Badfinger-Straight Up (1971)

"Straight Up" is a pop-rock masterpiece that however did not have the success or recognition it should.
It was the Beatle George Harrison who would choose to produce this album initially after Apple Records (owned by The Beatles) initially rejected the album.
Eventually it would be Todd Rundgren who would oversee the production before it was released in 1971.
An album that contains jewels such as "Day After Day" where Harrison himself appears as a guest on guitars and Leon Russell on piano.
A song nowadays so vindicated, that it was a successful single that could have gone much further if it were not for the fact that the record label itself was going through its low hours.
The album also contained very remarkable titles like "Name Of The Game", "Take It All" or "I´d Die Baby" that made up a colossal album that unfortunately (a constant in Badfinger) could not have gone much further.

Badfinger-Wish You Were Here (1974)

Badfinger's last great album was anything but lucky. Despite containing a dreamy repertoire of power pop-rock, it suffered a series of setbacks that hampered its promotional reach and ultimately led to its complete failure. But to understand this story, we must go back to the end of 1973, when Badfinger left The Beatles' Apple Records to sign with the powerful Warner Bros. label. With Warner Bros., they released the brilliant "Badfinger" (1974), but due to poor planning, it was released almost simultaneously with their last album for Apple Records, "Ass." This significantly diminished its promotional impact, as two different works by the same band were competing for the same label. To mitigate this failure, the band released "Wish You Were Here" nine months later, Badfinger's sixth album chronologically. It showcased the group's astonishing ability to create captivating and irresistible songs with exquisite instrumentation, as demonstrated by tracks like "Dennis", "Just A Chance", "You're So Fine", "Got to Get Out of Here", "Love Time", and "King of the Load". However, at the time of the album's release, Warner Bros. learned that Badfinger's manager, Stan Polley, had misappropriated over a quarter of a million dollars of the band's advances for unclear reasons, ignoring a formal demand for their return. The band's contract was frozen, meaning all promotional activity for the album was halted, condemning it to complete obscurity and commercial failure.

Badfinger-No Dice (1970)

Mentored by The Beatles themselves, Badfinger's career was anything but successful. From mismanagement and fraud by their manager to the bankruptcy of Apple Records, owned by The Beatles, and the suicides of two of its members, their story is as tragic as it is terrifying. However, musically, this band stood out for its powerful pop-rock compositions, with undeniable melodic sensitivity. Due to the aforementioned circumstances, luck always eluded them. "No Dice" was their second album, following a commendable debut that already contained gems like "Come and Get It", a song written by Paul McCartney, and where the band began to have complete freedom to compose their own material. Here you'll find gems like the rock and roll anthems "I Can't Take It" and "Love Me Do", emotive melodic ballads such as "Believe Me", "We're For The Dark", and "Without You", and energetic tracks like "Better Days" and "No Matter What". Some time later, singer Harry Nilsson covered "Without You", making it a worldwide hit and sparking controversy, as the band wasn't receiving the royalties they were legally entitled to as the song's official authors. Despite the album's undeniable quality, and due to a twist of fate, "No Dice" didn't achieve the success it deserved, peaking at number twenty-eight on the charts.

Badfinger-Badfinger (1974)

With the Welsh band Badfinger's fifth album, the saying "if something can go wrong, it will" proved true. In a terrible decision by the group's new record label, Warner Bros., the album was released almost simultaneously with their fourth, which had been released on Apple Music, the label previously owned by The Beatles. As a result, both albums competed in record stores that year. Despite this new commercial setback, "Badfinger", as this fifth work is titled, contained enough material to have achieved success, material that, as with their previous releases, never fully materialized commercially. As was their custom, Pete Ham became the main songwriter on this new release; the album's best moments are his, even though his creativity and inspiration weren't quite what they used to be. Tracks like the sublime "I Miss You" or the catchy "Shine On" are examples of Badfinger's impeccable power/pop rock prowess, while the elaborate "Give It Up", the Beatles-esque "Song For A Lost Friend", the rocking "Island" or the energetic "Andy Norris", showed that despite countless legal and financial problems, Badfinger were still at the pinnacle of British power rock.