Straight Up (album)

Straight Up
Studio album by Badfinger
Released	13 December 1971 (US) 11 February 1972 (UK)
Recorded	June - July 1971 at Abbey Road Studios, AIR Studios, London
Genre	Power pop
Length	42:11
Label	Apple SAPCOR 19
Producer	Todd Rundgren George Harrison
Badfinger chronology
No Dice (1970) Straight Up (1971) Ass (1973)

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Review scores
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Allmusic
Allmusic

Straight Up is the third album by power pop band Badfinger, released on December 13, 1971. It is widely regarded as Badfinger's best album, spawning two Top 20 singles in the U.S. and being commercially successful in its own right. The album was released on the The Beatles' Apple Records label and was unavailable for many years after it closed. It became a highly sought-after album by collectors until it was finally re-issued on CD in 1993.

History

Recordings for Straight Up began in early 1971 under the direction of producer Geoff Emerick at Abbey Road Studios, who produced the bulk of Badfinger's preceding album No Dice. Although these early recordings were completed and both the album and a single, "Name of the Game", were ready to be released, Apple Records co-president George Harrison decided the album could be improved under his personal direction, which led the single to be canceled and all the material recorded up to that point to be shelved. Harrison recorded a couple of new tracks with the band in the summer of 1971, as well as re-recording a couple of the original tracks. He can be heard playing a slide-guitar duet with Pete Ham on the song "Day After Day", with Leon Russell featured on piano. Additionally, Harrison and Phil Spector planned a different string arrangement for "Name of the Game", but this apparently never came to pass.

Due to a hurriedly assembled benefit concert that summer, The Concert for Bangladesh, at which Badfinger performed, Harrison lost interest in the Straight Up project and did not return to it after the concert. Apple retained Todd Rundgren to finish the album. Rundgren utilised recordings begun by both Emerick and Harrison, re-recorded some of them, and also recorded several new tracks with the band (notably "Baby Blue") in less than a month. (It had already taken the band over a year to record what songs they had.) Although production credit for individual songs on the album is given to both Rundgren and Harrison, Rundgren did the final mix of the entire album (and was upset that he was given neither a co-production nor a mixing credit for any of the Harrison songs).

Consistent with the title of the album, the front cover featured a "straight up" picture of Badfinger, with no credits or titles marring the image. The title was instead shown on the back cover.

The album was remastered by Ron Furmanek at Abbey Road Studios in March 1992. The remastered album was released by Capitol Records in 1993 with five bonus tracks. The first four were all early alternate versions of songs that would end up on Straight Up recorded in early 1971 for the originally intended follow up to 1970's No Dice. This untitled album was abruptly canceled by Apple and when Badfinger regrouped to record their next album they discarded these early tapes in favor of starting from scratch. Three other tracks from these same sessions were released as bonus tracks on the remastered version of No Dice in 1992. The final bonus track is the U.S. single mix of "Baby Blue", the difference being a reverberated snare drum.

While it was originally claimed that the remastering of the entire Badfinger catalog was done from the original two track stereo master mix tapes, this was proved false as the original master tapes were thought lost until recently. in 2010, EMI announced a new round of remasters for Badfinger's Apple releases that would possibly rectify this.

Reaction

Despite the album's subsequent popularity with both fans and music critics, the album was viciously panned by critic (and previous Badfinger booster) Mike Saunders in Rolling Stone (calling it "a barely decent album, one which is the poorest of Badfinger's three LPs and by far the least likeable"), and Badfinger became vocal in expressing reservations with Rundgren's production technique. Ham complained about the band losing production input, and Joey Molland claimed that the album had lost energy compared to No Dice. Although Apple had chosen Rundgren to return as the original producer of the next Badfinger album, he departed the project after just four days, about the same time as the publication of the Rolling Stone pan of Straight Up.

Also, the last thing the band wanted to hear at that time was that the record sounded like The Beatles, which the group had heard ever since Maybe Tomorrow, and the fact that ex-Beatle Harrison and noted Beatles imitator Rundgren had produced it didn't help their ability to deny that charge.

Straight Up peaked at number 31 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. The singles "Day After Day" and "Baby Blue" peaked at number 4 and number 14, respectively, on the U.S. Pop Singles chart. However, because of the turmoil within Apple, "Baby Blue" was not released as a single in the U.K.

When Straight Up was finally issued on CD in 1993, five of the original Emerick-produced recordings, including the canceled single version of "Name of the Game", were included as bonus tracks.

"Baby Blue" was later featured in the soundtrack for the 2006 Martin Scorsese film The Departed.

Track listing

Side one

1. "Take It All" (Ham) – 4:25
2. "Baby Blue" (Ham) – 3:37
3. "Money" (Evans) – 3:29
4. "Flying" (Evans/Molland) – 2:38
5. "I'd Die Babe" (Molland) – 2:33
6. "Name of the Game" (Ham) – 5:19

Side two

7. "Suitcase" (Molland) – 2:53
8. "Sweet Tuesday Morning" (Molland) – 2:31
9. "Day After Day" (Ham) – 3:09
10. "Sometimes" (Molland) – 2:56
11. "Perfection" (Ham) – 5:07
12. "It's Over" (Evans) – 3:34

1993 CD Bonus tracks

13. "Money" [Original Version] (Evans) - 4:20
14. "Flying" [Original Version] (Evans/Molland) - 2:25
15. "Name of the Game" [Original Version] (Ham) - 4:27
16. "Suitcase" [Original Version] (Molland) - 3:20
17. "Perfection" [Original Version] (Ham) - 4:41
18. "Baby Blue" [US Single Mix] (Ham) - 3:35

CD bonus tracks 2010 remaster (replaces previous bonus tracks)

13. "I'll Be the One" (Evans, Gibbins, Ham, Molland) - 2:57
14. "Name of the Game" [Earlier Version] (Ham) - 4:24
15. "Baby Blue" [US Single Mix] (Ham) - 3:36
16. "Baby Please" - 3:05
17. "No Good At All" - 2:10
18. "Sing for the Song" - 3:20

Canceled 1971 album track listing

This is the original track listing of the Geoff Emerick-produced album completed by Badfinger in early 1971 that was later canceled. With the expanded 2010 remasters of Badfinger's first four albums, all of these tracks have now been officially released.

Side One

1. "Suitcase" (Molland)
2. "I'll Be the One" (Ham/Evans/Molland/Gibbins)
3. "No Good at All" (Evans)
4. "Sweet Tuesday Morning" (Molland)
5. "Baby Please" (Ham/Molland/Gibbins)
6. "Mean, Mean Jemima" (Molland)

Side Two

1. "Name of the Game" (Ham)
2. "Loving You" (Gibbins)
3. "Money/Flying" (Evans/Molland/Evans)
4. "Sing for the Song" (Evans)
5. "Perfection" (Ham)

Personnel

Badfinger

• Pete Ham – Guitar, Piano, Vocals
• Tom Evans – Bass, Vocals
• Joey Molland – Guitar, Vocals
• Mike Gibbins – Drums

Others

• George Harrison – Slide Guitar on "Day After Day", Producer (+)
• Leon Russell – Piano on "Day After Day", Guitar on "Suitcase"
• Klaus Voorman - Electric Piano on "Suitcase"
• Todd Rundgren – Producer
• Bill Collins - Accordion on "Sweet Tuesday Morning"
• Geoff Emerick – Producer (++)

CD Reissue Credits

• Ron Furmanek – Research
• Peter Mew – Engineer (for CD release only)
• Mike Jarratt – Engineer (for CD release only)
• Marcia McGovern – Pre-Production Director (for CD release only)
• Roberta Ballard – Production Manager (for CD release only)
• Gene Mahon – Design (for CD release only)
• Richard DiLello – Design, Photography
• Andy Davis – Liner Notes (for CD release only)