Listening to Paul Rodgers’s in-between song patter on this album, the feeble sex joke with which he introduces Morning Sun, you feel that Bad Company belonged not so much to heavier, metaller times but gentler, simpler times.
Yet they could really play; ex-Mott The Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs probably deserves to be better known for the immense, dazzling fluidity of his playing. Meanwhile, Feel Like Making Love, which ends the 1977 disc, still breaks bad.
All the same, Bad Company felt like they’d have been more content in a barroom than in a stadium. By 1979, they were still in demand, despite New Wave and its new era. Rhythm Machine, however, is not a reference to synth pop but to R&B, of which the song in question is a prime slice, though it’s their grimly humungous version of the ubiquitous Hey Joe which stands out on this collection.
