CoronaVinyl Day 397 (T): Bad Reputation by Thin Lizzy

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "T," and since we're in March and we're not going to get back to T before St. Patrick's Day, I went with Ireland's greatest rock band of all-time, Thin Lizzy, and their eighth studio album, 1977's Bad Reputation.  I meant to post this Tuesday, but things got away from me, and then I went to a concert last night.  The upside of that is that I've been listening to Thin Lizzy for three days.  

As the cover of the album demonstrates, this album was largely made as a trio, with Phil Lynott on bass and vocals, Scott Gorham on guitar, and Brian Downey on drums.  The band's other guitarist, Brian Robertson, had injured his hand on the band's previous tour, which put him out of commission for a while.  He had one foot out the door on this album, as he only contributed to three tracks.  While he toured with the band in support of Bad Reputation -- and some of the tracks from that tour ended up on the band's excellent Live & Dangerous album released in 1978 -- he left the band after the tour.

As you may know, Thin Lizzy is one of my favorite bands.  For me, the iconic twin lead guitar attack is one of the reasons Thin Lizzy was special, so I'm not as big a fan of this album as some of their others -- though Gorham did an admirable job of recording two guitar parts, so it often still sounds like there are two guitarists.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a great '70s hard rock album, Lynott's lyrics are still great, and it has some of their signature songs, like the title track (which was featured in the Guitar Hero II video game) and "Dancing in the Moonlight (It's Caught Me in Its Spotlight)."

The album went to #4 on the UK album chart, making it their highest-charting album in the UK to that point.  It also went to #39 on the Billboard album chart.  The only single from the album was "Dancing in the Moonlight (It's Caught Me in the Spotlight)," which went to #4 on the Irish pop chart and #14 on the UK pop chart.

The Spotify version of the album is an expanded edition with five bonus tracks.  I especially like the "Me and The Boys" soundcheck version, with the band just ripping shit up.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Opium Trail"
This is one of the three tracks on which Robertson played, and it's a brooding, fast-paced rocker about the dangers of opiates -- something with which Lynott was, unfortunately, all too familiar.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Killer Without a Cause"
Here's another one of the three tracks featuring Robbo.  Hearing the guitar riff on this, you can see how Thin Lizzy was a big influence on a lot of '80s hard rock bands.  This is just another one of the many solid '70s hard rock songs in the band's catalog.