The Firm - Mean Business (1986) {Japan 1st Press}

The Firm were a British rock supergroup composed of singer Paul Rodgers (Free and Bad Company), guitarist Jimmy Page (The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin), drummer Chris Slade (Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Uriah Heep and AC/DC) and bass player Tony Franklin. Both Page and Rodgers refused to play any material from their former bands and instead opted for a selection of Firm songs plus tracks from both their solo albums. The new songs were heavily infused with a soulful and more commercially accessible sound, courtesy of Franklin's fretless bass guitar underpinning an understated song structure. Mean Business is the second and final studio album by The Firm, released by Atlantic Records on 3 February 1986. The album peaked at #22 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and at #46 on the UK Albums Chart. The single "All the King's Horses" spent four weeks at the top of Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. After the band split, Page and Rodgers returned to solo work while Chris Slade joined AC/DC and Franklin teamed up with guitarist John Sykes in Blue Murder.