Bad Company had a swagger that no other rock band could match. It was evident from the very beginning, in Can’t Get Enough, their debut single from 1974. And it carried them to dizzying heights, until the end of the 70s, when they eventually lost their way, and the swagger became a stagger.
This new compilation is named after a late-period hit, but majors on the band’s earlier peak years, with 12 of its 19 tracks drawn from the first three albums, Bad Company, Straight Shooter and Run With The Pack. In these 12 are some of the great, era-defining hard rock songs of the 70s: Feel Like Makin’ Love, Shooting Star, the epic Run With The Pack and their moody signature anthem Bad Company.
What this collection lacks is the depth of The Original Bad Company Anthology, the two-CD set issued in 1999, when the band briefly reunited. For that release they recorded four brand new songs, and went back to the archives to pull out previously unreleased tracks from the 70s.
By contrast, Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy has very little to interest the serious fan: just a couple of minor songs, Easy On My Soul and See The Sunlight, in different versions to those on the recently released deluxe editions of Bad Company and Straight Shooter.
Also, on a single disc, there’s no room for some of the band’s greatest songs, notably the soulful ballads Seagull and Do Right By Your Woman. But what’s here is the core material from a brilliant career. And more swagger than Gary Cooper.
