The 1990s File Feature
How About That
How About That: Bad Company's 1992 Return to the Hot 100 Bad Company was a British hard rock supergroup formed in 1973 from the remnants of several influenti…
01 The Story
How About That: Bad Company's 1992 Return to the Hot 100
Bad Company was a British hard rock supergroup formed in 1973 from the remnants of several influential rock acts. The founding lineup brought together vocalist Paul Rodgers from Free, guitarist Mick Ralphs from Mott the Hoople, bassist Boz Burrell from King Crimson, and drummer Simon Kirke, also from Free. Signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song Records and managed by Led Zeppelin's management team, Bad Company became one of the most commercially successful British hard rock acts of the 1970s, scoring a string of hit singles and albums between 1974 and 1982. The group's combination of blues-rooted hard rock, Rodgers's powerful voice, and strong melodic construction earned them a devoted following on both sides of the Atlantic.
After Paul Rodgers departed in 1982, the band underwent significant changes. In 1986, the remaining members recruited vocalist Brian Howe, a British singer with a powerful voice well-suited to the hard rock format. With Howe as lead vocalist, Bad Company released several albums through the late 1980s and early 1990s on Atlantic Records, finding renewed commercial success in the United States, particularly on the rock mainstream and hard rock radio formats that had developed in the years following the band's founding-lineup run. Albums including Fame and Fortune (1986) and Dangerous Age (1988) demonstrated that the name and sound of Bad Company retained significant commercial appeal even without Rodgers.
"How About That" appeared on the album Here Comes Trouble, released in 1992 on Atco Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic. The album was produced by Terry Thomas, who worked extensively with rock acts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and represented the band's attempt to maintain their commercial momentum in a rock landscape being rapidly reshaped by the emergence of grunge and alternative rock. The production leaned into a polished, arena-ready sound with heavy guitars, melodic hooks, and the kind of big-room drum sound that had characterized rock production for much of the previous decade.
"How About That" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 12, 1992, entering at position 90. The song climbed steadily through the autumn of 1992, reaching its peak position of number 38 during the week of November 7, 1992. The single spent 13 weeks on the Hot 100, a respectable run that reflected consistent rock radio support. The song performed particularly well on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where Bad Company retained a loyal audience from their classic-rock heritage, even as the mainstream pop chart was moving toward sounds quite different from the band's aesthetic.
The timing of "How About That" placed it in an interesting cultural moment. By late 1992, Nirvana's Nevermind had already been released and was transforming the commercial rock landscape. Grunge and alternative rock were pulling mainstream audiences toward rawer, less polished sounds, and many arena rock acts found their chart presence and radio support declining rapidly. The fact that Bad Company managed to place a single at number 38 on the Hot 100 during this transitional period spoke to the depth of loyalty their catalog had built over two decades and the continued appetite among mainstream rock listeners for the hard rock sound the band represented.
Brian Howe remained with Bad Company through the mid-1990s before the band eventually dissolved and subsequently reformed in various configurations, including a reunion of the original lineup with Paul Rodgers. The Howe-era band's commercial output, including "How About That," is now viewed as a legitimate extension of the Bad Company legacy, serving audiences who maintained genuine affection for the classic hard rock format during a decade when that format was under considerable commercial and critical pressure. The song stands as a document of an established act navigating a challenging commercial environment while remaining true to the aesthetic that had built their reputation.
02 Song Meaning
Defiance and Romanticism in Bad Company's "How About That"
"How About That" by Bad Company carries the confident, swaggering energy that characterized the classic hard rock vocal tradition the group had helped establish in the 1970s. The phrase itself is conversational and rhetorical, an expression of pleased surprise or self-congratulation that positions the narrator as someone who has succeeded, perhaps unexpectedly, and wants that success acknowledged. In the romantic context typical of hard rock songs, this translates to a narrator who has won or reclaimed a relationship and is savoring that outcome with characteristic rock bravado.
The Brian Howe-era Bad Company material consistently engaged themes of romantic pursuit, masculine emotional expression, and the pleasures of romantic success, following the template established by the Paul Rodgers-era catalog. Songs from this period shared with the classic lineup a tendency to frame romantic relationships through the lens of hard-won achievement, where love was something actively pursued and claimed rather than simply encountered. This framing suited the arena rock aesthetic that the band embodied, in which scale and assertion were fundamental values both musically and lyrically.
The rhetorical question embedded in the title functions as an invitation for the listener to share in the narrator's satisfaction. "How about that?" is a phrase that expects agreement and affirmation, creating a parasocial moment where the narrator and the audience are positioned on the same side, appreciating the same positive development together. This communal dimension was well-suited to arena performance contexts, where songs needed to create shared emotional experiences across large crowds. The declarative, outward-facing quality of the lyrical approach made the song effective as a live performance piece in large venues.
The production context of 1992 is also relevant to understanding the song's thematic register. The emergence of grunge and alternative rock had brought with it a marked skepticism toward the confident, success-oriented ethos of classic hard rock, which was often characterized by the alternative press as self-congratulatory and emotionally shallow. "How About That" can be read as a statement of continuity, an assertion by Bad Company that the values embedded in their music remained valid and appealing even as critical tastes shifted dramatically away from the genre. The song did not attempt to accommodate alternative rock aesthetics; it committed fully to the hard rock tradition and found an audience that agreed with that commitment.
Brian Howe's vocal performance on the track demonstrated the strength he brought to Bad Company's post-Rodgers catalog. His powerful, confident delivery suited the song's assertive tone, and his ability to project authority while maintaining melodic precision was essential to making the song work within the genre's expectations. Vocally, the track occupied the space that Bad Company had always owned: rock power delivered with melodic sophistication rather than pure aggression. This balance had always distinguished the band from heavier contemporaries, and it remained a defining characteristic of their sound in the early 1990s.
The song's 13-week run on the Hot 100, peaking at number 38, confirmed that Bad Company's audience remained substantial even as the commercial rock landscape shifted beneath them. For listeners who had followed the band since the 1970s and through the Howe-era albums of the late 1980s, "How About That" delivered exactly what they expected from the group: a well-crafted hard rock song with a memorable hook, confident lyrics, and a production capable of filling the large venues the band continued to play throughout this period.
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