1978 studio album by Ringo Starr
Bad Boy is the seventh studio album by English rock musician Ringo Starr, released in 1978 by Polydor Records. The album was released at a time of diminishing success for Starr, failing to chart in the UK and reaching only No. 129 in the US and No. 98 in Australia, with none of its singles charting in either the UK or US. Prior to its release in the US, it was cross-promoted with the TV special Ringo, which was poorly received, and a planned follow-up special never came to fruition. Bad Boy would ultimately be Starr's final album release for Polydor.
Background and recording
After Starr's previous album, Ringo the 4th (1977), was not well received critically or commercially, Starr and his musical partner, Vini Poncia, decided to move away from that album's dance-oriented sound and in a more streamlined direction.[1] With Poncia taking over production duties, Starr mostly relied on covering other artists' songs.[1] In November 1977, the album was recorded, for tax purposes,[1] at Can-Base Studio[2] in Vancouver, Toronto,[1] and Elite Recording Studio in the Bahamas.[1][2] It was completed within ten days in November 1977, with the exception of some orchestral overdubs done on 8 March 1978 under the direction of James Newton Howard.[1]
Release and reception
The album's first single in the US, "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)", was released by Portrait on 18 April 1978, backed with "Old Time Relovin'" as the B-side,[nb 1][11][12] preceding the album's US release date.[12] A planned release of the single in the UK, for issue in June by Polydor, was shelved.[nb 2][11]
Bad Boy was released on 21 April 1978 in the UK,[nb 3] while in the US it was released on 16 June.[nb 4][13] The album only reached number 129 in the US, despite the airing of a prime time TV special entitled Ringo,[11] on 26 April.[12] The special was recorded in 10 days in Hollywood, starting on 11 February,[12] and finished in 53rd place out of 65 network prime-time programs during the week it aired.[14] Starr performed three songs from Bad Boy in the special: "Heart on My Sleeve", "Hard Times" and "A Man Like Me".[11] It would later air in the UK, on 2 January 1983.[11][15]
A second US single, "Heart on My Sleeve" backed with "Who Needs a Heart", was released on 6 July.[nb 5][11][16] Out of the singles released from Bad Boy in the US, neither "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)"[10] nor "Heart on My Sleeve" charted.[16] In the UK, the lone single was "Tonight", backed with "Heart on My Sleeve", on 21 July,[11] which also failed to chart.[nb 6] On the same day, production began on another special to promote the album,[12] directed by Christian Topps,[11] but the special was never completed.[12] "A Man Like Me" is simply Scouse the Mouse's "A Mouse Like Me", with all appearances of the word "Mouse" in the lyrics changed to "Man".
Polydor, after three consecutive non-charters in the UK, promptly dropped Starr, while his new US label, Portrait (who had picked him up after Atlantic had dropped him),[2] would eventually cancel his contract in 1981 during the making of his next album, Stop and Smell the Roses.
The album's inner sleeve featured photographs by Starr's then-fiancée Nancy Andrews.[2][17] Bad Boy was reissued on CD in the US by Epic[2] on 26 March 1991.[nb 7][18]
