the band's earliest hits and recordings -- and anybody who picked this up looking for "Break the Rules" was in for one helluva surprise. Thankfully, it was a rather pleasant one.