Happy Anniversary: Bad Company, Burnin’ Sky

39 years ago today, Bad Company released their fourth LP, an effort which found the band putting another album into the top 20 of Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart but is remembered by Company members more as the point where they realized just how badly they needed to take a break.

Burnin’ Sky was received pretty well when it first hit record store shelves, with Rolling Stone offering the compliment that the album featured “a crisp, streamlined sound and a noticeable softening of the band's synthetic macho posing.” (No, really, that’s intended as a compliment.) The title track was the album’s only hit, and it was a minor one at that, stalling well before ever hitting the top 40, but the boys in Bad Company had bigger problems to deal with.

“I can’t remember much about 1977,” admitted bassist Boz Burrell, in an interview with Melody Maker. “We ended up shaking. Our bottle had gone and we were killing ourselves, so we knocked it on the head.”

“We agreed between ourselves that we needed some time off to get the thrill back,” drummer Simon Kirke told Creem. “So that’s what we did.”

That said, there are still some thrills to be found in Burnin’ Sky, thanks to engineer Chris Kimsey working his magic with Bad Company and – as hinted at in the Rolling Stone review – tweaking their sound just enough to keep it powerful while not making it sound like they were trying too hard. Indeed, songs like “Morning Sun” and “Everything I Need” should’ve been hits, and the title track deserved to be bigger than it was.

Don’t believe us? Give Burnin’ Sky another listen and hear for yourself.