Bad Boy (1978)
1. Who Needs a Heart 2. Bad Boy 3. Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette) 4. Heart on My Sleeve 5. Where Did Our Love Go? 6. Hard Times 7. Tonight 8. Monkey See Monkey Do 9. Old Time Relovin' 10.A Man Like Me
After topping the charts and being such a huge, unexpected success as a solo artist only five years earlier, Ringo would pretty much always find himself chasing that elusive stardom, never really coming close to capturing the early magic. In his latter days, it was obvious that it didn't particularly bother him, but during the late seventies, you have to wonder if the sad-eyed insecure Liverpudlian was having some inner struggles about not being loved as he once was. This album finds Ringo leaving the disco-dance themes of the disastrous Ringo the 4th and going back to the simple sounds of pleasant pop, some new, some borrowed.
With most Ringo albums, this one is a mixed bag. There are a couple of major retro sounding songs, including the title cut which is somewhat ruined by the annoying lyric "Bad Boy-oy-oy-oy-oy etc. etc." that sounds as if he's trying too hard to sound doo-wop. Curiously, the Supremes hit Where Did Our Love Go is covered, not something that one would thing would be well represented by Starr, but I think the song is rather good. Of course, with the right production, anyone covering that song would sound o.k.
This album is heavily front-loaded. Either that or I just get tired around track number 7 (the only thing really dance oriented from the turbulent decade is that track Tonight). The opening song Who Needs a Heart as well as Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette) probably deserve slightly more credit than they received.
Not a bad Ringo album, and a big improvement from the last time.