Reaction
Despite the album's subsequent popularity with both fans and music critics, the album was viciously panned by critic (and previous Badfinger booster) Mike Saunders in Rolling Stone (calling it "a barely decent album, one which is the poorest of Badfinger's three LPs and by far the least likeable"), and Badfinger became vocal in expressing reservations with Rundgren's production technique. Ham complained about the band losing production input, and Joey Molland claimed that the album had lost energy compared to No Dice. Although Apple had chosen Rundgren to return as the original producer of the next Badfinger album, he departed the project after just four days, about the same time as the publication of the Rolling Stone pan of Straight Up.
Also, the last thing the band wanted to hear at that time was that the record sounded like The Beatles, which the group had heard ever since Maybe Tomorrow, and the fact that ex-Beatle Harrison and noted Beatles imitator Rundgren had produced it didn't help their ability to deny that charge.
Straight Up peaked at number 31 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. The singles "Day After Day" and "Baby Blue" peaked at number 4 and number 14, respectively, on the U.S. Pop Singles chart. However, because of the turmoil within Apple, "Baby Blue" was not released as a single in the U.K.
When Straight Up was finally issued on CD in 1993, five of the original Emerick-produced recordings, including the canceled single version of "Name of the Game", were included as bonus tracks.
"Baby Blue" was later featured in the soundtrack for the 2006 Martin Scorsese film The Departed.
Read more about this topic: Straight Up (album)
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