Once upon a time, the only way you could get your greasy little
\nhands on any of the older albums from the British group Badfinger
\nwas to pay some ridiculous amount of money for a used vinyl copy.
\nThis is because, for reasons unknown to me (and because I don’t
\nfeel like digging out the original press releases), the re-issue
\nrights for the group’s early albums were tied up legally,
\npreventing them from ever seeing the digital age. I still have here
\nin the Pierce Memorial Archives a copy of their
\nStraight Up<\/i> album I was given by my uncle; I could have sold
\nit for about $100 at the time, but I wanted to hang on to it.<\/p>\n
In 1991, that all changed, as Capitol Records finally began
\nissuing Badfinger’s early releases. (There are still a few from
\nother labels the group recorded on that have yet to see the light
\nof the digital dawn.) The band’s first release,
\nMagic Christian Music<\/i>, served also as the unofficial
\nsoundtrack for the 1969 Peter Sellers film
\nThe Magic Christian<\/i>, which featured the song “Come And Get
\nIt”.<\/p>\n
Now, 30 years after this album originally came out, you can
\noccasionally hear the influence of the Beatles in this group (who
\nwere often criticized as being rip-offs of the Fab Four), but the
\nquestion is, would you still want to? We’ll answer that later on.
\n(Sorry, Bucky, but we gotta give you incentive to read the rest of
\nthe review.)<\/p>\n
Ironically, when this album came out in 1970, Badfinger was in a
\nstate of flux. Out was bassist Ron Griffith, over from guitar to
\nbass was Tom Evans, and in at guitarist was Joey Molland. However,
\nbefore Molland could join the band, the cover art was prepared…
\nand it shows only three members of the band. While the band
\nre-grouped,
\nMagic Christian Music<\/i> was shaped around tracks from an album
\nrecorded when Badfinger was still known as The Iveys, songs from
\nthe “soundtrack” and a few new tracks. (Side note: the album from
\nThe Iveys,
\nMaybe Tomorrow<\/i>, was also released on CD shortly after
\nMagic Christian Music<\/i>. Maybe one day we’ll get to that disc
\nas well.)<\/p>\n
Two songs immediately stick in my mind from this disc. The
\nfirst, naturally, is “Come And Get It,” which became the group’s
\nfirst hit. One wonders if the Beatles influence on this track is
\ndue to the fact that one Paul McCartney wrote and produced the song
\nfor Badfinger. It’s short, it’s catchy… and it’s still kinda fun
\nto listen to.<\/p>\n
The other track is an all-out rocker that was the “b” side to
\nthe “Come And Get It” single, “Rock Of All Ages”. I can hear some
\nBeatles inluence here, specifically the reckless abandon of John
\nLennon’s style in the delivery. Even today, there’s still a level
\nof excitement I feel when this song comes on, though I’d dare to
\nclassify this one as a “forgotten oldie”. (I swear, one of these
\ndays I’m gonna get on the radio and do a show featuring nothing but
\nsongs you don’t know from groups you do.)<\/p>\n
As for the rest of
\nMagic Christian Music<\/i>, you might expect it to be ripe with
\nBeatle-esque melodies and harmonies. Sadly, this isn’t the case;
\ninstead, we’re presented with a group that is trying valiantly to
\nfind their own unique sound, but doesn’t quite know which direction
\nto go. In one direction, we hear the layered harmonies and musical
\nprogression in a song like “Crimson Ship” or “I’m In Love”; in
\nanother direction, we hear more pop-like safety of songs like
\n“Knocking Down Our Home,” “Dear Angie” and “Maybe Tomorrow”.<\/p>\n
Note that I’m not saying these songs are bad; if anything,
\nMagic Christian Music<\/i> does the listener a favor by giving us
\na peek at the struggles a band like Badfinger faced due to being on
\nthe Beatles’ own label. For each moment that you hear the influence
\nof the Beatles (as on “Fisherman”), you hear the band try to rebel
\nand carve their own sound out (as on “Carry On Till Tomorrow”). For
\nany band, the task would be a daunting one – I mean, how on earth
\ndo you pretend to try and follow a legendary band and walk in the
\nfootpaths they did? No matter what you would try, you’d be
\nlambasted, either for sounding too much like your forefathers or
\nnot enough like them.<\/p>\n
Maybe the one mistake that Badfinger made was relying on
\nmaterial from
\nMaybe Tomorrow<\/i> on this album. Admittedly, they had the
\ndifficult task of shuffling their lineup at the time, but maybe it
\nwould have been better to let things settle down first and then hit
\nthe listener with a barrage of new material, as they would later
\nthat year with
\nNo Dice<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\nMagic Christian Music<\/i> is the kind of disc I like to pull out
\nof the archives every once in a while to remind me of how things
\nwere in the immediate post-Beatles days. To Badfinger’s credit, you
\ncan hear them hammering out their own musical road that they wanted
\nto travel – but they just weren’t there yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6222],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36420","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-badfinger","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36420"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36420"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}