Bad Company: Rough Diamonds - 1982


This album, from 1982, saw Paul Rodgers call it a day after its release. Recording sessions had been strained, with Rodgers and bassist Boz Burrell fighting at one point. It proved to be the last straw, and the last album for the original line-up, that had lasted since 1974. The band tried to throw in a few new sounds - a bit of funk, some brass, some keyboards and piano but, unfortunately, it didn’t really catch on. 

Electricland is an atmospheric, brooding number that is not typical Bad Company at all, really, despite some powerful riffs. 

Untie The Knot is an appealing piece of funk/rock. Boz Burrell’s Nuthin’ On The TV is a catchy, Lynyrd Skynyrd-style rock groove that even used the Skynyrd spelling of “nuthin’”. It sways along nicely, though, despite its somewhat hackneyed lyrics about nothing in the telly in the hotel room. 

Painted Face has an appeal to it, strangely in its synthesiser riff and melodic strains. The group were trying to move with the times a bit here, it was probably just not enough. Kick Down is recognisable as Mick Ralphs track in a sort of early seventies Mott The Hoople way. 

Burrell’s lively, poppy Ballad Of The Band is not the band’s best, let’s be honest. It sounds like the sort of material that appears on many Ringo Starr albums. The slightly funky and brassy Cross Country Boy has a bar-room, piano-driven swing to it. Ralphs’ Old Mexico sees him revisit his travelling in the USA theme, this time heading over the borderline into Mexico. It isn’t a bad song, but totally at odds with most music from 1982, though. 

Downhill Ryder, while containing some classic riffs, also toys with a vaguely funky sound. It is sort of sad hearing Rodgers’ voice towering over songs like this for the last time with the group. Racetrack is a return to a more traditional Bad Company sound and then that was that for a group that suffered from not ever deviating much from their usual sound, but I have to say that when it was good, it was rockingly good.

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