Bad Boy *** 1978

Ringo Starr - "Bad Boy" [Full Album]

01. 00:00 "Who Needs a Heart"
02. 03:50 "Bad Boy"
03. 07:07 "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)"
04. 10:12 "Heart on My Sleeve"
05. 13:34 "Where Did Our Love Go"
06. 16:52 "Hard Times"
07. 20:26 "Tonight"
08. 23:26 "Monkey See - Monkey Do"
09. 27:07 "Old Time Relovin'"
10. 31:27 "A Man Like Me"

Bad Boy is the seventh album by Ringo Starr, released in 1978 during a period where his musical career was sliding into freefall after several years of solo success. Although Bad Boy was meant to reverse this trend, Starr's fortunes dwindled further.

After the critical and commercial disaster of Ringo the 4th (1977), Starr and his musical partner, Vini Poncia, decided to create a less campy album and streamline the sound to lose the disco qualities and excesses that marred the previous release. With Poncia taking the production reins, Starr mostly relies on other people's songs, with no celebrity guests to be found. The album was recorded, for tax purposes, in Vancouver, Toronto, and The Bahamas. It was completed within ten days of sessions in November 1977, with the exception of some orchestral overdubs done on 8 March 1978 under the direction of James Newton Howard.

Bad Boy reached only number 129 in the US, despite the airing of a prime time TV special entitled Ringo: With a Little Help from His Friends. Polydor Records, after three consecutive non-charters in the UK, promptly dropped Starr, while his new US label, Portrait Records (who picked him up after Atlantic Records had dropped him) would eventually cancel his contract in 1981 during the making of his next album (Stop and Smell the Roses).

Bad Boy was released on 21 April 1978 in the UK, while in the US it was released on 16 June.

Out of the singles released from Bad Boy, neither "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)" nor "Heart on My Sleeve" charted. In the UK, the lone single was "Tonight" / "Heart on My Sleeve" and that didn't chart. It is now a sought after collector's item.

Rather cheekily, "A Man Like Me" is simply Scouse the Mouse's "A Mouse Like Me" with all the words "Mouse" substituted by "Man".

Bad Boy was reissued on CD in the US by Epic Records in 1991 (after Portrait Records' shelving), now its only source of availability.