Because of the dispute over Joey Molland's copyrights, Apple did not credit the individual writers of the songs on Ass, such as Tom Evans for "Blind Owl", instead crediting the song simply to "Badfinger".
Although recordings for the album began as early as 1972, shortly after the release of Straight Up, Ass was not released until 26 November 1973 in the US and 8 March 1974 in the UK. The album was originally delayed because of production quality, as the band attempted to produce the album themselves after producer Todd Rundgren departed the project with just two songs recorded. After a first version of the album was rejected by the label, Apple engineer Chris Thomas was hired as a first-time producer to improve the overall recordings and make new track selections.
The album was further delayed when a disagreement surfaced between Apple and Badfinger's management on publishing copyrights. Half of the tracks on Ass were written by Joey Molland. Molland never signed a publishing agreement with Apple Music, unlike his three bandmates, who had signed such a publishing agreement when still in The Iveys. Instead, Molland assigned the individual copyrights of his songs that were selected for Badfinger albums to Apple Music after production. Badfinger's then-manager, Stan Polley, attempted to use Apple's lack of a publishing agreement with Molland to block release of the album; he told Molland not to agree to any individual assignments, and Molland obliged. Eventually, to circumvent Polley's strategy, writing credits for all songs on the US and UK album releases of Ass were credited by Apple to "Badfinger", not to the actual author of the song.
Ass peaked at number 122 on the Billboard 200 in the US.[8] The single "Apple of My Eye" only peaked at number 102 on Billboard's "Bubbling Under" chart in America. The release of Ass caused the band's first album for Warner Bros. to be delayed.[8] After the album was deleted from the Apple catalog a large number of heavily discounted copies appeared in cut-out bins at US record stores during the 1970s. The original CD version released in the 1990s is now rare because it was re-released only in a few countries (UK, Canada, and Japan) for a limited period. The album was remastered and re-released in 2010.
A few weeks prior to the 1990s CD release a few Abbey Road Studios mastered C90 cassettes of Ass were distributed to a handful of music industry people. It appears from the track listing on these cassettes that Ass was originally planned to have five bonus tracks: "Dreaming" (Molland), "Piano Red" (Ham), "Rock & Roll" (Evans), "Regular" (Molland) and "Do You Mind" (Molland). This idea was clearly scrapped, as "Do You Mind" was the only one included on that version of the album. (A different version of that song appeared on the 2010 remaster.)
Ass was the Apple Records label's last original album release that was not by an ex-Beatle. From then on, only the Beatles as solo artists were left to release records on the Apple label.
^Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th edn), Volume 1. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 358. ISBN0-19-531373-9.
^Harris, John (November 2010). "Strange Fruit: Various, Original Apple albums, 1969–73". Mojo. p. 116.
^Matovina, Dan (2000). Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger (Pbk. 2nd ed.). San Mateo, Calif.: Frances Glover Books. pp. 233–34. ISBN9780965712224.
^Hull, Tom (December 2010). "Recycled Goods". Static Multimedia. Retrieved 8 July 2020 – via tomhull.com.
^Cavanagh, David (November 2010). "The Apple Remasters". Uncut. p. 112.
^ abMatovina, Dan (2000). Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger (Pbk. 2nd ed.). San Mateo, Calif.: Frances Glover Books. p. 233. ISBN9780965712224.
