BAD COMPANY

Desolation Angels: 40th Anniversary Edition

As the 1970s ended, the supergroup approached burn-out.

Lifting its title from a Jack Kerouac novel in which the author documented growing disenchantment with Buddhism, Bad Company’s fifth album similarly probed literary themes of the conflict between frustration and Zen. When the singer’s baby leaves him on Gone Gone Gone, he decides: ‘I’d better get the boys round and do some drinking fast’. Thus he champions oblivion over self-knowledge. On Crazy Circles, after expressing his angst through some throaty ‘yeah yeah yeah’s and hearty ‘mmm hmm hmm’s, he lands on the epiphany that ‘Life is like a carousel/You aim for heaven and you wind up in hell’. Profound words, indisputably.

It is perhaps during Rhythm Machine, however, that Bad Company’s most piercingly insightful philosophy is forged: ‘I’m a rhythm machine.’ they posit. ‘You know what I mean.’ Repeated for emphasis. And indeed we do know what the narrator is getting at: he is declaring himself to be not a Roland TR-808, but a man who is good at doing sex. This affirmation of the joys of a fully-lived existence again emphasises their place as the heirs to Kerouac’s legacy.

In truth, by 1979 these blues-rock giants were running out of inspiration somewhat, their muscular meat-and-veg moves (which on the first three albums had splendidly transcended their limitations) carried solely by Paul Rodgers’s voice, which was itself going through the motions. The use of a guitar-synth, giving a suggestion of freshness to opening salvo Rock’n’Roll Fantasy, is retrospectively hailed as radical, but overall this sounds like a band out of time, treading water in hobnail boots. They’d taken a “tax year” out; punk had happened. Gone Gone Gone has a certain rock-to-drive-to momentum, as does Evil Wind. Oh Atlanta has charm by association since Alison Krauss reinvented it in 1995. The ballads want to hint at plaintive gospel, but stall at plain-clothes Godspell. Burn-out had begun.

Four decades on, there may be subjective nostalgia for diehards. Whether that goodwill extends to 19 alternate versions and out-takes — for example three versions of Rock’n’Roll Fantasy — is a matter for individual choice. One can imagine confirmed fan Tony Blair dancing in his pants, Partridge-ly, to this, albeit under a more expensive roof than Travelodge.