Good to Be Bad is the tenth studio album by British hard rock band Whitesnake, released on 18 April 2008 in Germany, 21 April 2008 in Europe and 22 April in North America by SPV/Steamhammer. It was the band's first album of new studio material in a decade, since 1997's Restless Heart, not including the four new tracks recorded for the 2006 live album Live: In the Shadow of the Blues. The album was the very first collaboration between lead vocalist David Coverdale and guitarist Doug Aldrich. The album charted at number 62 on the Billboard 200 chart, number 8 on the Top Independent albums chart, number 23 on the Canadian Albums Chart and number 7 on the UK Albums Chart. As of sales in March 2011, the album sold over 700,000 copies worldwide, considering expected as an independent label release.
The album contained three singles, "Lay Down Your Love", "All for Love", "Summer Rain", and one promotional single, "Can You Hear the Wind Blow". Despite being released through a hard rock independent label, alongside with the album itself (with the exception of the Warner record label only to be released in Japan), all of the singles failed to chart.
On 28 April 2023, the album received a reissue by RHINO Entertainment under the name, Still...Good to Be Bad, similar to the 2011 expanded Japanese version. The reissue contained 2-LP remixes and remasters alongside with alternate mixes and demo "Evolutions" tapes. The album was widely made available for streaming despite the majority of the songs from that album appeared on the "Red, White, and Blues" trilogy (2020's The Rock Album, 2020's Love Songs, and 2021's The Blues Album), respectively.
Background
Ever since continuing their touring non-stop from 2003 to support the band's 25th anniversary, Whitesnake had signed into new a record contract with Steamhammer/SPV and released their 2006's Live... in the Shadow of the Blues live album, containing four songs which ended up on the album's tracklist. That apparently speculated that plans for a new Whitesnake album would be in business after which Coverdale planned to only tour for a short period time with the band, asserting that it would be just "for fun." However, despite his claims, Coverdale decided to plan ahead in fact that the band was coming up with new material to a need for "new meat to bite into" in order keep the touring "interesting".
Production and composition
Recording sessions reportedly began in 2007 at Coverdale's residence in Lake Tahoe, Nevada (Snakebyte Studios), where the previous lineup had recorded 1997's Restless Heart album back in 1995. It was also recorded at Casa DALA and Clear Lake Audio in Los Angeles, California. Coverdale was joined by Doug Aldrich, who recently played with Dio, as they apparently talked about plans for the new album effortlessly, in which the band had felt the need to make music after an extensive touring load. Coverdale expressed his intellect towards Aldrich, previously a touring member of the band since 2003, as the two have a fruitful working relationship with each other, as stated in an official interview:
After wrapping up ideas for the album, the band rehearsed and started recording with the rest of the current touring members with secondary session guitarist Reb Beach, drummer Chris Frazier, bassist Timothy Drury, and keyboardist Uriah Duffy. Coverdale, Aldrich, and McIntyre produced and mixed the album themselves, while it was mastered by David Donnelly.
The album was slated to be originally released in the summer of 2007. However, the band was still touring extensively throughout the rest of the summer, citing that every major city in the United States headlined the band "every night of the week this season." Despite the delays, Coverdale stated that it was not a big deal for the band to release it at this time, and objected "that there was no real rush for us to finish the project quickly," feeling that he would rather take a year off from touring in attempt to resort the pressure from making the record. This resulted on delays for the recording and production schedule that was meant to be finalized, but it wasn't a major problem to Coverdale. The band tentatively pushed its date ahead to October 2007 and then May 2008. The album was, however, in fact released on April, a month earlier than its anticipated May release date. At that same timeframe, Whitesnake reissued their ground-breaking eponymous album in respect of its 20th anniversary in May and June 2007 through EMI.