STATUS QUO Piledriver SCARCE EARLY UK VERTIGO SPIRAL LP with SWIRL INNER.

	£		40
	$		53

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Artist or Band: STATUS QUO

Album Title: Piledriver

Producer(s): Status Quo

TRACK LIST:

Side 1: Don’t Waste My Time; Oh Baby; A Year; Unspoken Words.

Side 2: Big Fat Mama; Paper Plane; All the Reasons; Roadhouse Blues.

Label/Format: Vertigo, original swirl format with matt, gently textured surfaces.

Label Conditions: Both clean, fresh and attractive with only moderate and light spindle marks and no wear around the hole area.

Catalogue Number: 6360082

Mode / Speed: Stereo / 33.3 rpm.

Warps or Lateral Movement: Assume all records I offer have no significant warping or lateral movement to cause sound or tracking issues. All should play fine even on budget turntables.

Weight of Record: 137 grams.

Country of Manufacture: England

Rarity: Moderate

Original Year of Release: 1972

Matrix Nos: 6360082 1Y//2 ▽ 420 1 3 1 0 4 & 6360082 2Y//1 ▽ 420 1 1 3 2

Musicians: Francis Rossi – guitar, vocals; Rick Parfitt – guitar, piano, organ, vocals; Alan Lancaster – bass, 12 string acoustic guitar, vocals; John Coghlan – drums, percussion. With: Bob Young – Harmonica; Jimmy Horowitz – Piano.

Brief Info: ‘Piledriver’ was the fifth album by Status Quo and first on the Vertigo label after leaving Pye – it was the only one on the collectable Spiral format. Regarded by many as one of their best, this sold well. It includes the popular hit single ‘Paper Plane’ plus several favourites and a rousing version of The Doors ‘Roadhouse Blues’. This a late swirl album, this one being one of a final ones available before it was repressed on the new spaceship format.

Cover Grade and Format: NEAR EXCELLENT: an unlaminated gatefold format with matt, smooth surfaces. Printed and made in England, uncredited, includes the Swirl inner sleeve.

Cover Front & Back: A cover highly prone to wear, especially discolouration of the plentiful white areas. Any toning, rubbing or grubbiness on this is little, gentle and faint with any creasing modestly few and fine near the edges. No price sticker issues of which these matt Vertigo covers are intolerant. The lack of ugly ring wear or darkened rim impression on the back is always great news on this cover. Generally, this is a fine example.

Cover Inner Gatefold: Impressive with little to fault, any hint of discolouration gentle and faint near the top edges, little else to fault at all inside.

Top Edges: Thickly folded edges that are straight, flat and flush with any darkening or toning of their surfaces reasonably light.

Bottom Edges: Generally similar to above, but cleaner and fresher still.

Right Edge(s), and Type: The front has a real tucked and folded edge that is clean and barely worn. The back entrance edges are impressively sharp with any hint of thickening little and very light.

Spine and Text: Solid, thick and mainly straight with minimal compression, also folded square, so the edges meet up very closely together and parallel. The text is unworn, also superbly centred, any surface discolour modest.

Corners: Any tip rubs small and light, excellent shape mostly retained with no knocks.

Cover Summary: A strong all-round example of this unforgiving and challenging 1970’s cover, one that could prove difficult to find much better. Still attractive, only gently aged and it should please many collectors.

The Inner Sleeve: EXCELLENT: or very close to. This the correct soft-lined swirl inner that replaced the earlier albums polylined ones. Gently aged only with mild discolouration of the paper which few can hope to avoid totally. Two neat untorn window circles, the semi-transparent lining still neat, the paper has hardly any creasing. All edges are naturally intact. This has dual British patent credits (800153) / (973939) and ‘MADE IN ENGLAND’ 0374 text.

Vinyl Condition/Visual Grading: EXCELLENT: or again close to. A fine visual copy that is very clean with decent shine and solidly pressed. A copy with a few light hairlines and faint surface marks as seen more critically under light. No penetrating stylus scratches, it plays well and visually a fine record that should please many collectors.

Album Played For Grading: Yes. [I play ALL records I offer before submitting to Ebay, also the record is played in its entirety unless clearly stated otherwise.

Sound Quality and Audio Grading: This early Status Quo classic plays even above it’s high visual grading with little to fault. Offering strong, distortion-free sound, all frequencies are sharp and clear – sound quality is very high with a wide dynamic range and very detailed sound. Any surface sounds are minimal indeed, the odd minor contact sound so hard to avoid totally on this popular record, but overall a clean pressing with no tracking issues*. Few available copies will outperform this late Swirl copy. Both channels are clean and sharp, I am certain this record has been played reasonably modestly and has been quite well stored and handled. Little of any real note spoilt my pleasure when play-grading this record. It could prove difficult to find significantly better and can be recommended.

* As played on my Pro-Ject Turntable with Ortofon Blue Cartridge tracking at 2 grams, Naim SuperNait 2 Amp and Spendor A7 speakers.