Given what we know of them today, it’s ludicrous to apply the term ‘one-hit wonder’ to Status Quo. This is a band that has notched more than 60 hits at home in the UK, spending more than 500 weeks – almost 10 years – in the charts. And that’s just their singles. Nevertheless, from the success of 1968’s Pictures Of Matchstick Men, their first Top 10 hit, onwards, at several points in the band’s career the naysayers have thrown that undesirable tag at them.
To be fair, a succession of name changes, personnel switches and flop singles that preceded Matchstick Men had hardly marked them out as contenders for long-term stardom. And after following their breakthrough moment with another misfire, Black Veils Of Melancholy, it took a song by Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott (not the famous jazz musician), Ice In The Sun, to return Status Quo to the public eye.
