Rockin' All Over the World

After releasing the hard and perhaps excessively raw Live! album in March 1977, Status Quo decided it was time to give a new turn to their music, trying to achieve a cleaner and fresher sound. Recruiting Pip Williams to produce the new album, this was the first time since 1972 that Quo gave such control to someone outside the band. Subsequently, Williams played an essential part in the British band's evolution. A clean, focused, and friendly pop record, Rockin' All Over the World displeased the band's hard rock-oriented fans. Guitars were left in the background and the band's famous wall of sound -- tough guitars and a powerful rhythmic base -- was nowhere to be found, even though it had been an important element of the band's sound during the first half of the '70s. Strangely enough, a lot of the album's songs would become live favorites of the bandmembers and fans alike in the years to come. The first single issued from the record, "Rockin' All Over the World," Status Quo's cover of a barely known song from ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty, became a huge success all around Europe and, paradoxically, grew to be one of the group's most recognized anthems.