The BADFINGER Album-By-Album Thread

Alex Bennett worked at WMCA and interviewed Badfinger in studio, took some phone calls for 1 hour in late November of '70 during the Fall US Tour. There's a radio promo ad for No Dice.
No Dice album by Badfinger compiled by Tom Brennan
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My favorites on Magic Christian are:
Rock Of All Ages
Midnight Sun
Carry On Till Tomorrow
and about half of Crimson Ship

Come and Get It is okay, but it's never been a favorite.

The two main things that bother me a lot about some early Badfinger tracks is that "twee-ness" factor. In some ways it's even more offensive that way than straight manufactured bubblegum songs of the late 1960's. The other factor that bothers me is the close-mic recording of the vocals that accentuates every lip-smack sound, and saliva swimming in the guy's mouths as they sing. This shows up in the slower songs that have quieter instrumentation. Why couldn't they fix that? It's disgusting.

 

As a whole album No Dice isn't my favorite. The production on it is great though, and the album art is striking.

But, No Matter What -- that is an amazing record. It is not only my favorite Badfinger recording, on many days it is my favorite recording by anyone, period. I am purposely saying recording because in this instance I think the arrangement, the production, and the performances come together to make the song even better than it inherently is. I mean the song is still a great song, but when it is performed actually live, or performed by someone else, I don't rate the song nearly as great as it is through that one specific recording.

 

a great Live '72 version
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For sure. But if that was all I had of the song I wouldn't be saying it's one of my top favorites of all-time. Probably a solid place in the top 50 or top 100, but for me the extra magic that the record recording adds to it is missing. Even listening to that live version my mind tends to add in the missing aspects that are on the recording to make it more enjoyable.

 

The intro (Ringo & Peter Sellers)) to the film Magic Christian using Carry On Till Tomorrow is indelibly etched on my mind from seeing the film years ago. Great use of the song imo.

 

Not only did Joey not work with Paul, as of two or three years ago anyway, Joey says he’s never even met Paul.

 

Has anyone heard a version of "Come and Get It" with Pete vocals? I know he tried it out (as all of them did), but I've never run across a recording of it.

 

All on a 2008 boot: Beatles outtakes and Cilla Black/Iveys/Badfinger material

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Kathie Molland told me that as well about a year before she passed away.

 

Considering they aren’t playing live in the “Carry On Till Tomorrow” video you’ve linked , Mike’s playing style is really strange looking.

It’s odd enough looking that he plays a lefty kit but then the way he’s leaning playing the opening snare and hi-hat looks weird but when he switches to his alternating toms bit it reminds me of this :

 

Hey, too fast.. I would give each album a few days. There are a lot of Badfinger fans here

Early Badfinger is so ridiculously accomplished that it’s hard to believe they weren’t total professionals.

“Come And Get It” is a great Paul song, and I wish he kept it for himself or the Beatles. Badfinger’s version is a little long “slick”, and too “Paul”. I just want to hear it by McCartney. For an intro to the band, I guess a Beatles song couldn’t be topped, but after being a fan of the group for a while, their version of “Come And Get It” is an oddity to me.

Elsewhere on Magic Christian Music, the band reminds me of a more rocking and confident version of the Hollies, or The Bee Gees. They are immediately one of the best British groups of the time. Something like “Dear Angie” or “Maybe Tomorrow” would be a Hollies classics. “Carry On Til Tomorrow” is a great song. It should be known right along with “Something In The Air”.

“Beautiful And Blue” “Fisherman” is another great “Hollies” song. These “lesser” songs are similar to the better Hollies songs in the post-Nash era. It’s a testament to Badfinger’s talent as a band and as writers.

“Midnight Sun”, “Give It A Try”, and “Rock Of All Ages” foreshadows their future work. Great stuff.

“Walk Out In The Rain” is really good. Another top track on a Hollies album. “Angelique” is an accomplished track. It strikes me as somewhat risky to do a song like this. It’s not totally successful, but it’s still really good.

“Knocking Down Our Home” shows that the group could do “granny music”. It’s okay. It kind of reminds me of Nilsson.

I don’t imagine that Apple had much idea what they had on their hands. Badfinger put out a very accomplished album, and they still had to prove themselves. This album should have put them on the map straightaway.

 

Catching up on tbe thread, No Dice was the first Badfinger album I bought (at the time of its original release) and it knocked me out .
So I went out and bought the Magic Christian Music album after that.

Like others here, I found it ok but I view it as more of a completist thing now. I seldom play it .”My” Badfinger starts with No Dice these days.

I’ve mentioned it in the other ongoing Badfinger thread but I find it fascinating that Mal Evans ended up as producer for some of Badfinger’s things.

As key as Mal was as an overall helper, companion, roadie, etc., for the Beatles he had no music background or talent that I’ve ever read about to all of a sudden become a music producer.

Sitting around watching the Beatles record wouldn’t give him the background to suggest moving parts around in a song or changing harmonies, and on and on.

I sometimes wonder what George Martin the master producer, orchestrator, and arranger thought when he heard good old Mal the Beatles go-fer was sitting in the producers chair for Badfinger ?

 

Definitely gonna give each one 3-4 days moving forward as we move into the meat of the catalog. A full day passed with no traction on Maybe Tomorrow, and the talk about Magic Christian Music petered out after a couple of days and wound up 7-8 pages down. Didn't want the thread to get lost!

 

Great comments!

 

Sorry, I just went to YT and heard this song for the first time, and love it. Reminds me that I need to get the Ivey's songs. I don't have anything before No Dice. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

 

Great!! Not my cup of tea, really -- certainly not what I look for with Badfinger -- but that's cool, glad you like it. Magic Christian Music is not a bad record by any stretch.

 

This thread reminded me of just how much I wish Dan Matovina's book - Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger - was still in print. Never got a copy!

 

I got that book when it was released. It is great, but very depressing, as you can imagine.

 

I guess you know that Joey's post Badfinger band, Natural Gas, wanted Mal to produce their debut (and only) album. Apparently, the label (Private Stock) thought he wanted too much money, so they went with Felix Pappalardi instead. Pappalardi's hearing issues must have started by this time because the production surely does not fit the type of music Natural Gas made. NG had the opening slot on the big Peter Frampton/Gary Wright tour in 1976, the album did receive some positive reviews and the print ads for the album were eye grabbing. In my opinion, the production sank the songs. Sadly, another lost opportunity. (And every copy I had of the album skipped)

 

I like the Magic Christian album, especially Carry On Till Tomorrow and the fantastic vocal harmonies on Come and Get It. No Dice is a great album and the song No Matter What was played a lot where I first heard it (Michigan). While I'm not a big Nilsson fan I do prefer his version of Without You.

I have both of these albums on the US Apple label.

Scott

 

"Midnight Caller" is about as good a rock ballad of that era as anything else out there at the time. Should have been a single.

 

But you can hear lip smacking and mouth saliva!

 

No Dice is my favorite of their albums. It is the most open, what the band should have been.

I think there was resentment of Pete starting from this album. Likely from Joey. Pete had the solo spot for We're For the Dark. I think Pete limited what he submitted to the band since he could write things others couldn't.

 

The book is an invaluable resource for historical information and getting a grasp on how things went down. The one big criticism I have of it is a clear and very strong bias against Joey and Kathie Molland, which Matovina has continued publicly over the past 20 years or so. It points a finger at Joey for much, much more than he probably deserves, almost assigning him the role of villain, particularly against Tom in 1982-1983 -- so there's a lot of unfair blame laid at his feet by the author, IMO. But it does provide some fascinating insight to all the different eras of the band.