Backbone (Status Quo album)


Backbone is the 33rd studio album by British rock band Status Quo. It was released worldwide on 6 September 2019 and debuted at no. 6 on the UK albums chart, making it the band's 25th UK top ten album and their highest-charting album of original material since 1982's eponymous 1+9+8+2. Backbone also entered the German and Swiss album charts at positions 6 and 2, respectively. The success of Backbone in Germany rendered its album chart position the band's highest ever in the country, despite a long history of enduring popularity.
Backbone is the first album to be released by the band since the death of rhythm guitarist Rick Parfitt, who had been credited on every prior Status Quo album. Speaking about the album, frontman Francis Rossi expressed both pride in the content and sadness regarding Parfitt's lack of involvement, saying "This new material had to be seriously good. Quo have achieved so much and meant so much to too many people for the quality to slip now Losing Rick was hard to bear but, through Richie Malone, who was inspired to pick up a guitar by him, we can not only keep going but actually pick up the pace." He concluded: "I wasn’t sure I had another album in me but I couldn’t be more proud of Backbone."
The title track was released as the first single, with a promo video. The second single, "Liberty Lane", was released in August 2019 and a video was later released in September. The band played "Liberty Lane" and "Cut Me Some Slack" live at various concerts in 2019 to promote the album prior to its release, which is notable for being one of the few times the band have toured new music before release.

Tracklist

  1. "Waiting for a Woman" – 4:28
  2. "Cut Me Some Slack" – 4:22
  3. "Liberty Lane" – 3:42
  4. "I See You're in Some Trouble" – 3:47
  5. "Backing Off" – 4:12
  6. "I Wanna Run Away with You" – 3:23
  7. "Backbone" – 3:03
  8. "Better Take Care" – 3:34
  9. "Falling off the World" – 3:29
  10. "Get out of My Head" – 3:24
  11. "Running out of Time" – 3:29

    Digipak bonus tracks

  13. "Crazy Crazy" – 3:18
  14. "Face the Music" – 3:27

    Personnel