By 1982, Bad Company was in a tailspin. Not even the chart success of \u201cRock And Roll Fantasy\u201d from their previous album Desolation Angels<\/i> was helping their internal issues. Add into the mix the absence of manager Peter Grant, whose world collapsed with the 1980 death of John Bonham and the subsequent breakup of label mates Led Zeppelin, and you had a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n
Rough Diamonds<\/i>, their 1982 release, was that breaking point, the band splintering shortly after its release until the \u201creunion\u201d with Brian Howe as singer a few years later. I remember walking the aisles of Sound Warehouse in the mid-\u201980s, and you literally tripped over all the copies of this record in the cut-out bins. Nowadays, if you find it on CD, you\u2019re going to pay a king\u2019s ransom.<\/i><\/p>\n
Is the disc that cringe-worthy? Honestly, no… but it\u2019s still light years away from their glory days, and doesn\u2019t do anything to correct the mistakes made on their previous release.<\/i><\/p>\n
The lead-off track, \u201cElectricland,\u201d is more than likely the only one most people know, having been included on the best-of 10 From 6<\/i> and being the lead-off single. Right off the bat, you can feel something is not right in the world of Bad Company. It simply doesn\u2019t have the energy of their previous hits\u2014though it\u2019s not an abysmal effort. It\u2019s just… lacking. Paul Rodgers\u2019 vocals don\u2019t have the same crispness or bite, and Mick Ralphs\u2019 guitar work seems to be phoned in.<\/i><\/p>\n
Had they released \u201cCross Country Boy\u201d as the first single, maybe they\u2019d have tasted a bit more success with this disc. It\u2019s a much livelier track (even if Rodgers still doesn\u2019t quite seem to be into the material he\u2019s singing), and while it\u2019s still not quite to the level of \u201cRock And Roll Fantasy\u201d or \u201cRun With The Pack,\u201d it honestly holds its own fairly well.<\/i><\/p>\n
Now, you want to talk cringe-worthy? Four words: \u201cBallad Of The Band.\u201d Almost a self-congratulatory effort summing up nearly a decade of their history, this is one that could have easily been left off an already short album (clocking in at 38 minutes), and it wouldn\u2019t have hurt things one iota.<\/i><\/p>\n
The biggest sin that Rough Diamonds<\/i> commits is that the bulk of the material feels like they were cast-offs from previous albums that were merely cobbled together for one closet-cleaning release. Tracks like \u201cNuthin\u2019 On The TV,\u201d \u201cOld Mexico\u201d and \u201cKickdown\u201d are hardly strong enough efforts to keep people interested in Bad Company, much less draw in new fans.<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes, the music scene had significantly changed since their debut effort. And, yes, one can argue that bands should at least consider changing with the times. (Not that they have to, mind you; AC\/DC is living proof that a singular formula can work for damn near eternity.) It\u2019s not that Bad Company was stuck in a musical rut, or that they had hit the wall in terms of creativity and interpersonal relationships. What they were<\/i> lacking at that time was some form of guiding hand to not only address any strife they were going through, but to also give them the necessary pimp-slap to prevent them from releasing sub-par material.<\/i><\/p>\n
Rough Diamonds<\/i> definitely ended the first iteration of Bad Company on a low note, even with the rare bright spot here and there scattered among its 10 tracks. There\u2019s a reason this one is (as of this writing) out of print, and should be obtained only by the diehard fans who absolutely must have complete discographies.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5720],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-47059","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bad-company","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47059","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=47059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47059"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}