BAD COMPANY: FAME AND FORTUNE (1986)
1) Burning Up; 2) This Love;
3) Fame And Fortune; 4) That Girl; 5) Tell It Like It Is; 6) Long Walk; 7) Hold
On My Heart; 8) Valerie; 9) When We Made Love; 10) If I'm Sleeping.
Had this band enjoyed a little less fame, and
had I had a little more fortune, I would not be obliged to review this at all.
But it so happened that, after the initial dissolution of Bad Company after Rough Diamonds, as Mick Ralphs and
Simon Kirke were about to team up with ex-Nugent vocalist Brian Howe for just a
little fun and a little cash, some thugs at Atlantic convinced them that the
cash would be flowing far steadier if triggered by the good old moniker.
Besides, how could 1986, arguably the worst year for commercially oriented
music in the XXth century, begin and end without a Bad Company album?
Not that Fame
And Fortune sounds anything like old time Bad Company. Instead, it sounds
like new time Foreigner — no surprise, since it was produced by Foreigner's
producer Keith Olsen. Thus, folksy and bluesy stylizations are mostly out,
replaced by bombastic arena-rock. Heavy, but glossy-safe guitar riffs, crappy
cheap keyboards all over the place (played by Gregg Dechert, whose only claim
to fame so far was playing for Uriah Heep in 1980-81), electronic echo on the
drums, and a generic pop vocalist with Siegfried-size ambitions. Whoo!
It goes without saying that there isn't a
single song on here that even barely approaches «good». The only possible
question is «in a better time and place, could any of these songs be better?» I
am not sure. The riffs are fairly rotten, and the vocal melodies are mostly
dependent on how much pathos the new singer guy is capable of generating.
Considering that 99% of the time he flat out refuses to sing like a normal
human being, I am not sure that replacing him with a Ray Davies could have
saved the situation.
Particularly low points involve the power
ballad ʽWhen We Made Loveʼ (on which Howe's little «rasp» seems even more
annoying than usual); the awful teen pop send-up ʽThat Girlʼ (unless the chorus
reall goes fat girl!, which is how I
hear it every time, in which case it's self-ironic... nah, not really); and the
humiliating ʽHold On My Heartʼ, a suspicious attempt to write something in the
style of Born In The USA — except
that it takes more than simply mimicking Bruce's breathy intonations to
succeed.
The only track here that deserves half a grain
of attention is ʽTell It Like It Isʼ, a rougher-edged rocker, generally
unspoiled by keyboards and somewhat strengthened by a well-meaning sax backing.
This one could be thought of as slightly watered-down, less focused and intense
AC/DC, and in the context of all the chest-beating, synth-pumping dreck on here
it almost feels like real rock'n'roll. Of course, there is still no reason to
keep its memories in your head one hour after the fact. Useless, spiritually and
intellectually offensive dreck. Even honest, hard-working truck drivers — the
band's most faithful audience — acknowledged that at the time, judging by the
charts. Total thumbs
down.
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