Artist: Status Quo
Title: The Complete Pye Collection
Year Of Release: 2004/2017
Label: Castle Communications
Genre: Classic Rock
Quality: FLAC (tracks)
Total Time: 03:36:30
Total Size: 504 mb | 1.4 gb

Tracklist:
CD1
1. Status Quo - Pictures of Matchstick Men
2. Status Quo - Gentleman Joe's Sidewalk Cafe (Mono Version)
3. Status Quo - Black Veils of Melancholy
4. Status Quo - To Be Free
5. Status Quo - Ice in the Sun
6. Status Quo - When My Mind Is Not Live (Stereo Version)
7. Status Quo - Elizabeth Dreams
8. Status Quo - Paradise Flat (Mono Version)
9. Status Quo - Technicolor Dreams
10. Status Quo - Spicks and Specks (Mono Version)
11. Status Quo - Sheila (Mono Version)
12. Status Quo - Sunny Cellophane Skies (Mono Version)
13. Status Quo - Green Tambourine (Mono Version)
14. Status Quo - Make Me Stay a Little Bit Longer (A-Side Version)
15. Status Quo - Auntie Nellie (B-Side Version)
16. The Spectres - I (Who Have Nothing) (Mono Version)
17. The Spectres - Neighbour Neighbour (Mono Version)
18. The Spectres - Hurdy Gurdy Man (Mono Version)
19. The Spectres - Laticia
20. The Spectres - (We Ain't Got) Nothing Yet (Mono Version)
21. The Spectres - I Want It (Mono Version)
22. The Spectres - Spicks and Specks
23. Traffic Jam - Almost But Not Quite There
24. Traffic Jam - Wait a Minute (Mono Version)
25. The Spectres - Walking With My Angel
26. The Spectres - When He Passed By

CD2
1. Status Quo - Are You Growing Tired of My Love
2. Status Quo - So Ends Another Life
3. Status Quo - Face Without a Soul
4. Status Quo - You're Just What I Was Looking for Today
5. Status Quo - Antique Angelique
6. Status Quo - Poor Old Man
7. Status Quo - Mr. Mind Detector
8. Status Quo - The Clown
9. Status Quo - Velvet Curtains
10. Status Quo - Little Miss Nothing
11. Status Quo - When I Awake
12. Status Quo - Nothing at All
13. Status Quo - Josie (Out-Take Version)
14. Status Quo - Do You Live In Fire
15. Status Quo - The Price of Love
16. Status Quo - Down the Dustpipe
17. Status Quo - Spinning Wheel Blues
18. Status Quo - Daughter
19. Status Quo - Everything
20. Status Quo - Shy Fly
21. Status Quo - (April) Spring, Summer & Wednesdays
22. Status Quo - Gerdundula

CD3
1. Status Quo - Junior's Wailing
2. Status Quo - Lakky Lady
3. Status Quo - Need Your Love
4. Status Quo - Lazy Poker Blues
5. Status Quo - Is It Really Me _ Gotta Go Home
6. Status Quo - In My Chair
7. Status Quo - Tune to the Music
8. Status Quo - Good Thinking
9. Status Quo - Umleitung
10. Status Quo - Something's Going On In My Head
11. Status Quo - Mean Girl
12. Status Quo - Gerdundula (Alternate Version)
13. Status Quo - Railroad
14. Status Quo - Someone's Learning
15. Status Quo - Nanana

This three-CD, 63-track set is the last word on Status Quo's early years, gathering not only every track the band did for Pye in the late '60s and early '70s, but also adding seven songs by the Spectres and two by Traffic Jam (the group's pre-Status Quo incarnations). As Status Quo were a psychedelic pop band in the late '60s before shifting to hard boogie rock at the turn of the decade, it might be a disappointment to much of their fan base, as prior to 1970 they sounded like an almost entirely different act. Conversely, though, to British Invasion and psychedelic fans who have little use for the band's long run as hard rock journeymen, this might be the most useful Status Quo collection of all. For it's psychedelic pop -- of a resolutely trendy brand that's actually more "pop" than "psychedelic" -- that dominates the first two discs, including of course their big hit "Pictures of Matchstick Men," as well as their follow-up U.K. Top Ten single, "Ice in the Sun." It's not until the half-dozen or so 1970 recordings that close disc two that the band starts embracing harder sounds, almost fully changing to a blues-rock-boogie direction for disc three.

As for the lighter approach that makes up the bulk of this set, the material suffers from a problem common to many bands that had just one great song. Much of the late-'60s stuff here is derivative, with varying streaks of innocuous Bee Gees, Move, Kinks, Beatles, Badfinger, and bubblegum influences. The 1968 songs in particular lean too heavily on the shimmering wobbly guitar effects introduced by "Pictures of Matchstick Men." Most importantly, though, the songs aren't special, wafting by in an inoffensive period fashion, occasionally making a deeper impression on tracks like "Sunny Cellophane Skies" (which, again like many of their 1968 tunes, has helium-high harmony vocals and weedy organ), "When I Awake" (whose intro has some awesome fluttering wah-wah guitar), and "Josie" (which sounds a little like a kiddie Kinks-meets-Easybeats). The more aggressive early-'70s material isn't any more memorable or original, to be honest, though it does include a couple fair-sized British hits in "Down the Dustpipe" and "In My Chair." Devoted collectors might be most interested in the pre-Status Quo cuts by the Spectres and Traffic Jam, but these are even less imbued with distinctive personality than the rest of the material, sounding like the product of an also-ran club band from the waning days of the British Invasion. The Spectres' tracks are too heavy on unimaginative covers as well, though their peculiarly chintzy organ parts at least give it some sonic imprint; the two Traffic Jam songs are most notable for "Almost but Not Quite There," a coy teen sexual innuendo reminiscent of some of the Troggs' filler from the period.

Finally, though Sanctuary is to be commended for gathering all the strands of the early Status Quo together in such a comprehensive fashion, it garners no gold stars for the packaging. Such a thorough set deserves more liner notes than the mere five paragraphs dispensed here, and even more troublingly, there's no information about when and where the tracks were originally released. Nothing's supplied at all but songwriting credits and years of original release, in fact, with nothing said about on what singles and albums these songs (a handful of which didn't surface until the 1980s and 1990s) were first issued