♫ Faster than a speeding Grateful Dead guitar solo, more powerful than a Who live album, flying faster than Wings at the Speed of Sound, it’s....super heroes on our AAA top five! Whether its weedy humans yearning for superhuman strength, Paul McCartney reminiscing about his favourite comics or the Kinks doing the batman theme tune, there’s a nplace for it on our top five week. So sit back and leave the crime-fighting/record buying to us...
5) Hero (David Crosby and Phil Collins, ‘A Thousand Roads’ 1993): Classic latter-day Cros song isn’t actually about super heroes as much as its about fairytales but, heck, the idea’s pretty close so we’ve let it pass. In typical Crosby fashion, the pained narrator of this song can’t work out why life won’t follow the nice and simple good-versus-evil patterns laid out in his childhood books, where the heroes always win, the villains are always caught and the fair maidens are always grateful for the rescue. Close friend Phil Collins helped out with the track (a lot of the music’s meant to be his, although the words are pure Crosby) and why this much ballyhooed single failed to become a hit I’ll never understand.
4) Batman (The Kinks ‘Live At Kelvin Hall’ recorded 1966, released 1968/ The Who ‘Ready Steady Who!’ EP 1966): To the Batmobile’s CD player, quick! The original series of ‘Batman’ looks even more dated than Paisley wallpaper and Carnaby Street shoes, but back in 1966 it made quite a splash – so big, in fact, that two separate AAA groups marked it’s arrival. Neither of these ‘projects’ are typical ones – the ‘Kelvin Hall’ LP is a marking-time badly recorded concert LP that was kept in the vaults for two years in Britain whilst ‘Ready Steady Who’ was a five-track goofing-off EP recorded somewhere between ‘A Quick One’ and ‘The Who Sell Out’ while the band wait for Pete Townshend to come up with his next masterpiece. Both of these riff-heavy bands are quick to seize upon the fun descending-ascending theme tune chords to good use and wrap their sweet-and-sour tonsils around the title phrase, but otherwise both are completely different. The Who do their ‘batman’ as if it’s a surfing song, with the peculiar rat-a-tat drumming as conventional as anything Keith Moon ever did (that’s still only by comparison, however) and The Kinks segue their ‘Batman’ into all sorts of goodies during an inspired nine-minute medley, including a raucous version of ‘Milk Cow Blues’ and a laidback ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’.
3) Legendary Heroes (Allan Clarke, ‘The Only Ones’ aka ‘Legendary Heroes’, 1979): The Hollies singer spends a whole album talking about his past (and present) before ending his 6th solo LP with this reminiscence about schoolboy comics and the magic lands it gave him. Like Crosby, the real world is found wanting in comparison to this easily-read make believe and the whole song sounds like some sort of requiem for childhood lost (not the first time the Hollies use that theme, either – see Clarkey’s B-side ‘Not That Way At All’ for a very different-sounding song on the same theme).
2) Magneto And Titanium Man (Paul McCartney/Wings, ‘Venus And Mars’ 1976): It’s Macca’s turn to revisit his childhood comics this time – what with this and the ‘Rupert’ song, we know more about Paul’s childhood than most people’s. Typically Macca, though, this isn’t a lament on lost innocence but a cracking story song that might have come straight out of one of the comics. As far as I know, neither magneto or Titanium Man really exist (I heard they were in the running for the mineral-heavy TV series ‘Sapphire and Steel’ but got cut out) and follows the eponymous heroes thinking they’ve been sold out by their loved one – only to find it’s all been a set up. Ah-hah!
1) (Wish I Could Fly) Like Superman (The Kinks, ‘Low Budget’, 1979): Classic, typically Ray Davies-like song in the, err, untypical disco genre about a weedy, weak-kneed human who dreams of having the strength to put the world to rights and make it better for his loved ones. Afraid of heights but dreaming of being able to fly, this is more wonderfully vivid characterisation from The Kinks with the thudding drums and bubbling bass making the whole thing superbly claustrophobic.
Well, that’s all for another week. Must dash – there’s worlds out there to save after all! More vinyl shifting next week.
A NOW COMPLETE List Of Top Five/Top Ten/TOP TWENTY Entries 2008-2019
What difference does a name make? Arguably not much if you’re already a collector of a certain group, for whom the names on the album sleeves just...
This week’s top ten honours the humble motor car. The death trap on wheels, the metaphor for freedom, the put-down of capitalism, a source of...
This week we’re going to have a look at the 10 AAA singles that spent the most weeks at number on the American chart ‘Billboard’ – and it makes for...
Following on from last issue’s study of the American Billboard charts, here’s a look at which AAA albums spent the most weeks on the chart. The...
There are many dying arts in our modern world: incorruptible politicians, faith that things are going to get better and the ability to make decent...
This week we’ve decided to dedicate our top ten to those unsung heroes of music, the session musicians, whose playing often brings AAA artists (and...
Naturally we hold our AAA bands in high esteem in these articles: after all, without their good taste, intelligence and humanity we’d have nothing to...
What do you do when you’ve left a multi-million selling band and yet you still feel the pull of the road and the tours and the playing to audiences...
‘The ATOS Song’ (You’re Not Fit To Live)’ (Mini-Review) Dear readers, we don’t often feature reviews of singles over albums or musicians who aren’t...
In honour of this week’s review of an album released to cash in on a movie soundtrack (only one of these songs actually appears in ‘Easy Rider’...and...
Hic! Everyone raise a glass to the rock stars of the past and to this week’s feature...songs about alcolholic beverages! Yes that’s right, everything...
154) The human singing voice carries with it a vast array of emotions, thoughts that cannot be expressed in any other way except opening the lungs and...
Everyone has a spiritual home, even if they don’t actually live there. Mine is in a windy, rainy city where the weather is always awful but the...
Having a family does funny things to some musicians, as we’ve already seen in this week’s review (surely the only AAA album actually written around...
Some artists just have no idea what their best work really is. One thing that amazes me as a collector is how consistently excellent many of the...
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222) Five Random Recent Purchases http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/five-random-recent-purchases-news-views.html
223) AAA Grammy Nominees http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/aaa-grammy-nominees-top-twelve-news.html
224) Ten AAA songs that are better heard unedited and in full http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/ten-aaa-songs-that-are-better-unedited.html
225) The shortest gaps between AAA albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-shortest-gaps-between-aaa-albums.html
226) The longest gaps between AAA albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-longest-gaps-between-aaa-albums.html
227) Top ten AAA drummers http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/03/top-ten-aaa-drummers-news-views-and.html
228) Top Ten AAA Singles (In Terms of 'A' and 'B' Sides) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/top-ten-aaa-singles-and-b-sides-news.html
229) The Stories Behind Six AAA Logos http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-stories-behind-six-aaa-logos.html
230) AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! The Best Ten AAA Screams http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-best-aaa-screams-top-ten-news-views.html
231) An AAA Pack Of Horses http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-songs-about-horses-top-ten-news.html
232) AAA Granamas - Sorry, Anagrams! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-anagrams-news-views-and-music-issue.html
233) AAA Surnames and Their Meanings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-surnames-and-their-meanings-news.html
234) 20 Erroneous AAA Album Titles http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/twenty-erroneous-aaa-album-titles-news.html
235) The Best AAA Orchestral Arrangements http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/fifteen-great-aaa-string-parts-news.html
236) Top 30 Hilariously Misheard Album Titles/Lyrics http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/top-thirty-hilariously-misheard-aaa.html
237) Ten controversial AAA sackings - and whether they were right http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/ten-controversial-aaa-sackings-news.html
238) A Critique On Critiquing - In Response To Brian Wilson http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-critique-on-critiquing-in-response-to.html
239) The Ten MusicianS Who've Played On The Most AAA Albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-ten-musicians-whove-played-on-most.html
240) Thoughts on #CameronMustGo http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/thoughts-on-cameronmustgo.html
241) Random Recent Purchases (Kinks/Grateful Dead/Nils Lofgren/Rolling Stones/Hollies) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/six-random-recent-purchases-kinksg.html
242) AAA Christmas Number Ones http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/aaa-christmas-number-ones.html
243) AAA Review Of The Year 2014 (Top Releases/Re-issues/Documentaries/DVDs/Books/Songs/ Articles plus worst releases of the year) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/aaa-review-of-year-2014.html
244) Me/CFS Awareness Week 2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/mecfs-awareness-week-at-alans-album.html
245) Why The Tory 2015 Victory Seems A Little...Suspicious http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/why-tory-victory-seems-deeply.html
246) A Plea For Peace and Tolerance After The Attacks on Paris - and Syria http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/a-plea-for-peace-and-toleration.html
247) AAA Review Of The Year 2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2015.html
248) The Fifty Most Read AAA Articles (as of December 31st 2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-fifty-most-read-aaa-posts-2008-2015.html
249) The Revised AAA Crossword! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016_07_10_archive.html
251) Half-A-Dozen Berries Plus One (An AAA Tribute To Chuck Berry) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/an-aaa-covers-tribute-to-chuck-berry.html
254) Guest Post: ‘Supertramp – Some Things Never Change’ by Kenny Brown https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/guest-review-supertramp-some-things.html
255) AAA Review Of The Year 2018 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2018.html
256) AAA Review Of The Year 2019 plus Review Of The Decade 2010-2019 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-alans-album-archives-review-of-year.html
257) Tiermaker https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2019/06/alans-album-archives-on-tiermaker.html
258) #Coronastock https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronastock.html
259) #Coronadocstock https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2020/05/coronadocstock.html
