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Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo, das Debüt-Album der britischen Rockgruppe Status Quo, wurde am 27. September 1968 veröffentlicht. Das Album enthält eine große Anzahl von Coverversionen, einschließlich Green Tambourine von The Lemon Pipers. Anders als spätere Alben der Band, die dem Hard Rock zuzurechnen sind, weist Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from The Status Quo deutliche Anleihen beim Psychedelic Rock und Pop auf.
Die Hit-Singles waren Pictures of Matchstick Men und Ice in the Sun, die beide in mehreren Ländern die Top 20 erreichten. Auch Black Veils of Melancholy, eine vergleichsweise einfallslose Kopie der ersten Single, konnte sich in den Niederlanden in den Top 20 platzieren. Das Album selbst verfehlte die Charts.
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The album's lead single was originally intended to be "Gentleman Joe's Sidewalk Café", with the original Francis Rossi composition "Pictures of Matchstick Men" as the b-side, but these songs were eventually swapped round. It reached #7 in the UK, and remains the band's only major hit single in the US, where it reached #12. It also reached #8 in Canada. A second single, Rossi's "Black Veils of Melancholy" (with organist Roy Lynes' non-album track "To Be Free" as the b-side), flopped and has even been called "a carbon copy of "Pictures of Matchstick Men"". The third single, "Ice in the Sun", was written for the band by Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott (not the jazz musician), with the Rossi/Parfitt composition "When My Mind Is Not Live" as the b-side. It reached #8 in the UK, and #29 in Canada.
The album itself was released on 27 September 1968, and failed to make the UK album charts. The band planned to release a fourth single from the album - "Technicolour Dreams" backed with the Wilde/Scott composition "Paradise Flat" - but this was withdrawn after a few days in favour of a non-album single release early the following year. The new single, Rossi and Parfitt's "Make Me Stay a Bit Longer", with bassist Alan Lancaster's "Auntie Nellie" as the b-side, was released on 31 January 1969. As well as getting the "thumbs up" from a majority of the record reviewers, this single was also something of a landmark for the group, as it would be their final release to credit them as "the" Status Quo.
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