The long-form music video has gone the same way as the cassette, music videos on MTV, and the CD single, but back in the day I collected them voraciously. One of my favourites was “Access All Areas”, Bon Jovi’s document of the “New Jersey” tour. Amongst the hair, the excess and the glamour, there was a moment that genuinely stopped me in my tracks: a song I’d never heard before called “Shooting Star”.
I went digging. And that was it. A lifelong love of Bad Company was born.
That song turns up here as track two, with Halestorm taking on “Shooting Star”, and it’s a reminder of just how well these songs stand up when placed in modern hands. They attack it with trademark bombast and conviction, and you can only hope that Lzzy Hale’s legion of fans are inspired to go and discover Bad Company properly, because that’s really the point of a record like this.
“Can’t Get Enough: A Tribute To Bad Company” is, essentially, some of the biggest names in rock and adjacent worlds paying homage to one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll bands of all time. It opens with HARDY, who does exactly what you’d want him to do: he makes it sound like HARDY. That’s the skill here. Whatever approach you take, you’re not going to better Bad Company, so you may as well make it your own, and he understands that instinctively.
Slash and Myles Kennedy then turn “Feel Like Makin’ Love” into a barely restrained stadium rocker. And honestly, you don’t really want Myles to do anything else. It thunders along, respectful but powerful, leaning into scale and drama without losing the song’s core.
The more laid-back “Run With The Pack” feels like it was always destined for Blackberry Smoke, and Charlie Starr and the lads don’t disappoint. There’s an ease and warmth here that suits the song perfectly, the Southern rock filter fitting like it always belonged.
The Struts are a band who’ve been living out rock ’n’ roll fantasies for as long as they’ve existed, and you can hear that joy coming straight through the speakers. This is playful, loving, and completely on brand.
Bad Company’s eponymous anthem feels like one of those songs that is almost impossible to get wrong, and Charley Crockett proves that point beautifully. He doesn’t overthink it, he just inhabits it.
It then falls to LA rock revivalists Dirty Honey to lean hard into the bluesy undercurrent of “Rock Steady”, reminding you just how much grit and groove sat underneath Bad Company’s radio-friendly reputation.
Black Stone Cherry, a band who have never hidden their love of Bad Company, take on “Burnin’ Sky”, and it sounds like a genuine labour of love. This is reverent without being stiff, and it suits them down to the ground.
Def Leppard’s acoustic take on “Seagull” would be good enough on its own, but then Paul Rodgers turns up and the whole thing lifts into something genuinely special, the sort of moment tribute albums live or die on.
And yes, we can argue all day about whether “All Right Now” really needed to be here, but what’s beyond debate is that it’s a brilliant song — and The Pretty Reckless do it well.
Any football fan knows that having the best players doesn’t always mean you end up with the best team — my lot should have walked the EFL Championship in 2019, and we’re still paying for it. But with this cast and these songs, failure was never really on the cards. Most importantly, if this record sends even a handful of people back to explore those early Bad Company albums, then it’s done its job perfectly.
