Bad Reputation album cover
Bad Reputation

Thin Lizzy

1977
Vertigo

After Fighting made them sound tough, Jailbreak made them feel huge, and Johnny The Fox made them seem ambitious, the fourth amazing album in a row from Thin Lizzy made them out to be survivors. Their last album to feature an on-the-way-out Brian Robertson as part of their legendary twin-guitar attack, Bad Reputation lets Scott Gorham finally rampage solo and attains hard rock perfection in the process — searing and white-knuckle on the title cut; melodically sentimental on “Southbound,” and an uncanny balance of the two on “Soldier of Fortune.” Phil Lynott, meanwhile, has rarely balanced the badass and the wistful this well before or since, as equally at home spinning Golden Harvest-exploitation-flick stories of the heroin trade (“Opium Trail”) and deeply evoking the nervous energy of teenage romance (“Dancing in the Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in the Spotlight)”).

Nate Patrin

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