Saturday 11 August 2012

Status Quo...Whenever You Like


Really it's the Glastonbury 2008 edition on YouTube I should post here but the single has the penguin in suspenders. Status Quo represent, absolutely, the status quo. It's quite brilliant that they do that, have done that, still do it, to hardly a critical murmur at all. Nobody gives a damn for Status Quo records. Bring on  Zizek then? It's not difficult, the penguin's in suspenders and even on a red carpet. No the critics are not there.  In all the bombast of the Olympics, I keep thinking of Mrs Parfit and Rossi, doing exactly what they do best, what they have perfected over many many years, and have got down to about forty seconds at the beginning of this record. The intro here is really quite sublime, the point of it, the rest is just dogma. Weaving? Well it's more like synchronicity, those two guitars just doing the same thing, those heads dipping, that's rock right? And they realise that the real point is, how you start it; one waits, there is a little melodic overture as the other starts,  the other still waits, pointedly, then he shifts to join in, they are together, and then, eventually, anonymously, the drums and the bass, and there you have it, eventual total communality, and the audience is there completely, they have anticipated the whole thing to every second and are doing the same thing and everything and they can't fucking help it! And when you start it, once it's started it just runs till you've had enough of it, we are not talking Mozart here. Any girl can understand that and everybody does, but nobody notices because it's Status Quo. ACDC have the same downright skill at it, and they can't get away from being Australian, but somehow The Quo are Britain to the core.
Whatever You Want is unmistakable rock, it is quintessential and if you wanted to be a cultural critic on it (Thatchers Britain and so on, the awfulness of 'In the Army Now', Live Aid!!) you could have a field day.
Look out for the girl in the Glastonbury crowd up on somebodies shoulders holding a home made placard in the air saying 'Whatever you Want' with arrows down to her! Just too good.
But actually no, my single sounds shit, but of course it doesn't matter because what we have here is an idea. We really should think some more about the meaning of Status Quo.

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