The Party Ain't Over Yet

They have been ridiculed, blacklisted and snubbed. But Status Quo entered the record books as the band with more hit singles than any other in UK chart history. According to Guinness World Records, they have had 61 chart hits since their first smash, Pictures of Matchstick Men, was released in 1968. Forty years after Francis Rossi first met Rick Parfitt at a Butlins holiday camp, Status Quo are still rocking as their 62nd single entered the charts. There may be three others in the band, but Parfitt and Rossi are the only surviving founder members, and their joint response (even they describe their relationship as "marriage without the sex") was entirely in character. Status Quo remain one of the UK's biggest ever selling bands. Yes, they are as far from cool as can possibly be but they rock on relentlessly much to the delight of many devoted followers.

2005 is a milestone year for Status Quo. The band has now signed to Sanctuary Records and released their 35th album, The Party Ain't Over Yet. They have also been headlining huge shows and festivals across the UK and Europe. October sees the start of the much-anticipated 35 date UK Winter tour. The title track of the new album is a boogie rocker with a chorus that will lift the spirits of many middle-aged rockers who have no intention of spending all their spare time in front of the TV in their comfy chair and slippers. The rest of the album finds the band treading similar territory, one track's even called Familiar Blues! With trademark solid chugging riffs, simple melodies and some choruses, which the kids might even inadvertently catch themselves singing along to.

Since Pictures of Matchstick Men, Status Quo have attracted adulation and derision in equal degree. Their brand of three-chord rock has been scorned by critics but they have sold more than 100 million records, spent 413 weeks in the singles charts and notched up 35 albums. Fashionistas shudder at their unchanging wardrobe of blue denims and Francis Rossi's white shirts, but the Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld has credited their 1980s hit In The Army Now with one of his couture collections. Rossi and Parfitt have a combined age of 112 and are happily settled in their rock-star mansions. The womanizing, drinking and cocaine use of 20 years ago has given way to marriage, fitness regimes and juicing. But by any reckoning, the title of their new album and single, The Party Ain't Over Yet, seems apposite.