Coming out of the darkness (and possibly in from the rain) like a character from a David Coverdale song, Whitesnake’s Good To Be Bad was the surprise studio album from a band who hadn’t released a new record for the best part of a decade. Whitesnake had become a ‘greatest hits’ live vehicle – and who doesn’t love a show where the singer doesn’t deliver the immortal introduction: “Here’s a few new ones”? Although when you’ve lost and loved like Coverdale, you still need to vent your creative spleen occasionally, and nowhere does he do so more than on 2008’s Good To Be Bad.
Lyrically, Coverdale, like many a blues singer before him, still had many a woman who had done him wrong. But with the help of guitarist Doug Aldrich he buffed and polished his broken heart until it gleamed and was nearly as good as new again. Which is to say that Good To Be Bad was something of an unexpected gem for those who had given up on the band returning to their original soul and blues roots.
