Album · Budgie
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend by Budgie
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend is an album by Budgie, released in 1973. 1 song from it has charted on rock radio countdowns, with 2 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Breadfan”, on 2 lists with a best position of #554.
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend, Budgie's third album, came out on MCA on 30 June 1973, and the Cardiff power trio were as heavy as anyone in Britain. Burke Shelley's high, wailing vocals and bass, Tony Bourge's guitar and Ray Phillips' drums, on his last Budgie recording, keep the crunching, riff-first approach of Squawk and push it harder. The band produced it themselves, and Roger Dean painted the cover.
The big one is "Breadfan", a breakneck, whiplash riff that adds a hint of speed metal to the formula, and it's become one of their best-known songs. Budgie never sold on the scale of their bigger contemporaries, but they got to heavy metal early, and according to Garry Sharpe-Young they left a mark on the new wave of British heavy metal and on Metallica.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Never Turn Your Back on a Friend on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Breadfan | 2 | #554 | – | 1990–2010 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.