Bad Company - Desolation Angels

What am i supposed to do with Bad Company's fifth album? Mike DeGagne tells me it sounds better than their fourth (even though the addition of keyboards and other stuff doesn't make it exciting at all), it's definitely better than their next (and Paul Rogers's last), and it's an unfulfilling listen in spite of it's great moments. It sold well, but the next one didn't, so everybody gave up on them, i guess? Is it bad? Is it only underwhelming if you love Bad Company's earlier albums? I don't know, let's find out.

What the hell are Desolation Angels? I know it's  half of a Kerouac novel, but Paul Rogers had wanted to use that title for an album with his previous band, so this album clearly can't be about the actual book. Angels of desolation? Angels of the desolate? Angels who are themselves desolate? Are the band members angels? Are the songs angels? Are they just songs about the clash between fantasy and reality? Is the cover just the four years earlier inspiration for Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl"?

"Rock and Roll Fantasy" (the last hit from the original lineup) certainly sets up an album about how it's all fake and empty and unfulfilling, so where does it go from there? Back to acoustic rock, and that dumb life is a carousel and we want off metaphor (tragically he uses the actual world "carousel," a big no-no in my book as you already know). Another girl left me, time to drink with my buddies.

Parenthetical aside: "Gone, Gone, Gone" is a garbage song. The music is fine, the lyrics are structurally fine, but that goddamned misogynistic idea that a woman is only there to please you and you're going to hire an actual maid to wine and dine makes me want to puke.

Back to the struggle, the universe is out to get us and i just want to go home. "I love you because i want to"? Is that a threat? I can't hear "Early in the Morning" as anything other than what he's saying when he stumbles in at 4am and passes out with his boots still on.

Well, that was side a. On to part 2 i guess.

"Lonely for your love," is self explanatory. He's a touring musician, headed back to Atlanta, GA (just like the women, this is that same empty schtick about the thing in front of you being the "greatest" thing ever). Side b is what i think of as Country Rock, and insincerity is the key idea lurking under the surface. "I'm a piece of crap, but someday i'll figure out how to make you love me." "I'm a rhythm machine (nudge nudge, hur hur)." "Sometimes my conscience tells me i'm useless and all i really need is for you to love me, nameless generic female."

I read an interview with Dave Mustaine yesterday where he said about early Metallica "we just assumed all managers were drug dealers." That's the level of naiveté i hear in this album. I get what they are aiming for, we're all looking for something meaningful in this destinationless trek through life. But, this album isn't it. It's not self aware, it's not clever, it's just another dumb group of vacuous Valentine's Day sentiments. But there again, i'm giving it too much credit. It's not intentional, it's onomatopoeic. It's not ABOUT why we lose the fire and give up, it's what giving up sounds like; we'll just write some crap songs and play some shows, 'cause we can't or won't actually quit yet. Maybe in a few years the next album will be more fun (oh no it won't).

That's the lyrics side, what about the rest of it? The music is fine. The music is great. It sounds like Bad Company. Why the wishy-washy reception? Well, i have the benefit of knowing that it's simultaneously a throwback to early 70s jock rock and about 6 years ahead of it's time. People actually living in 1979 couldn't have that perspective, people in the mid-80s and 90s weren't looking back fondly on the 70s at all, people like me have such a gut reaction to the nonsensical man-child dominated ethos that it's automatically trash. It's a document of a mindset we don't want to revisit, but it still very much exists all around us right now.

That feminist flavor of Emmylou Harris i remarked upon? Yeah, it's the other side of this argument (made a year earlier), and no wonder i find it much more appealing. This isn't Steppenwolf's For Ladies Only, by a longshot. This isn't sappy "you complete me" puppy-dog love, or "i'm a loser, and you SHOULD leave me" self awareness, this is "it's your job to make me happy or i'll find someone else" drivel.

None of which is intentional. This is one of the least authentic albums i've ever heard, but that's clearly not what they were trying to make. It's simply a reflection of how little they actually cared at that point in their career. DeGagne was right, this is the sound of Bad Company calling it quits, so they probably just should have.

Please, something else i beg you