Bad Company - Straight Shooter

Released - April 1975

Genre - Hard Rock

Producer - Bad Company

Selected Personnel - Paul Rodgers (Vocals/Guitar/Piano); Mick Ralphs (Guitar/Keyboards); Simon Kirke (Drums); Boz Burrell (Bass)

Standout Track - Deal With The Preacher

Onwards into 1975, then, a year which would see the first stirrings of a total sea change for rock music. As has been strongly established on this blog, many of my tastes and preferences in music have at some point been dictated by my love of prog rock, so the fluctuating attitudes to the genre will every now and again form a kind of narrative backbone to things. 1974 was basically the last year in which prog could be considered to be genuinely popular. By 1975, people were sick of its complexity and its pomposity and its self-indulgence and many of the big bands were already sundered or on uncertain ground. Pink Floyd are probably the only major prog band who managed to survive past 1975 without making some kind of major change to their lineup or style or approach. The growing frustration with prog manifested itself in a few ways in 1975. The most notable was the arrival of punk, which can be talked about more another time (it's a horrible genre, but one that gave way to a lot of really interesting and great stuff). Another I seem to notice looking at 1975 is the new prominence of unabashed, stadium rock. Before long I'll talk about Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, an album that would make him into a phenomenon, and here we have the chance to talk about Bad Company, one of the very finest unapologetic, cheesy, unimaginative stadium rock bands of all time.

Bad Company had risen from the ashes of Free, Mott The Hoople and King Crimson in 1974 with their wonderful self-titled debut album, which was very much in the more earthy, simple mould of Free rather than the glamourous trappings of Mott or the menacing prog of Crimson. But even the rawer, bluesier elements of Free's sound had been compressed together and packaged into a punchier, leaner, tidier format consisting of simply great, immediately memorable songwriting and gutsy, simple guitar riffs from Mick Ralphs while Paul Rodgers belted out unforgettable tunes in one of the finest voices in rock. Stadium rock is a genre so over-the-top and caught up in its own machismo and showbiz aspirations that it would be very easy to be cynical about if it weren't so damn enjoyable as it is when Bad Company do it.

Wisely deciding that they didn't need to fix something that wasn't broken, Bad Company's second album closely follows the format of their debut, prioritising simple, catchy rock tunes and crunchy riffs over any showboating, grandeur or intricacy. This was music to rock out to, pure and simple. Album opener "Good Lovin' Gone Bad" sets the stall out almost as well as "Can't Get Enough" did at the start of Bad Company the previous year - it's an immense riff, and Rodgers belts out his vocals in as committed a roar as ever. "Feel Like Makin' Love," one of the album's big hits, is something of a rugpull in that it starts out as a fairly low-key acoustic ballad that soon kicks into one of the coolest hard rock choruses the band ever churned out, climaxing in an incendiary guitar solo from Ralphs. It's a song so effortlessly cool that it became a de facto theme tune for myself and a couple of other rock fan friends at uni, who used to just repeatedly sing the chorus endlessly when we ran short of things to talk about.

"Weep No More" is the first composition on the album by drummer Simon Kirke (Rodgers' fellow Free alumnus) and is one of the album's less convincing moments (sadly alongside Kirke's other contribution, "Anna," - Kirke is a solidly reliable drummer, but isn't a stellar songwriter). "Weep No More" isn't a bad song by any means, but it does little to blow you away while waiting for the next real air-puncher. That comes in the form of "Shooting Star," a song whose reputation irks me somewhat despite its brilliance. It's easily one of Bad Company's best-known songs, but that legacy means it often overshadows other songs on Straight Shooter that are immeasurably better, like "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," "Feel Like Makin' Love," and most notably, "Deal With The Preacher." "Shooting Star" is another acoustic ballad that boasts one of the most iconic sing-along choruses of the band's career. Apparently a tribute to the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, all of whom died due to problems with drugs or alcohol, it's a fist-pumping tribute to rock'n'roll stardom, although Rodgers' claims that it's about such a specific series of deaths does make you wonder why there doesn't seem to be more regret or lamentation in a song that's basically an unapologetic celebration of rock'n'roll excess and hedonism. Maybe Paul Rodgers is actually being very subversive, though subtlety and irony never seem to be his major priorities.

After that it's the song that's possibly my favourite in Bad Company's entire discography. "Deal With The Preacher" is a song it's easy to forget about as it wasn't a big hit like "Can't Get Enough," "Bad Company," "Feel Like Makin' Love" or "Shooting Star," but its breakneck rhythm and fearsome guitar riff, paired with perhaps Rodgers' most playful and enjoyable vocal performance ever (the stuttering "make a deal, make a deal, make a deal" moment is always an absolute joy) make it perhaps the perfect combination of classic ingredients for a truly wonderful Bad Company song. It closely pips "Feel Like Makin' Love" for the position of best song on the album, and while it'll always be a close call, it certainly rivals even the finest material on Bad Company as one of their very best songs.

"Wild Fire Woman" is another great hard rock song, and then the album slumps a little towards the end with a couple of weaker songs in "Anna" and "Call On Me." Bad Company as an album has a greater consistency than this followup, in that it didn't lose steam towards its end like Straight Shooter. But for the vast majority of its running time Straight Shooter is firing on all cylinders and really showing how effortlessly Bad Company could make epic rock music. Like the previous album it was a huge success, driven by the success of "Shooting Star" as a single. Off the back of its success, Bad Company were one of the biggest stadium rock acts in the world, but ask most people who are familiar with Bad Company and it's unlikely they've heard much beyond these first two albums. Quite why the band's fortunes faded so quickly is uncertain - personally, I'm a huge fan of their third album Run With The Pack, but it rarely ranks very highly in fans' estimations, and after that things quickly fell apart over a series of albums where the band seemed to totally lose track of how they were able to make great music not that long ago. All that's still to come, though - for now, the band had released the album that would forever stand alongside their first as the only two Bad Company albums most people would ever listen to. And, it must be said, that those two albums make for a pretty astounding legacy, even if nothing ever quite measured up to them.

Track Listing:

1. Good Lovin' Gone Bad (Mick Ralphs)

2. Feel Like Makin' Love (Paul Rodgers & Mick Ralphs)

3. Weep No More (Simon Kirke)

4. Shooting Star (Paul Rodgers)

5. Deal With The Preacher (Paul Rodgers & Mick Ralphs)

6. Wild Fire Woman (Paul Rodgers & Mick Ralphs)

7. Anna (Simon Kirke)

8. Call On Me (Paul Rodgers)