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Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Excellent Album! This band should have been huge!
Comment: What an album! Especially Pete Ham's songs - this guy was an incredible songwriter! I'd always heard the Beatles comparisons but always thought - C'mon! No way! I mean I knew Badfinger was a good band but I had really only known the big hits - "Day After Day" from this album and "No Matter What" from NO DICE. I always thought they were great songs but never looked any further.
Then I remember hearing "Baby Blue" about 3 years ago (in the movie The Departed I believe) - I'm in my mid-thirties and don't know how this GEM of a song slipped by me. After that I decided to look into the band, so I bought STRAIGHT UP. There isn't a bad song on this album - "Take It All", "Name of the Game", "Baby Blue" and "Day After Day" are all written by Pete Ham, and they really stand out as brillant songs! Joey Molland ("Suitcase") and Tom Evans ("It's Over") also have some really good songs on here.
I realize now that Pete Ham was a musical/ pop/ rock genius! I mean he really was - listen to all the songs he wrote for Badfinger - through all of the albums - and you'll most likely agree. And he could play guitar man! Watch any live version of "Suitcase" on YouTube to find out.
It really saddens me to think that the band really got screwed... royally screwed!! Bad management buried these guys!! A real tragedy! Pete really should have stuck around - there was so much more he could have done.
Give Badfinger a few listens and you'll be hooked - I highly recommend STRAIGHT UP and WISH YOU WERE HERE to start with - 2 awesome albums!
((( I heard on a thread that new Badfinger remasters with original liner notes are due out October 2010 - everything up to the WB releases - same people behind the Beatles remasters - Joey Molland mentioned it in an interview recently)) Might want to hold out until then!?!
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Pure Pop Perfection!
Comment: I'm a long-time Beatles and Badfinger fan, and I've heard all their albums many many dozens of times, so it's pretty hard at this late date to be surprised by relistening to any one of their records.
That changed the other day when I put the remastered Straight Up in my car cd player.
From start to finish, this record is pure pop perfection, as good an album as any latter-day Beatles or Macca record, and perhaps better in some instances.
Among the many highlights -- the opening track, "Take It All," is timeless, with brilliant three-part harmonies and shined to a production tee by the great Todd Rundgren.
In fact, you can appreciate Todd's craft simply by listening to the original production tracks that are added on to the re-release. Although the first versions of "Flying" or "Money" still sound great, they are a different animal under Todd's crisp, deep, resonant production.
Putting aside the massive pop construction of songs like "Baby Blue" or "Day After Day" this record flies like Lady Madonna, Let It Be, or Macca' Ram with gems like "Perfection" and the tremendous closer "It's Over."
This is a remarkable achievement and easily one of the most underrated records from what I consider to be the finest period in rock music.
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: NOTHING BAD HERE
Comment: When I think of Badfinger I think of passion. For all it's perfect production qualities, Todd Rundgren and George Harrison could not drown out the passion of Straight Up. From beginning to end, the heart, soul & passion of this masterpiece comes through. Yes the sound is hauntingly Beatlesque. But there is so much more depth here that it would be a shame to place Straight Up in that Beatles box.
Badfinger was behind the eight ball from it's inception. Being compared to the greatest rock band of all time can only finish in tradgedy. If you sound too much like them, you loose. If you sound similar to them you can never come out from under their immense shadow and thus are never given any credit for originality.
Straight up is a great record. Badfinger could have been a great band, had they been given half the chance to let it be.
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: This is who I am
Comment: Awesome CD!!! Rave reviews; I recommend this for anyone who truly has a soul!
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: No Respect
Comment: Sadly, Badfinger was a band that never got much respect from the critics. It was generally criticized for being, at best, a Beatles "sound alike" and, at worst, a Beatles imitator. "Badfinger recycles familiar riffs and harmonies in far less striking configurations" says The Rolling Stone Album Guide. There was plenty of other circumstantial evidence. Paul McCartney wrote their first hit, George Harrison produced some of the tracks for STRAIGHT UP, and they were on the Beatles' Apple label. Frankly, I don't know enough about music to judge the accuracy or fairness of all this. I only know what I like when I hear it, and I like both STRAIGHT UP and its predecessor, NO DICE, a lot.
STRAIGHT UP was originally recorded not too long after the release of NO DICE, the intent being to capitalize on the moderate success of that set. George Harrison produced much of it. The album's release was delayed, however, and eventually Todd Rundgren was brought in as producer and many of the tracks were re-recorded. The current CD contains the album that was ultimately released with Rundgren as producer, as well as some of the original tracks produced by Harrison. Personally, I'm glad Rundgren was brought in. I like the tracks done with him producing much better than the older ones.
This is a very listenable album. The twelve tracks originally released are a pleasure; there isn't a loser among them. My personal favorites include "Take It All", "Money", "Flying", "Suitcase", "Day After Day", "Sometimes" and "Perfection". "Baby Blue" and "Day After Day" were the Top 40 hits. Some are ballads and some are rockers, but nice vocal harmonies abound, there are lots of nice melodies and catchy riffs, and I particularly enjoy the jangly percussion and the guitar solo into the fade-out on "Perfection". Favorites and hits aside, though, I often just put the CD in and listen to the whole thing. There's not a bad cut in there anywhere.
Whatever the validity of all the criticism, it all ended tragically for Badfinger and, especially, for some of the bandmembers. It's all water under the bridge, now. Whether or not these guys were mining Beatles material for their music, the result sounds pretty darn good. It seems to me that if a rock band is going to look somewhere for inspiration, Beatles music is a pretty good place to start. The results are pleasing to the ear, and that's what counts.
I had a hard time coming up with a rating for STRAIGHT UP. I'll concede that Badfinger was never as original or unique as some of the other great bands of the period, particularly the Beatles. They never did anything to rival albums like "SGT. PEPPER...", WHO'S NEXT, EXILE ON MAIN STREET, LED ZEPPLIN IV, RUMOURS, or some others I could name. On the other hand, I like this album very much and still listen to it a lot. I decided to call it 4.5 stars and round up to five. Again, this isn't quite one of the real greats of classic rock, but it's an excellent piece of work and a pleasure to listen to. If you like classic pop/rock, you'll like STRAIGHT UP.
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