Status Quo

Recorded side-by-side with the following year's Never Too Late, Just Supposin' ushered Status Quo into a new decade with a surprising new sound, one that married the expected boogie to a new wave quirkiness that was straight out of the year's hippest fashion guides. It works, as well -- for the most part, anyway. "Run to Mummy" and "Name of the Game," both co-written by keyboard player Andy Bown, are delightfully prickly, while "Don't Drive My Car" is one of the latter day band's most sparkling performances. Of course the old Quo is still blazing. "What You're Proposing," the album's first hit single (and one of the biggest in Quo's entire career) is back to basics brilliant, while both "Lies" and "Over the Edge" shrug away their less than memorable riffs to become catchy little rockers in their own right. And then there's "Rock 'N' Roll," a made to measure terrace anthem that, once past the somewhat maudlin lyrics, becomes one of the biggest crowd-pleasers in the whole Quo catalog, not to mention one of the few songs out there that can actually take such a hoary old message and make it sound meaningful. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide