| Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | The Status Quo |
| Cover: | Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo (album cover).jpg |
| Recorded: | January – September 1968 |
| Studio: | Pye Studios, London |
| Label: | Pye |
| Producer: | John Schroeder |
| Next Title: | Spare Parts |
| Next Year: | 1969 |
Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo is the debut studio album by the English rock band Status Quo, released in September 1968.
The album's lead single was originally intended to be "Gentleman Joe's Sidewalk Café", with the original song by singer/lead guitarist Francis Rossi, "Pictures of Matchstick Men", as the B-side, but these songs were eventually swapped. It reached No. 7 in the UK, and remains the band's only major hit single in the US, where it reached No. 12. It also reached No. 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 "When My Mind Is Not Live", a collaboration between Rossi and rhythm guitarist/singer Rick Parfitt, as the B-side. It reached No. 8 in the UK, and No. 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single from the album, "Technicolour Dreams" backed with the Wilde/Scott composition "Paradise Flat", but this was withdrawn after a few days in favour of a new non-album single, Rossi and Parfitt's "Make Me Stay a Bit Longer" with bassist Alan Lancaster's "Auntie Nellie" as the B-side, released on 31 January 1969. The last record to credit the band as The Status Quo (all subsequent releases were simply credited Status Quo), "Make Me Stay a Bit Longer" received good reviews but failed to chart.