Bula Quo! is the soundtrack to a 90-minute “action-comedy” film featuring three-chord rock stalwarts Status Quo as themselves. Unfortunately, the album is about as bad as that concept sounds.
Status Quo are most famous for their lively brand of 70s pop rock. Gen Y audiences, however, will probably be most familiar with the band’s television ads for Coles supermarkets featuring a commercialised (in every sense of the word) version of their 1975 single “Down, Down”.
Sadly, on Bula Quo! there’s little evidence of the group recreating their past success.
Opening track “Looking Out For Caroline” riffs on the band’s 1973 hit song “Caroline”.
It’s an energetic boogie rock number, but if it’s not creepy enough to hear a group of sexagenarians singing about a girl called caroline/The kinda girl a body likes to meet, the clichéd awfulness of lines like She reads the good book/but she loves her rock n roll paint a grim picture for the track, and for the rest of the album.
“Run And Hide (The Gun Song)” is marred by an ugly chord progression, “Mystery Island” is an uninspired ballad with an opening line pinched from Thomas Hardy, and “Fiji Time” is a failed attempt at reggae.
A second ‘bonus’ disc, a mixture of film soundtrack numbers and live recordings, does little to flesh out this uninspiring record.
Status Quo have been around long enough to establish themselves as competent musicians and songwriters, but Bula Quo! is a ‘for fans only’ album that suffers from a complete lack of innovation or originality.
