Good Company

The news that Rhino will release Bad Company's Swan Song albums digitally makes me happier than I expected. Paul Rodgers has done what could to debase the band's reasonably good name. I remain attached to them for Mick Ralphs' drama-free, perfectly measured power chords. They're not windmilled out, nor contorted or physically blasted out - they simply, suddenly exist full of weight and impact. It's not something that his time in Mott the Hoople revealed, so I take it to be the effect of band chemistry. Whatever - it's a beautiful thing.