Music Video Of the Week - January 30, 2026

"Run With the Pack" by Bad Company  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Too "Late" For the Hall

It finally happened.  Joe Cocker, who died in 2014, is finally getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.

Now, I have largely stopped commenting on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a rule, mainly because I thought it jumped the shark long ago with dubious inductions and a very, very, very loose definition of rock and roll to include dance-pop singers and to include rappers in the name of "diversity."  But I have to say that Joe Cocker's induction this year is well-deserved.  It is altogether fitting that I should say so.

It is also appropriate that I should applaud the induction of Bad Company, one of the very few rock supergroups that lived (note tense) up to the promise of and the hype over their formation.  And I do.  But the induction comes in retrospect of BadCo frontman Paul Rodgers' well-founded suspicion of the very idea of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  When record producer Ahmet Ertegun, in 1986, helped Jann Wenner get the project going, he asked Rodgers for his support.  Rodgers, then in Jimmy Page's post-Led Zeppelin group the Firm (which was as much an embarrassing disappointment as Bad Company was not), declined the opportunity.  Rock and roll, he said at the time, wasn't something to be celebrated in a museum but instead was a living, breathing entity that had a spirit meant to be celebrated by playing the records or performing your own music rather than building a fancy temple in which to honor it.  (I'm liberally paraphrasing here.)  

Something must have happened to make Rodgers acquiesce to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's mission to honor rock and roll musicians by means other than playing a record or taking in (or putting on) a show.  Oh, right,  rap exploded and smug stars of that pop form take pleasure in seeing rock decline and fall and in seeing its younger practitioners live in their parents' basements and getting nowhere because no record label wants to sign a new rock band these days and, besides, the old veterans are still bankable acts.  In short, rock is not a living, breathing entity anymore.

Even if rock were still as relevant as it used to be and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame weren't the joke it has become, I still would be as much in favor of Bad Company's induction as I am now.  I'm only sorry it didn't happen sooner.  Bad Company guitarist Mick Ralphs, who had previously been in Mott the Hoople, died recently, leaving Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke - both of whom had been in Free - the only surviving members of the original 1974-1982 lineup.  (Bassist Boz Burrell died in 2006.)  The belated and posthumous inductions of Joe Cocker and Bad Company's Mick Ralphs are, in a sadly ironic way, just another reason why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can no longer be taken seriously. 

Music Video Of the Week - April 11, 2025

"Good Lovin' Gone Bad" by Bad Company  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - July 19, 2024

"Can't Get Enough" by Bad Company  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Bad Company - Run With the Pack (1976)

Run With the Pack, Bad Company's third album, is a recycling of the band's previous two albums, regurgitating hooks and riffs without anything new or fresh to offer.  So what?  It's still good, dude!  Bad Company's music was as reliable as a Dodge Dart, and it was also just as unpretentious and devoid of flash as that venerable old Dodge; that may not be how I like my cars (GTI fan that I am), but it's how I like my seventies classic rock.

Run With the Pack is a record from a band that doesn't have anything to prove and whose members are comfortable in their own skins.  Paul Rodgers continues to handle sharp, heavy rockers like "Live for the Music" and "Sweet Little Sister" and sultry ballads like "Love Me Somebody" and "Do Right By Your Woman" with aplomb, and the support he gets from his bandmates remains as solid.  Mick Ralphs still offers plenty of crunchy guitar parts with some solos that range from delicate to biting, and bassist Boz Burrell and drummer Simon Kirke keep everything together with steady, albeit unspectacular (again, who cares about that?) rhythmic backing.   

And yes, there are tracks here that stand out as Bad Company's best work throughout their original eight-year lifespan.  Not only will you find a quirky and endearing heavy-rock cover of the Coasters' "Young Blood" here, but the majestic title track, with its commanding orchestration in the fadeout, and the heartfelt tearjerker "Silver, Blue and Gold" are two of the best power ballads anyone's ever done.  Even if Bad Company were running with the pack of unchallenging mainstream rockers who were almost begging for the Sex Pistols to rise up in rebellion, they were still ahead of the pack in offering up an enjoyable record at a time when many of the rest of them were running behind.