Straight Up is Badfinger's third album for The Beatles' Apple Records. Twelve songs in all, it has 10 good-to-excellent songs and two outstanding songs [Day After Day and Baby Blue, both singles written by Pete Ham]. It has been very hard to find on CD until 2010, when Apple re-released the entire Apple catalog. Included on the new release are six bonus tracks, some of which were recorded with Geoff Emerick producing. The album had been originally recorded between January and March 1971 with Geoff Emerick. George Harrison heard the album and rejected its release, telling them "you can do better." When I hear the Emerick-produced early versions compared with those subsequently produced by either George Harrison or Todd Rundgren, I agree with George's assessment. The songs are good, they don't sound bad at all but Badfinger could do better, and they did.
George produced four songs with the band [Day After Day, I'd Die Babe, Name of the Game, and Suitcase] before he had to back out and tend to making the arrangements for The Concert for Bangladesh. George was so taken with Day After Day that he asked the band if he could play on it. If you're familiar with the song, that's him playing slide guitar with Pete Ham. George heard Name of the Game had potential to be the third single from Straight Up, so he arranged for two remixes to try to get a sound he was looking for. He didn't find the elusive sounds, so Name of the Game was never released as a single. It's still a very good song and remained an album track. Suitcase was written by guitarist Joey Molland about his experiences on the road touring. George Harrison came up with the arrangement. Originally it had the words Pusher pusher, on the run but George said "they won't play it on the radio, so Joey changed Pusher, pusher to Butcher, butcher. George plays guitar on I'd Die Babe. He also helped Joey Molland finish the lyrics [uncredited].
When George Harrison relinquished his production duties, he brought in Todd Rundgren to finish what George had left unfinished. Out of these sessions came Baby Blue, Pete Ham's love letter to someone with whom he had a relationship on tour [his "Dixie dear.."]. Pete Ham and Joey Molland had five songs each on Straight Up, while bassist Tom Evans claimed the other two [he co-wrote on of Joey Molland's songs, Flying]. On their previous two releases [Magic Christian Music and No Dice], Joey Molland wasn't as much of a songwriting presence. But on Straight Up he delivers. Given that Straight Up was rejected once, and had three producers, it's a good sounding record. The songs are all solid, and the band played well. Much has been written about how "Beatlesque" Badfinger's sound was, and that was a double-edged sword for them. They were often derided as second-rate Beatles. They got help first from Paul McCartney, then George Harrison, so how could they help from sounding a little bit like the Fab Four? But taken on it's own merits, Badfinger's sound [tight harmonies, three capable lead singers, loads of guitars, the odd bit of piano, and all four members wrote songs] worked for them. I like their stuff. This is textbook English power pop. If you have the chance, give Straight Up a spin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ8V-FrrGJE
Day After Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C53QAuOoSgc
Baby Blue
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