1975 was probably the year that everything gelled for Paul
\nRodgers and the members of Bad Company. They had their debut album
\nunder their belts, and had garned some well-deserved attention for
\ntheir efforts. Now, the question was how would they follow it
\nup.<\/p>\n
The answer came in the form of
\nStraight Shooter<\/i>, an album which featured better production
\nand even better songwriting. And while they still occasionally
\ndipped their feet into the waters of all-too-slow ballads, the
\nalbum showed major improvements for the group.<\/p>\n
These days, you can’t go anywhere without hearing some classic
\nrock station playing “Shooting Star” or “Feel Like Makin’ Love” to
\ndeath – a shame, since these songs are still incredible numbers.
\nBut I have to admit, after the 2,000th time hearing the same song,
\nit does become a little grating on the nerves. That’s why I
\noccasionally like to dust off this record from the Pierce Memorial
\nArchives and hear the songs in the environment they were made for –
\nnamely, the context of the whole album.<\/p>\n
But
\nStraight Shooter<\/i> is much more than just the two hit songs.
\nOn one side, you have guitarist Mick Ralphs musically cutting the
\nrug on “Good Lovin’ Gone Bad,” demonstrating why he could well have
\nbeen one of the best unheralded guitarists of this time. On the
\nother side, you have Rodgers leading the group through a gentle
\nrocker like “Call On Me,” a track which is able to overcome a
\nrather weak intro to become a pretty enjoyable track.<\/p>\n
Possibly the best track on this album you’ve never heard is
\n“Wild Fire Woman,” a song which allows the band to revel in their
\nbluesy roots while giving them the musical freedom to explore new
\nterritories of the groove. If any of Bad Company’s songs deserved
\nthe chance to become a hit single, this one is at or near the top
\nof my list.<\/p>\n
Yet
\nStraight Shooter<\/i> shows that Bad Company – in particular,
\ndrummer Simon Kirke – still had a penchant for the saccharine-sweet
\nballad that had neither spark nor spice. “Weep No More” and “Anna”
\nthreaten to derail Bad Company’s momentum for a few minutes;
\nfortunately, they follow these tracks up with solid numbers.<\/p>\n
And yet, 25 years after its release,
\nStraight Shooter<\/i> hardly sounds dated, though its
\ninstrumentation is a bit minimal. (In a sense, that’s good; at
\nleast they weren’t padding the sessions with any musician they
\ncould find on a street corner like some bands tend to do these
\ndays.)<\/p>\n
If there was ever any doubt about Bad Company’s potential,
\nStraight Shooter<\/i> should have convinced people that the
\nband’s success was no crap shoot. This is still one of the band’s
\nmost revered albums – and even with an occasional mis-step, one can
\neasily understand why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5720],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36786","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bad-company","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36786","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=36786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36786"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36786"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}