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(from scrapbook 2, page 9)

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Ouo walk the thin denim line

STATUS QUO: "Just Supposin'" (Vertigo 6302 057).

QUO'S new album will shortly become their 11th consecutive Top Five entry; of course, "What You're Proposing" is already speeding briskly in an upward direction in the singles charts.

The band's longevity and chart success makes writing about them almost futile. They ran out of surprises years ago, but then so did the weather.

For their devotees, Status Quo mean guaranteed days and nights of boogie. They haven't played in this country since last year and won't again until next year. But no matter. The Status Quo sound lives in the air.

It's faith like that which can give rock'n'roll awesome power as well as epic futility. The Ramones, who, judging from their recent Hammersmith performance, are aiming to be the next Status Quo, called an album "Road To Ruin". That comes close.

Quo's greatest feat has been to tread cleverly along the thin line between heavy pop and heavy metal. They can draw out the denim in overwhelming force for their live shows, but they've been canny enough to make sure that the songs cut hard over the radio.

So it's appropriate that "What You're Proposing" should kick off the new album. As you probably know, it's built firmly on an encouraging jogging rhythm and given a little necessary commercial colour with some low-profile harmonies and a brightly scrubbed acoustic guitar. On top, there's a single-string guitar figure which quickly gets lodged between the ears by simple repetition.

One of the incongruous things about Quo is that despite their hard-men image, their songs feature lyrics of childish simplicity. "It's so nice, what you're proposing," they chorus. A few tracks later, "Lies" is built around the lines "They never told me a thing about it/I never did know a thing about it". In "Over The Edge", you get: "What's going on? You're driving me crazy". Any wiser?

It doesn't matter a damn what they sing really, because the package is so self-sealingly complete. A single chorus from one of their songs can trigger a strange urge to nod and start fingering an imaginary guitar. Form and function entwine irresistibly - musical conditioning of the highest order.

Okay, so Quo can "boogie" and "rock out" with the best of them. But what they've come to mean is as threatening and provocative as the Eagles or ELO. Take a genre, melt it down and refurbish it with a few deluxe accessories for mass consumption with no harmful side-effects. It offers immediate relief and demands only a little cash in return.

Status Quo's "people's band" image, along with the hair, denim and heads-down appendages, is as carefully constructed as that of any current megabuck-earning act. Why Quo have never cracked the States wide open is a mystery. Quo have stripped down, refined and repackaged with as much care as Abba. It just took them longer.

The band's studio technique as displayed on "Just Supposin'" is close to immaculate. With co- producer John Eden, they've taken all their usual simple structures and devices and built them up into vast skyscrapers of sound. Consider the hard throb of "Over The Edge". It's dramatised by long washes of organ from Andy Brown, while layers of guitars and voices spiral inevitably upward.

Elsewhere, there are some deftly professional tricks to grab your attention. "The Wild Ones" employs a single guitar mixed well forwards to spearhead the attack over yawning canyons of chords. In "Coming And Going", a solitary harp wails plaintively in front of a scaled-up backdrop of sound.

The only surprise is kept till last. It's been concealed behind the title "Rock'n'Roll" (doesn't anybody have a copyright on that?), but actually it sounds like the Strawbs at their most offensive. A turgid tune is carried by strummed acoustic guitar and twee synthezers, while the voices are all nasal hand-over-the-ear stuff liquidised into a melodic brew which would be bland if it wasn't so repulsive. "Waiting all the time to find/Radio plays on Caroline", trill Quo, adding: "They say you'll get there in the end". Ah, those were the days eh, lads?

Still, as you say, "It's rock'n'roll and rock keeps rolling on". It's unbearable. But roll on it undoubtedly will. ADAM SWEETING