The BADFINGER Album-By-Album Thread

Allegedly, the day before Tommy died he got into a fight with Joey over the songwriting royalties for Without You; Just out of curiosity; what would have been Joey's claim regarding those?

 

How does the DCC CD release of “Straight Up” rate versus the 2010 CD remaster release?

 

I felt they really did a fantastic job on those Badfinger titles in 2010. Steve did an awesome job on the DCC, it sounds killer -- light years ahead of the first Apple CD remaster -- but the 2010 was at least as good, to be honest, as the DCC.

 

none, and the proof was that the first cd that came with the book has both "halves" of the song sung by the respective partners
Joey did not challenge the cd; and believe me, those two cds are very careful about putting out full band material that Joey plays on, almost all of it is demos or Iveys.

 

I like the DCC Gold (thank you Steve Hoffman!) At least DCC recognized and promoted two "Classic Rock" albums in their reissues series!

I love the clarity on the Apple Remasters Straight Up is amazing detailed with music and vocals, and some wonderful Bonus tracks/digital downloads [or just p/u The Apple Boxset]

It would be even more amazing if Apple considered Super Deluxe Boxsets to celebrate 50th Anniversary of their albums...fingers-crossed.

 

One of my all-time favorites. I remember getting a German Apple pressing of "Straight Up" for my 20th birthday, after years of searching. Prior to that first spin, the only song I'd heard was "Day After Day." I quickly found out that there was more to this album than just that one song. "Baby Blue" and "Perfection" quickly became favorites, but the entire album is solid from start to finish. After finishing that first spin, I made the decision to champion Badfinger to my dying day. I've bought many copies of "Straight Up", since that time, but the German Apple pressing is still my go-to.

 

I've seen Joey a couple of times in concert and he even credits the other guys with writing the song so, could it be that he felt all the songwriting done by the band should shared as part of the Badfinger partnership? Im just curious as to why he thought he was entitled to money for a song he wasn't credited as a writer on.

 

What you see as "careful", I see as spiteful.

 

That's possible. I always thought that Joey and Tommy were both just simply desperate for money at the time, and Joey saw a potential windfall of money coming Tom's way (whether he honestly thought he was entitled to it or not) and wanted to get a piece of it.

I wouldn't try to justify that line of thinking with anything more than saying desperate times, desperate measures. I've heard and read people try to implicate Joey for what happened in the wake of this argument, which is incredibly unfair. Tommy's lengthy interview with Glenn A. Baker (issued on the Apple Daze CD) and the phone recordings of him talking about Joey in the days before his death portray a troubled, beaten man. Beaten by booze and drugs, beaten by the cruel music business and unscrupulous business managers, beaten by the unrelenting guilt of his friend's suicide 8 years earlier.

People are quick to point fingers and forget that Joey was ripped off and left without a dime as well. These guys were both in pretty dire situations -- but one of them happened to have been a severely depressed alcoholic plagued with anguish.

 

I love both No Dice and Straight Up and consider them two of the three strongest Badfinger albums (Wish You Were Here being among the top three).

To my ears Straight Up has greater highs but deeper lows. No Dice is pretty consistent in terms of songwriting (with few exceptions). But No Dice doesn't appear to aspire to more than being a solid power pop album, while Straight Up is a more ambitious effort.

Also, they couldn't sound more different. No Dice is a raw four piece rock band album. Straight Up is much more polished and produced. They are different enough that I have to decide which Badfinger I am in the mood for when choosing between the two.

It should be noted that Baby Blue is one of the best power pop songs ever released and Day After Day is one of the most elegant ballads in rock. Home runs both.

 

Nicely said. Curious what you consider to be the lows on Straight Up, though. IMO there's no filler, and certainly nothing as disappointing as "Love Me Do".

 

You are correct that Love Me Do is the weakest song from either album. I tend to overlook that one as, to my ears, it almost feels like it could have been a different band - it is so different from the rest of the album. As to Straight Up, I usually skip Money & Suitcase. And I think I'd Die Babe and Sweet Tuesday Morning are nothing special. With the exception of Love Me Do, any song on No Dice is as good or better than those.

All of the above is, of course, one guys opinion. Your mileage does vary.

 

It sure does!

 

Great live version with excellent lead work from Pete:

 

Yes, that's Kenny Rogers, and no, that's not Mike Gibbins. Rob Stawinski (of Doug Fieger's pre-Knack band Sky) on drums filling in during a 1972 American tour:

 

Straight Up is stronger than Magic Christian Music and weaker than No Dice for me. I never go out of my way to listen to "Suitcase", "Flying" or "Sweet Tuesday Morning", but I'll blast "Baby Blue", "Day After Day", "Sometimes" and "I'd Die Babe" constantly.

 

Badfinger's story is a tragedy, their business dealings like many others is terribly unfortunate.

 

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Here is a group that for me did not put out a bad album up to 1975, every one of them (and Ivey's Maybe Tomorrow included) is 'must have'. In a pinch I might say the self-titled first Warner's one is the weak one. I would also say all the unreleased and Pete's demos are also essential. They deserved so much better because they were so talented! Is there a collection of Tom demos? I have three sets for Pete's.

 

Re: anti- Joey slant... I seem to remember that Dan Matovina at least in the original edition noted he was unable to get much in interviews with Joey and Kathie Molland as they had been planning their own Badfinger book. From the book my picture was that they and Tom Evans were very critical of the business side of things (yet still signed things eventually and got burned and ripped off). Joey was smart enough to leave too. I didn't notice much from Matovina that was negative (first edition is the one I have, and a copy of the later edition CD) but there were things in interviews with other people that were. I'm interested in Joey's work before and after Badfinger though, and I respect his talent quite a bit. He did sometimes show a negativistic Liverpool sense of humour, not so unlike Lennon and Harrison among others, that could really rub some the wrong way.

 

not yet... 2 where planned back in 2015 through PledgeMusic online and then deleted off the site.

Pledge Music has been in the news recently with many Artist releases delayed.
PledgeMusic's Failed Promise Leaves Artists in Limbo and the Future of Music Crowdfunding in Jeopardy

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So bummed this was withdrawn...

 

It seems Pledge Music just shut everything down across the board, just in case. I know the Keyhole Street set of Pete Ham demos were completely above board and authorized.

 

They all had a deal on the songwriting royalties where all 4 members plus Bill Collins would get a percentage of the songwriting royalties no matter who wrote the song with the actual writers getting a higher percentage. The dispute was whether this arrangement should hold for royalties from a cover version of a song (as the covers of "Without You" generated much more $ than the Badfinger version).