It was no surprise when Straight Shooter, Bad Company's second album, came out sounding like a carbon copy of their first, Bad Company. After all, the first one had topped the charts. And with Straight Shooter also selling well, it was no surprise they wouldn't mess with the formula on this, their third album. But it was becoming increasingly clear that it was a formula, and an unusually restrictive one. (They tried adding strings on the title track, which is one of the rewrites of the song "Bad Company," but that was just a pretension, not a new direction.) With Bad Company slogging through the stadiums of the world and momentum on their side, Run with the Pack shot up the charts, too, but it didn't get quite as high or stay quite as long as its predecessors, mostly because of the lack of really memorable material -- the biggest single was a cover of the Coasters' hit "Young Blood," a tired warhorse. "Honey Child," one of the "Can't Get Enough" rewrites that was released as a single, didn't make the Top 40, an ominous sign the band did not heed. For today's listeners, well, you only really need one Bad Company album to get the idea, and why not just get the first one? (Or, for a more complete view, the greatest-hits LP 10 from 6.) Then, if you really love what you hear, this record is more of the same.
© William Ruhlmann /TiVo