The BADFINGER Album-By-Album Thread

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I bought the Magic Christian LP back when it was current. I liked Come and Get It and I love Maybe Tomorrow, which is beautiful and sad (and thus perhaps a portent of the band's career).

As for Carry On Till Tomorrow, this was a song I heard on the radio uncredited, and I wondered for a while what it was. I believe I only found out when I listened to the LP. Superb song!

 

Nice job! At least my memory was proven correct. Beatles and Apple were pretty big in Southern New England at that time. (As a side note, I remember WPOP playing "Across the Universe" as an exclusive almost a year before the Let it Be album. They had the wildlife version, and played the track with "WPOP Exclusively" spoken throughout the tune. And now back to Badfinger............)

Yes, "Midnight Sun" would have been a great single IMHO

 

glad to hear it. "knocking down our home" is my favorite song from that album, it sounds like a kinks song to me.

 

it does have a Kinks feel to it, nice comments.

 

I actually quite like "Angelique". Nice to see this thread. I was super stoked to snag a copy of the 2 LP of The Ivey's "Maybe Tomorrow" reissue back in the early days of ebay. Seems to me the early guiding aesthetic of Apple was to sign acts that were more "mainstream friendly" than The Beatles - artists that might rack up hits with the average record buyer than the typical Beatles fans. Thereby keeping The Beatles as the "hippest" act on their own label. The Iveys record comes off as a more conservative version of "The Hollies" rather than the cooking rock band they really were underneath.

The "Magic Christian" album sits midway between these two aesthetics - the "mature listener's" band and the rocking combo responsible for "No Dice" and " Straight Up". Case in point - my father (whose tastes ran from Bo Diddley to Joni James) had Mary Hopkin's "Postcard" album in his collection. The ONLY Beatle -related platter to speak of (he was NOT a Beatles fan). Think about that! Seems to me The Iveys were encouraged to stick to the Hollies territory while The Beatles retained their "cutting edge" position in pop music. All good music nonetheless. Cheers!
------------- Chris

 

No Dice
Produced by Geoff Emerick, Mal Evans
Apple Records
Released November 1970



Side 1:

I Can't Take It
I Don't Mind
Love Me Do
Midnight Caller
No Matter What
Without You

Side 2:

Blodwyn
Better Days
It Had To Be
Watford John
Believe Me
We're For The Dark

1991 CD Bonus Tracks:

Get Down
Friends Are Hard To Find
Mean Mean Jemima
Loving You
I'll Be The One

2010 CD Bonus Tracks:

I Can't Take It (Extended Version)
Without You (Mono Studio Demo)
Photograph (Friends Are Hard To Find)
Believe Me (Alternate Version)
No Matter What (Mono Studio Demo)

2010 Digital Bonus Tracks:

Love Me Do (Instrumental)
Get Down (Alternate Version)

No Dice. the second album released under the name Badfinger, is the first to be recorded with the classic lineup of Pete Ham, Tom Evans, Joey Molland, and Mike Gibbins. Its sound is much more in the power-pop vein, leaving behind the outdated schmaltz evident on much of The Iveys' recorded output, and the results are stellar. No Dice is leaps and bounds ahead of Magic Christian Music. Pete Ham's songwriting really took off in a big way here with stellar material like "We're For The Dark", "Midnight Caller", and "No Matter What", their first self-penned Top 10 in America and in the UK -- a huge hit, and deservedly so.

Joey Molland contributed the great "Better Days" and co-wrote one of the album's many highlights, "I Don't Mind", with Tommy Evans, with whom he shares vocal duties on the track. The only questionable move by Joey here is the inclusion of a track called "Love Me Do", which is an original song, not a Beatles cover (and it's not a particularly great song). That one's always bugged me. Is "Love Me Do" an expression in the UK? Something that stands on its own, independently from the Beatles' song?

Also of note is "Without You", while not released as a Badfinger single, a song which caught the ear of Harry Nilsson, who recorded a version on his Nilsson Schmilsson album the following year and had a #1 hit with it. The Badfinger version doesn't scale the heights that Nilsson's did -- a more subdued and somewhat bluesy take -- but it's still a highlight here. I feel like No Dice has a bit of filler, particularly on side 2, but there's nothing on the album that I flat out don't like. It's not a five-star album, but it's a very solid album with no shortage of strong tracks throughout.

 

According to Joey, he wrote "I Don't Mind" by himself.
Comment from Joey: "I don't know why Tommy was given credit on this because he did not write any of it. These aren't Tommy's kind of words. When I sang it the guys naturally joined in on the harmonies. Tommy just started to sing harmony, and then Pete came in with an E minor harmony, which is pretty good."

 

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No Dice is a masterpiece. Seriously, it's like The Beatles doing Pepper: they can't top themselves after this! Nevertheless, The Beatles did top themselves later, and so does Badfinger...

From the first note to the last, No Dice is complete brilliance. (Well, maybe "Love Me Do" is a little less brilliant..)

 

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No Dice was an eye catching LP back in 1970 in the record store bin. Designed by Richard DiLello & Gene Mahon (pictured L-to-R w/ Joey & Pete)

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For me, No Dice is really the first Badfinger album. The addition of Joey Molland added the rock and roll touch they were missing. To me, the lesser songs on the album are "Love Me Do" and "Believe Me". Glad that Pete sang "It Had To Be" rather than Mike (who wrote it). I do remember seeing the band on a TV show doing "Watford John" back in the early 70s. As far as "Without You" goes, I prefer the Badfinger arrangement to any of the subsequent covers. The drawback being Tom's vocal on the chorus and it might have been better if Pete had sung the entire song or if Tom and Pete has sung the chorus together. And "No Matter What" is just a great song and single. I have always wondered what Apple could have released from the album as second single..."Midnight Caller"? "We're For The Dark"?

 

I've always wondered what I'd think of Tommy's vocal on "Without You", had I not heard Nilsson's first. While he does seem to be straining, it might not seem so jarring if I hadn't already heard Harry sing the hell out of that chorus.

 

I like the production on No Dice, perhaps if Apple had invested more in the band and the album "Without You" may have been looked at as a Single. Apple was still centered on The Beatles Solo releases, print, radio & tv media.
It's a miracle No Matter What was released as Single seeing that Apple was lukewarm to it at first. Derek Taylor later stated "We (Apple) didn't know what we had...."

 

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I tend to believe this. I have never really felt that songwriting was one of Tommy's strongest assets. He came through a number of times over the course of the band's career, of course (especially having written the chorus of "Without You"), but I place him a distant third to Pete and Joey in terms of songwriting ability and the number of real classics he contributed. "I Don't Mind" sounds like a Joey song. And it's one of my absolute favorite tracks they ever recorded. Even today, seeing Joey perform this one with a voice ravaged by time, it never disappoints. Such a great tune.

 

Very much agreed. "I Don't Mind" is one of my favorites on the album. I loved Tom's bass playing and his harmonies. He sounded great singing with Pete or Joey. One of my favorite of his songs is "When I Say", but that's for a later discussion.

 

NO DICE remains my desert island Badfinger LP, but I’d be sad to not have all of them. Stuck on an island with a perfect collection of tracks and a cover to keep me occupied when the music wasn’t playing

 

Those were the days, the magical jukebox! The only throwaway tracks on No Dice are Bloodwyn and Love Me Do IMO.

 

i wonder if they were self-consciously referencing shakespeare's antony and cleopatra for "we're for the dark":

IRAS: Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,
And we are for the dark.

 

Mexican 45 Single​