Bad+company

Bad Company’s incredible commercial success continued in 1979 with the British supergroup’s fifth studio album, Desolation Angels. A double-platinum hit, the album peaked at #3 on the U.S. album charts and took radio by storm with “Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy,” the best-selling single of the band’s career. Bad Company will celebrate the album’s 40th anniversary with a newly expanded version that boasts nineteen unreleased songs taken from the album’s recording sessions. Desolation Angles was recently remastered from the original multi-track tapes for THE SWAN SONG YEARS 1974-1982, a boxed set that was released this summer. That remastered version of the album is also used in this new anniversary collection.

Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound.
From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive. If anything, Bad Company excise the excesses of Free - there are no winding jams and very little added color by way of pianos or even air in the production; those two tricks are evident on their title track/rallying call "Bad Company," and the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" - reducing their rock & roll to a strong, heavy crunch…

Each album on The Swan Song Years 1974-1982 has been remastered using the original multi-track tapes, including newly remastered versions of Desolation Angels and Rough Diamonds that are making their debut as part of this set…

From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive…

Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound.
From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive. If anything, Bad Company excise the excesses of Free - there are no winding jams and very little added color by way of pianos or even air in the production; those two tricks are evident on their title track/rallying call "Bad Company," and the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" - reducing their rock & roll to a strong, heavy crunch…

Prior to the 2015 collection Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy: The Very Best of Bad Company, there were only two Bad Company compilations in release: the lean 1985 set 10 from 6, arriving a full six years after their last hit album, and 1999's The Original Bad Company Anthology, a 33-track double-disc set that dug deep into the group's golden years of 1974-1982. Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy occupies a much-needed middle ground, providing 19 songs on a generous single disc. This, like The Original Bad Company Anthology, focuses solely on the six albums Bad Company cut for Swan Song, which means there's nothing from their late-'80s/early-'90s run on Atco, even though "No Smoke Without a Fire," "Holy Water," "If You Needed Somebody," and "How About That" are also owned by WEA and could easily have been included…