If you grew up in the USA, you probably did not hear too much of Status Quo after their early hit in the sixties ’Pictures of Matchstick Men’. Generally, you can group their albums into three stages : Their ’Early years’ which ended with their ’Dog of two heads’ album - their ’Great year’ which started with ’Piledriver’ and ended with ’Back to Back’ and then there are the ’It’s all downhill from here’ years which started with the ’In the Army Now’ album and just won’t end ! If you only want three Status Quo albums, buy their 1976 ’Live’ double CD, the 1979 ’Whatever you Want’ album (if you are lucky, you might find the ’Whatever you Want / Just Supposin’ ’ CD which unfortunately does not include the fantastic ’High Flyer’ that was released on vinyl only) and buy this album - 1973’s ’Hello !’. During this time period, Quo were on top of the world, or at least on top of Europe. They finally found their niche with ’Piledriver’ and with this album they mastered their science. ’Roll over lay down’ gets things started and is followed by `Claudie’, which is one of Francis Rossi’s finest moments. ’Reason for Living’ is a hopping little Quo piece and ’Blue Eyed Lady’ must be the most underrated Quo track ever. It shows, that these guys could really play ! Side two of the original vinyl album starts with THE Quo classic: ’Caroline’. ’Softer Ride’ keeps on rocking’ and the most quiet part of this album is ’And it’s better now’. And then comes the 9 minute boogie explosion of ’Forty-Five Hundred Times’ - I guarantee, these are some of the best 9 minutes you have heard from any rock group. If you still have some money left after buying the three albums mentioned above, get the 1974 release ’Quo’ which is their hardest album ever (thanks to the major contribution of founding member and bass player Alan Lancaster) - but ’Hello’ presents Status Quo at their best !