The album itself was the first of the band’s album not to make the album charts, but is a great album and every bit as strong as previous releases.
The album opens with “Multiplication”, a single which the band promoted on TV four times in the summer of ’81, including Razzmatazz and Cheggers Plays Pop, but crucially perhaps not on Top Of The Pops, peaking at #39 in the charts. It was released on 5th June 1981, four months before the album.
“Alley Oop” was an unusual choice for TV promotion in August 1981, as this was an album track not a single, and rather amusingly featured Malcolm dressing up as a gorilla and hitting members of the audience with a club (a rubber one of course!). The single release of “Multiplication” had been and gone by the time August came around, which may be why the band decided to do something a bit different, although they were probably specifically asked to play that track by the TV executives.
“Footsteps” and “Good Timing” were other singles released from the album, on 6th Nov 1981, and 19th Feb 1982 respectively, and it is perhaps not a surprise these singles didn’t do too well sales wise having being already available on the album. “Footsteps” (#31) was promoted on TV three times however (including Top Of The Pops), whereas “Good Timing” (did not chart) barely received any promotion at all (save for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention on Tiswas).
“Weekend”, another album only track, was promoted on The Little And Large Show in 1985 in what turned out to be Malcolm Allured’s and Russ Field’s last TV appearances with the band. It was pleasing to see album’s title track “Good Times” featuring in the band’s live set in the early 2000s, and “Weekend” was also a regular in the band’s set at this time. Incidentally, “Weekend” was a fixture in the band’s set in their very early days in 1973-1975, but not recorded until 1981!
“I Don’t Like Rock ’n’ Roll No More” is one of the band’s classic songs and should have been a single, whereas “C’mon Everybody” is probably the weakest song on the LP. The former was recorded by Burglar's Dog, a band featuring Malcolm Allured, Al James, Ray Martinez and Rod Greaves, also in 1981.
All in all, despite it never making the album chart, this is one of the band’s classic albums, with the band featuring on TV a lot around the time of its release. Showaddywaddy also performed well over 100 gigs in 1981, making it a very busy year indeed.