Status Quo Sound Milestones

Is it Really Me has a slight Cream-esque element to it.

Daughter is a fiskadelic/rock mix. It has never seemed particularly heavy to me though.

So yes, both could be seen as experimental songs of the time even by non-Quo fans - and not typical of the power boogie that was about to become the trademark. But both great songs in their own ways regardless. 

The sound first developed obviously on MKGS, was honed further on DOTH with the dropping of the Hammond Organ which had provided a lot of that ethereal late 60's element to the sound, and then became fully fledged on Piledriver.

However, what's also interesting about Piledriver is that even though the trademark rock boogie sound arrives most emphatically, there is still something of an early progressive rock/blues type feel to it. Songs especially like A Year and Unspoken Words typify this. These songs, as brilliant as they are, can't be considered trademark recognisably Quo songs. More is the pity actually imo.

The Hello album finally lost that early retro theme and became much more the definitive rock boogie album. The changes in pace and power of the show-piece rock tracks started in the early albums was completely developed by this album as songs like ROLD and 4500X illustrated. These echoing the likes of BFM on Piledriver, and further back Umleitung on DOTH.

Classic power boogie songs like BEL and Caroline echoed what Paper Plane and further back than that, the great work in progress prototype songs like Mean Girl and Tune To The Music had started previously

The Quo album appears to re-capture once more some of the more progressive themes up to Piledriver, but the process was reversed once more by OTL. However, the OTL album is, imo, the most perfect balance of Quo trademark pace, power and melody.

The BFY album combines some of the heaviness of the Quo album with some of the crisp power-melody of OTL.   ITABW, Rain and Mystery Song arguably represent the peak of heaviness of the band that earlier songs like Drifting Away and BFM had identified. So a another milestone there imo.

WSOL single and the RAOTW album were to prove the milestones where heaviness (in the studio) was gradually and erratically ditched to favour attempts to appeal to a wider fan-base

The NTL could be seen as the last album to produce any of the trademark heavier Quo sound, but this process had already begun some years previously.

I think the persistence of the blistering power, pace and volume on stage covered up a lot of these milestones. Personally while I can look back at the peak period of the FF hey-day with the greatest appreciation, I enjoyed the best of both worlds in terms of the gigs carrying on the hey-day legacy (bearing in mind my first gig was the RAOTW tour when the studio sound had just started to change) but also a curiosity with what the band were doing with the studio albums.  I was therefore immune and unaware of any the disillusionment with the album sound that many were obviously finding. Indeed much of this only became apparent when first becoming a mb member.

Time has shown that the post 85 period was the full metamorphosis of what had happened in the studio with 1982 and BtB once John left and Alan was feeling more and more alienated. It should have paved the way to a new chapter of Quo as a band in its own right. Unfortunately they never could fully let go of the legacy and despite some very good studio albums, this ultimately proved most detrimental. It took a few decades for those stark difference to be focussed with the reunions.

Surely a most emphatic milestone of all in the differences of sound, style but most especially attitudes between the former and the latter SQ.