Review: Bad Company "Company of Strangers"

Oh the things I listen to for you, dear reader. I consider myself an AOR fan's savior when I can save your precious time by alerting you to avoid crap like this.

Bad Company, the legendary group who scored huge hits with original vocalist Paul Rodgers, and with his replacement in 1986, Brian Howe. But after Howe left in 1994, poor Robert Hart didn't stand much of a chance. By now, the chemistry in the group had severely deteriorated and the songwriting had become predictable and stale. Robert Hart failed to rekindle the fire of this once great classic rock band. And it did not hurt that by 1995, when this record was released, grunge was still the hot commodity.

But grunge and changing music trends cannot be blamed for the failure of this album. And neither can Robert Hart, who sounds like a Paul Rodgers clone. The songs are just tired and uninspired. We get off to a highly mediocre start with the title track. You wake back up for a bit with track 2, "Clearwater Highway", which gives you reason to be cautiously optimistic. But then it rapidly goes "Down Down Down" from there. "Gimme Gimme" is a fair attempt to recapture the blues rock they mastered in the 70s, but there is no real swing to it, and the hook must be forced. The lyrics on this record are laughable, sponsored by testosterone and understood by people with IQs in the single digits. Speaking of low IQs, the choice to release "Down and Dirty" as the lead off single? Oh, the humanity.

If you like ballads, you may enjoy some of those here - but they're no "If You Needed Somebody." The acoustic number "Little Martha" is quite good, and the piano-driven closer, "Loving You Out Loud" is a quaint and simple love song. "Abandoned and Alone" tries to come off as a smoldering blues ballad, but is just a snooze fest for me. "Where I Belong" works best, sounding like a mellow throwback to 70s, well sung, with some nice chorus harmonies to boot.

To sum up, "Company of Strangers" is largely a bore...a futile attempt to recapture youth, both musically and lyrically. There were three tracks I could find that were not too difficult to stomach.

iPOD-worthy: 2, 6, 11

Bad Company official site.