Monday 12 November 2012

News, Views and Music Issue 170 (Intro)


November 14th:

Phew. That was a worry there for a while wasn’t it? But common sense prevailed and Obama won his second term in office, with a slightly strengthened senate which should give him a good chance at putting right the problems caused by the Bush years. Not that I hated Mitt Romney the way I have other Republican candidates and I actually felt quite sorry for him when things first appeared to be working out against him – it’s just that when David Cameron goes out of his way to announce who he’d like to work with six months before an election then you know that candidates in trouble! Would that the UK could have as fair and democratic an election, but no – we end up with a coalition that isn’t working together, put themselves back into power four whole years longer than our constitution allowed (till they changed the law) and despite being unelected (ie they were the greatest losers) they still keep pushing forward principles that weren’t in their election speeches that do the greatest harm. I’m so pleased that one Western country at least now has civilisation at its core again – I really did fear what irreparable damage Cameron and Romney might have done together.

As for our site, we’ve had loads of hits this week – especially in Ireland I notice, so top of the morning to you! – and have now reached the grand figure of 32,200. Not bad eh???

As ever we point you in the direction of our newspaper style site for this week’s news reviews:
http://paper.li/f-1347835090


ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday greetings our AAA brethren if you’re born between November 14th and 20th and your name is Gene Clark (Mr Tambourine Man with the Byrds 1965-66) would have been 71 on November 17th and Rod Clements (bassist with Lindisfarne 1970-72 and 1978-2002) who turns 65 on the same day (November 17th). Anniversaries of events include: The Rolling Stones make their US TV debut, singing ‘Get Off My Cloud’ on the ‘Hullabaloo’ show (November 15th 1965); Janis Joplin is arrested for using ‘vulgar’ language onstage during a gig in Tampa, Florida – the charges are later dropped; Dire Straits’ ‘Brothers In Arms’ breaks the then-record sales for Great Britain – three million sales – just two years after release (November 15th 1987); Small Face Ronnie Lane releases his first and most successful solo single ‘How Come?’ (November 16th 1973); The Beatles receive their first ‘silver’ disc – for high sales of only their second single ‘Please Please Me’ (November 18th 1963); Danny Whitten, guitarist with the first line-up of Crazy Horse, overdoses on drugs bought with the travel money band leader Neil Young has given him to fly back home, inspiring Neil’s ‘doom trilogy’ (November 18th 1972); The Rolling Stones enjoy their first UK #1 with ‘Little Red Rooster’ (November 19th 1964); Ray Davies interrupts a Kinks American tour for the second time to re-record a single line in one of the band’s singles to prevent it being banned from the airwaves (the ‘foggin’ line in ‘Apeman’, following a ban on the brand-name ‘coca-cola’ in ‘Lola’; November 19th 1970) and finally, Scott Haldin, a 19-year-old Who fan learning to play the drums, gets the shock of his life when Keith Moon collapses at a gig full of animal tranquilisers and the band sheepishly ask for any drummers in the audience to fill in for him – only Scott responds (November 20th 1973).

Belle and Sebastian "The Boy With The Arab Strap" (1998)





The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of Belle and Sebastian 'Rollercoaster Ride' Is Available To Buy Now By Clicking Here




Belle and Sebastian “The Boy With The Arab Strap” (1998)


It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career/Sleep The Clock Around/Is It Wicked Not To Care?/Ease Your Feet Into The Sea/A Summer Wasting/Seymour Stein//A Space Boy Dream/Dirty Dream Number Two/The Boy With The Arab Strap/Chickfactor/Simple Things/The Rollercoaster Ride


Back in 1998 Belle and Sebastian were the ‘next big thing’, the group that everyone with half an ear on the music scene knew was coming even if they still thought B+S were a singing duo like Rene and Renato rather than a Scottish Indie band named after a Children’s TV show about a boy and his dog. Their first album ‘Tigermilk’ might have been an internet-orders-only album (back in the day when few people actually knew what the internet was), but it made enough of a splash to get noticed by the music press and record label Jeepster sold enough copies to make second album ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ worthwhile. In the end that album made even more of a splash and suddenly B+S were on everybody’s lips, despite not selling that many lyrics, putting in only a few delightfully amateurish performances along the way and the band themselves not actually wanting to draw much attention to themselves. Compare B+S’ publicity campaign to, say, The Spice Girls and its non existent – like all the best music its spread by word of mouth, cult radio playlists and ecstatic bordering on messianistic reviews in music magazines and sites like this one. So why, with everything going for them, did the band end up disappearing back into the cultish end of the record markets, the darlings of a few faithful rather than a mainstream audience?

We’ve talked a lot about ‘difficult third album syndrome’ before on this site, the theory that a band’s first album is crafted over a period of years by unknowns, the second is rushed off in a matter of weeks under the adrenalin rush of the success of the first and by the third album the creative well is running dry and made to increasingly pressured deadlines. We’ve mentioned too that by album three a songwriter is often distanced by fame, money and success from the very people he or she get their source material from. However, that isn’t strictly the case with ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ because it was the band themselves that made things difficult. ‘Arab Strap’ is not a weird album and it’s certainly not a poor album, but there’s so many changes in mood and style from their previous two works, with new vocalists, songwriters and genres included, that its hard for even longterm fans to navigate, never mind excite new ones. In short, this is Belle and Sebastian’s most non-mainstream album at a time when, more than any other, they were in danger of becoming mainstream.

And I use the word ‘danger’ here deliberately – some bands thrive of fame, money, success and – most of all - attention (Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones to some extent), but Belle and Sebastian never stood for any of these, merely a hippie-like connection with their audience and enough success and understanding to get the chance to make another record.. The truth is, had this album made the big time then the B+S dream of obscurity and nonchalance would have been over, with the band simply another load of indie wannabes who got lucky and lost their innocence and uniqueness the minute they hit the big time. More than most songwriters Stuart Murdoch absolutely has to stay true to his ‘ordinary people’ songwriting guise and like many a writer before him faced the decision of whether to stay in the shadows, possibly struggling in the name of art or get into the limousine and lock the doors, accepting that they’ll never be the person they once were. Most bands, however strong, make the second decision – fame is a fickle beast and doesn’t come around calling very often and few people are brave enough to make the decision to keep it bay. Yet that’s exactly what Belle and Sebastian decidedly do with this third album.

There’s one song here, ‘Seymour Stein’ by bandmate Stevie Jackson, about exactly that: the vice-president of Warner Brothers tried to persuade B+S to leave their low budget Indie label to join his conglomerate in America where they would be the next big thing, only for the band to give him the cold shoulder, noting that as he’d never been to Scotland before meeting them there would be no way he’d understand them. Unlike some record label bosses Stein wasn’t talking vainly when he put that offer on the table either – his adventurous ears had already led to him giving artists like Madonna, The Smiths, The Pretenders and Echo and the Bunnymen their big break. B+S rate at least two of these bands as key influences (see if you can work out which two!) and Stein’s offer must have been thrilling for music buff Murdoch in particular and it says much for the band’s strength of character that despite everything they still say no to Stein, staying outlaws on the outskirts of the music business. It’s notable that the band don’t say no a second time, signing with Rough Trade for their last couple of albums after a rocky eight years or so after this album in 2005, but that shouldn’t take away from the courage of the original decision.

Throughout this album fame lurks around the shadows like a wild beast, ready to pounce on the unsuspected. The album opens with the amazingly bleak ‘It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career’ in which two separate young up and coming businessmen are so riled and overwhelmed by stress their bodies suffer strokes that leave them helpless and old before their time, trying so hard to become a respected middle aged adult that they neglect their youth. Murdoch then offers one of his greatest ‘working class’ songs on the title track, recording every sight he sees on a doom-laden bus journey full of drunks and layabouts with nothing else to do, where ‘nobody gives you a chance or a dollar in this old town’. The narrator of that song even spends the fourth verse speaking to ‘crowds assembled’, talking to them about ‘the way they are feeling’ – and it’s hard to see this as anything but Murdoch the writer thinking about his influences and the way he mirrors the misfits of life in his songs. ‘Dirty Dream Number 2’ sums up this new philosophy in its opening couplet: ‘I’m lucky, I can open the door and I can walk down the street – unlucky I’ve got nowhere to go and so I follow my feet’, speculating about the lack of oppressive fame in the first and lack of attention in the second lines. In case we haven’t got the message yet the album ends with ‘Rollercoaster Ride’, a song about the ups and downs of life with the central message that we ought to enjoy it now because ‘it’ll be gone tomorrow’. That denial of Seymour Stein wasn’t a shyness about the band’s work or even a hip statement by a with-it young band; it’s the commitment of a group who want to embrace their worst failings (that would undoubtedly have been tidied up by a record label, as Rough Trade do for better or worse in the 00s) and keep in touch with their audiences and inspiration.

The other theme on this record is the opposite: of care-free summer days with nothing to do but relax, take it easy and discover yourself more. Most B+S songs are themeless, in the sense that Murdoch’s cast of characters all seem to belong together and often appear in more than one song but aren’t all specifically doing the same thing or thinking the same thoughts. However ‘Arab Strap’ features four whole songs about being lazy, all sequenced together at the end of the album’s first side (not that anybody would have owned this album on anything but CD given the 1998 vintage, but the band still ‘split’ their songs in two on the rear sleeve, like the days of old!) I’m taking a guess here but I would say that the creative freedom that blossomed from saying ‘no’ to the big record company guys must have reminded Murdoch of his childhood summers of having nothing to do and nowhere to go, as if he was ‘free’ to enjoy his music all over again. There’s a contrast, too, with the sad lives of the bed-ridden characters of ‘Brilliant Career’, lives cut short far too soon because of city-based pressure and commitment; here there’s nothing you can do for money or job satisfaction that’s as important as discovering yourself and the world around you. Far from being ‘true’ lazy songs in the manner of Ray Davies (who wrote the best songs about doing nothing) and Brian Wilson, Murdoch’s (and Campbell’s) characters are still up to lots, coming up with their wittiest and most insightful takes on life despite wasting summers and easing their feet in the sea. There’s a very revealing ‘mistake’ left in on Murdoch’s vocal for ‘A Summer Wasting’ where his chorus line of ‘seven weeks of river walkways, seven weeks of feeling guilty...’ becomes ‘seven years of staying up all night’ – approximately the time he’d spent trying to get into music (he abandoned the idea in the early 90s to take a business studies course, only to meet the rest of the first line up of the band here and make ‘Tigermilk’ as part of his business studies coursework!)

The third and final theme of the album is far more common and in fact can be traced from the first note B+S recorded to the last. The B+S moniker is outlined as early as the band’s first LP and features one troubled soul trying to impress another, sometimes gaining and sometimes losing across the space of a song. There’s less evidence of that partnership on this record than most – a partnership that we’ve speculated before was about Murdoch and Campbell’s relationship, the ‘story’ having been told in the past tense ever since she left the band in 2002 – but there are still several developments key to B+S watchers. ‘Simple Things’ is among the most basic, most straightforward songs Murdoch had yet written and is highly revealing – ‘his’ character promises to be there anytime, day or night, for Belle, but in return she has to show she ‘feels’ something. After the flush of love on the first two albums Sebastian is getting impatient, imagining her becoming old before she admits her love for him (imagining ‘blue veins’ on her arm in the scariest passage in the record) and accusing her of not taking an interest (he memorably ends tghe song by persuading her to ask ‘a thousand questions in triplicate’). Other songs have Sebastian’s eyes wander for the first time – light years away from the character’s obsession with only Belle on ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘Sinister’, eyeing waitresses on the title track and having ‘dirty dreams’ (If you accept the ‘other’ band members songs as part of the same narrative then Stevie Jackson’s ‘Chickfactor’ finds Sebastian meeting up with all sorts of girls on a New York holiday). As for Campbell’s first published song – and her first chance to comment on the narrative – in ‘Is It Wicked Not To care?’ her character is really confused what to do, loving the drama but afraid of the responsibility of the relationship. She calms things down with the admission that if she had more than one life to live she would ‘love you in a sequel’, agreeing with Sebastian that ‘it’s not fun to watch the rust grow’ and that one of them should do something before ending cruelly that she’s noticed his wandering eye and asking ‘is there someone else instead?’

Before we’re in danger of becoming too much like Eastenders, we’ll go back to what we do know about this record. One thing that Belle and Sebastian would undoubtedly have sacrificed had they signed with Warner Brothers is their quirkyness. Lots of previous B+S EP tracks come with completely left-of-centre songs about a whole host of ridiculous topics and some of them (by Stuart David) are loopy spoken word monologues about nothing and everything, a world away from the insightful melodic work of Murdoch (have a look at our review for the EP collection ‘Push Barman To Heal Old Wounds’, with songs about the upper classes eating pasties, canines on wheels and Elvis being re-incarnated as a dog – these songs are among the most normal). However by and large the two actual LPs B+S have released till now have been surprisingly sensible by comparison, still distinctive and original with more words per verse than most bands use an album, but slightly less batty and more universal in outlook. Furthermore till now Murdoch has been the chief singer and chief writer on every album track, with harmony spots for B+S other two vocalists Isobel Campbell, Sarah Martin and Stevie Jackson. Had the band gone onto Warner Brothers they’d no doubt have asked the band to keep it that way and might even have limited the band’s quirkyness on their EP and single tracks. ‘Arab Strap’ makes full use of these different voices within the band, both in a writing and vocal sense and seems to delight in the fact that, having turned their first big offer down, the band go back to being even more Belle and Sebastian like than ever.

However, Murdoch’s coming to the end of an admirable purple patch that will see him write easily the best songs of the decade. Campbell’s, Jackson’s and even David’s latest genre-defying monologue are all good, memorable pieces with a right to be on the album – but Murdoch’s hitting his stride and is, frankly, too good to properly fulfil this album’s remit of creating a truly eccentric record that no other record label would dare release. In fact most record labels of the time would have given their vinyl-shifting arms to be able to release songs as strongest as Murdoch’s best work on the album (‘Brilliant Career’ ‘Sleep The Clock Around’ and ‘Rollercoaster Ride’ especially) and Stein must have looked on enviously at at least half this album when it came out. All of which means this album is a bit of an uneasy hybrid, with all those new voices to get used to and jerking uncomfortably between moments of poetic tuneful bliss and completely bonkers left-field experiments. Had the band released this as two separate records or even as an album and another EP they’d have been onto something – but that of course is what record bosses like Warner Brothers would have said too and that would have got in the way of the creative freedom B+S stand for and as a reviewer I’m kind of glad they made this third record like this, sticking up for their creative boundaries. Unfortunately as a fan it makes the whole record a bit of an uneasy listen, a bit like listening to one of those ‘now that’s what I called music back then because it was in fashion but I hate its guts now’ compilations that’s a pot pourri of everything or being served breakfast, lunch and tea all at the same time on the same plate.

That’s a shame given that the first two albums blew people away most because of their consistency (there’s only one bad track on ‘Tigermilk’ and that’s another dodgy sound experiment with the other nine songs are all among the best songs the band ever made; ‘Sinister’ isn’t far behind on all eleven tracks), but ‘Arab’s strongest moments are still superb. Even the best authors take whole novels to paint the pictures of songs like ‘Brilliant Career’ and the title track in a handful of verses, full of poignant images about ‘modern life’ that use words you simply don’t get in music made by any other band (‘Squalor’ ‘lascivious’ ‘clientele’ ‘pharmaceuticals’) that nevertheless fit the scenes perfectly. The sounds of this album are extraordinary too – sadly the rollicking electric guitar that dominated ‘Tigermilk’ is long gone by this period but the mix of brass, strings, drums and piano are joined by such variations as bagpipes, mouthorgan and a moog synthesiser. There’s even something that sounds like a drill on second track ‘Sleep The Clock Around’ , which suggests the band have been listening to too many strange Beach Boys albums! Even without the words, this is a very colourful album that always seems to be changing hues, from the cold dark austere opening of ‘Career’ to the warm summer sunshine of ‘Ease Your Feet In The Sea’ and ‘A Summer Wasting’.

One final mention, about the packaging. Murdoch actually appears on the album cover – for the only time on his own – with what looks like a wooden spoon sticking out of his side in a ‘mock’ death gesture. We’ve already included this album cover in our top ten ‘what the heck is going on’ cover sleeves in news and views 99 – my only take on it is that the band are ‘messing about’ somewhere in a field as a sort of pictorial depiction of the ‘summer wasting’ of the album’s theme. I still don’t know why it’s been tinted green, however. As for that curious title (both song and album), B+S were actually paying homage to a fellow band of that name who had been supporting them during their chaotic British tours and probably figured it would give them a bit of publicity. Unfortunately the kind gesture backfired as the band claimed their name was used ‘without permission’ and they probably secretly resented the fact B+S were in a position to help them out. In fact the rumour went around for years that this album was a collaboration between the two groups (although, surely, fans must have wondered why B+S’ name was so small compared to their lesser known colleagues?) On simply a practical level every time you write ‘the boy with the arab strap’ into a search engine you get sites about B+S (as well as some dodgy Ann Summers type shops!), not the band.

So, all in all, is ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ a good album? Yes it is. Even though its far less consistent than the albums before it (and one or two that follow) and even though the switches between singers and genres is handled with far less aplomb than later attempts, there’s still something compelling and revealing about even the weakest songs here. An album made wholeheartedly for fans of the band, from the rejection of the multi-million corporations on down, ‘Arab’ has much to interest people with a vested interest in the characters in these songs and it sounds lovely for the most part too, full of some of Murdoch’s most beautiful melodies and wittiest lyrics. Surely the only reason fans don’t love this album as much as the first two is simply that those two albums are so, so good that nothing can compare – even 75% of the way there type albums like this one.

‘It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career’ is the song on the album most closely related to the sound and style of the first two albums (especially the opening tracks of both which also start with one quiet line and build a head of steam from there) and it’s one of the best tracks on the album too. Murdoch and Jackson’s contrasting bleak and sweet harmonies are at their best here on a song about career pressures and destroyed lives and the sweeping melody is one of Murdoch’s best too, though the lyrics are still the song’s best feature. All three lengthy verses of this song (like many a B+S record there’s no chorus as such) feature young high flyers who have the world at their feet before all that workload and worry causes each of them to have a stroke, narrowing their world to the four corners of the same room. Few writers can be as empathetic as Murdoch at his best (only Ray Davies comes close) and he excels himself here on all three verses. The first harks back to the classic EP track ‘Lazy Line Painter Jane’, but instead of giving up her ‘life’ to have a baby she didn’t want this character is run out of town for being a ‘rebel’, forced to work that bit harder to get the world’s attention. The second verse is a struggling artist forced to work at Safeways to cover the money her paintings don’t make, pining away as she makes way for lesser artists with better connections. The third verse is a feisty, fiery character who fires all his co-workers so he can do the job himself – only for his perfectionist ways to catch up with him and leave him with a stroke, relying on the people he’s just fired simply to live. The fate of all three characters is delivered matter of factly, as if the outcome of their lives was never in doubt but is related with such a sad, sighing melodic line that its clear where Murdoch’s sympathies lie. Stark and dark, this song is far nastier than most B+S songs, but no worse for that giving this often frivolous and escapist album a gravitas and depth it might not otherwise have had. As with ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘Sinister’ it’s also very brave starting an album with a song that starts in such a modest, quiet way.

‘Stop The Clock Around’ is another strong song and a second straight song about hard work – this time more autobiographical, with the narrator under pressure to come up with a song (was this album written to tighter deadlines than the first two?) This song is far more oddly constructed, however, even for an eccentric writer like Murdoch. Most of the lyrics are gabbled so fast they’re difficult to follow without the lyric sheet and notably they read more like a book, with a rhyming scheme that’s all over the place (the first four lines, for instance, don’t rhyme with each other or the rest of the song). It’s as if the method of getting ‘inspiration’ isn’t important as long as the end product works (which, thankfully, it does). The song is sung by Stuart and Isobel together – a rare occasion which suggests that this is one of their more ‘autobiographical’ songs (most of the first two albums and EPs are about their relationship), but it’s actually more about Stuart (aka Sebastian) alone, with the pressures of the band resting on his shoulders. Like the last track there’s a kind of hurried, rushed feel about the arrangement which is played rather fast by B+S standards and features a bagpipe accompaniment which in context sounds like the angry ring of an alarm clock, urging the narrator on to his hard work. In fact most of the song concerns Murdoch’s narrator desperately trying to write something, chastising himself for his empty mind (‘Look at yourself, you’re no use to anyone’) and going through all his songwriting ‘tricks’ (taking pills, reading old love letters, going on walks through familiar neighbourhoods and a book signing. The actual inspiration, that finally blossoms the song into full bloom, is an unlikely source, an overheard conversation where a member of public exclaims ‘there’s a lot to be done while your head is still young...’ However Murdoch argues here that hard work is not enough – he’s at his most inspired when he’s relaxed and not under pressure to come up with anything (‘If you put down your pen...the memory will shine’). Thankfully the song has a happier ending than the last song, Murdoch finding that ‘everyone got paid, everybody is happy’ and his reward is not to enjoy the money or the artistic freedom this gives him, but to ‘sleep the clock around’. A word too about the sumptuous arrangement for the song which, in keeping with the lyrics, is one of the band’s busiest: Mick Cooke’s trumpet playing is superb and amongst his best work for the band, a half bugle call alarm clock and half a glowing wisp of inspiration, while the band add in all sorts of sound effects such as a drill and saw to add to the ‘work’ theme of the track (a trick they probably nicked from Brian Wilson’s still then-unissued ‘Smile’).

From hereon in the album gets quieter and more languid, starting with Campbell’s first ever song for the band ‘Is It Wicked Not To Care?’ More conventional than Murdoch’s work, it still features some very poetic lyrics about, well, not caring what others think of you basically. The song switches rapidly between being first person and third and is clearly directed to someone to hurry up a bit before a romance is dead. The song turns sharply in its second verse to one of loathing, though whether it’s of herself (‘Belle’), Murdoch (‘Sebastian’) or someone else in unclear. Still, it’s pretty harsh by B+S standards, damning someone for being ‘false’, ‘wearing rags to make you pretty by design, rusting armour for effect’ and telling the un-named person to stop acting and get on with it because ‘it will all be over when you’re dead’. The fascinating thing about this song is that these harsh lyrics about being too slow at love are set against a lovely, lilting, relaxed melody so fragile it nearly isn’t there at all (if we can believe all of Murdoch’s ‘love’ songs are written for Campbell then he certainly got her hidden feistiness spot on). There’s one truly great line here too, about the narrator not having time to mess around waiting for someone who may or may not love her and wishing there could be a ‘sequel’ to this life the pair could commit to to find out if their romance works or not (‘If there was a sequel would you love me like an equal, would you love me till I’m dead?’) This time round its B+S’ string section’s chance to excel and Martin’s work is lovely, far more suitable to the band’s work than an outside violinist would have been, proud but mournful and a good match for the epitaph-like lyrics. Not up to the best songs on the album, but Campbell’s far too good a songwriter to have gone unheard across so many years (the fact that she released four albums in the three years after she left the band in 2001 suggests she had a lot of leftover material that never made it to B+S albums, almost all of it wolf-in-sheeps clothing songs like this one).

‘Ease Your Feet In The Sea’ is Murdoch’s song of relaxation and seems to be almost a spoof of his normally paranoid, restless, thoughtful characters with lines like ‘Soberly, without regret, I make another sandwich’ and the song’s big hook on the line ‘everything’s going wrong’. It’s a curious song this one, not quite as ear-catching as Murdoch’s usual work and sounds as if two songs have been stapled together in the middle, switching between a relaxed summer’s day of nothing and the worry that the narrator has let someone down. At first this song seems to be about having the patience to make a final decision, weighing up options to see which are best and then taking the plunge (‘It’s an emergency, there’s no more ‘wait and see’). Coming so soon after Campbell’s first song for the band I’m tempted to see the last two verses as being Murdoch’s offer of support to his friend, the song ending with a character who gives her time generously to others but is never noticed for her good deeds (‘Whose seeing you at all?’) He doesn’t feel free of guilt either, acknowledging ‘ I left you dry’ and that ‘the signs were clear that you aren’t going anywhere at all’ and desperately trying to work out the best thing to do, looking for the ‘truth’ of the matter in ‘everyone’s faces (possibly the band’s). There’s a great Spanish guitar part from the ever-underused Stevie Jackson that adds a flamenco flourish to the song, but otherwise everything else on this track sounds recycled from somewhere else (especially the violin part).

‘A Summer Wasting’ is a song about carefree summer days so close in spirit and style to the 70s Kinks that I could well believe it was a Ray Davies outtake. The song is bouncy and enthusiastic – something of a rarity for this rather sombre album – and harks back to ‘Clock Around’ by showing how any time spent having fun can never be time ‘wasted’. The song harks back to school holiday summers with its chorus of ‘seven weeks...’ with some marvellous lines about going for walks, reading papers, staying up late and ‘feeling guilty’ for not getting anything accomplished (all he has to show for his seven weeks off are memories and a couple of photographs). Murdoch’s narrator shouldn’t feel guilty however – this song is all about the freedom of being away from pressure and ‘feeling free’, recharging batteries for harder times to come. Suitably the song is one of B+S’ simplest pieces, a catchy slice of pop with a memorable opening and closing verse (‘Summer in Winter, Winter in Springtime, you hear the birds sing, everything will be fine’) that bookends the track like the start and finish of a true holiday. The only thing that mars this song slightly is Murdoch’s rather nasal vocal – I don’t think any B+S fan would want to hear this band all polished and slick but this song might have sounded better still after another couple of takes, as Murdoch all but speak-sings his lyrics at points.

The first side of the album ends with Stevie Jackson’s first song for the band, ‘Seymour Stein’, a glorious tale – or should that be parable as that’s the way it’s sung - of the band giving short shrift to a record company offer to become ‘stars’. Poor Seymour – quite apart from being christened with that name (causing many a fan to think this is another of B+S’ sexual songs) he flies all the way from LA with the clout of Warner Brothers behind him to sign the band because he believes in them – and half the band don’t even show up to the meeting. ‘I heard dinner went well, you liked Chris’ jacket...sorry I missed you, have a nice flight home!’ Jackson drawls to one of the slowest and least commercial accompaniments in B+S canon, the sort of song no one but B+S would ever have written. This is still a beautiful song, however, especially with a classic middle eight that adds just the weight and power to this laidback song. Jackson recounts all the places Stein passed just to travel to the band in Scotland and the limousines he hired to drive in, but says none of that travelling is good enough if Stein has ‘never seen Dundee’ and so doesn’t understand the band’s neighbourhood and background. The lines about Stein starting his journey ‘half a world away’ aren’t just geographic detail, they’re evidence of the huge difference in salary, mindset and background between the two halves. The harder Stein tries to impress the group with ‘promises of fame, promises of fortune’, the less likely the notoriously media shy, ordinary people-centred B+S are going to say yes. The song ends with Stein, disappointed, flying back home to the sound of a jet aeroplane to the sound of the band calling out his name like nymphs from the sea. A real fan favourite, this song sums up everything B+S stand for and is a very clever idea for a song, well written and performed by Jackson, always a neglected part of the group. This song was famously features in the film ‘High Fidelity’ where Jack Black’s character takes the mickey out of this song for being so slow and wimpy, much to his sensitive colleague’s chagrin. It’s interesting the film makers should have chosen this song, given that its at least in part a spoof or an exaggeration of everything B+S stand for!

Side two starts with the album’s weirdest track ‘A Space Boy Dream’. Stuart David’s contribution to the album is another of his spoken word monologues, similar to his post B+S work with Looper but darker in tone, recounting a dream he once had about exploring Mars with his family. Like many a dream the experience is hazy and some of the lyrics contradict themselves (‘Faced with the reality of it, in a dream, I was terrified’) as well as being highly revealing about the dreamer. David is worried not about being somewhere new but travelling across ‘black empty space’ and having to land on the planet alone before his family arrive with him. The twist is that Mars is populated when the astronaut arrives so he decides to wait for his family. In the meantime he wakes up and doesn’t know if he’s still dreaming or not, waiting for his family to get to him so he isn’t alone in the darkness... Less funny and less successful than David’s other contribution to the band (the hilarious EP track ‘A Century Of Elvis’ where the King is reincarnated as a dog), this track doesn’t quite fit on this album somehow, its slightly terrifying backing doing a good job at painting in music the loneliness and the fright of the lyrics. Jackson’s double duty on mouthorgan and stinging electric guitar steals the show on a more electronic-based track than normal, one that’s thankfully a big improvement on the horrible ‘Electric Renaissance’ from ‘Tigermilk’. The band have fun with the extended musical coda too, adding a touch of jazz to their repertoire. However, the song doesn’t really progress anywhere and simply ends, switching gears joltingly into the next track. Perhaps B+S might have done better to stick that song onto an EP too – or were they just desperate for material and so released anything they could come up with? Sadly the lyrics aren’t printed in the lyric booklet with the other songs, which is a shame as they’re worth studying if you’re a fan – there’s a link here if you want to read them

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/belle+sebastian/a+space+boy+dream_20016365.html

Not that ‘Dirty Dream Number One’ is any more typical of the band either. There’s a good song here somewhere about responsibility, with Murdoch’s narrator struggling with a decision and putting off as long as he can, but the song keeps being interrupted by the ‘dirty dreams’ of the title, as if to reflect how unfulfilled the narrator feels. As a result it’s another song that feels like two others stapled together, with the excellent opening lines about balancing the freedom of being unknown compared to the restrictions of being a ‘star’ ending up in smut and cheap laughs. There’s a surprise return of the spoken word intersection here too, a device so successfully used on ‘Tigermilk’, with an un-credited voice announcing that in a town so small ‘there’s no escaping you...there’s nothing left to do’ (we’ll pick up on this theme with Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘My Little Town’ in a couple of reviews’ time). A strong performance goes some way to rescuing the song, especially some superb heavy drumming from Richard Colburn quite different in style to what he normally gets to play with the band and a soaring string-come-brass arrangement that flies over the song at the end. However by Murdoch’s standards this song is brief and not terribly interesting, which is a shame given how strong the opening lines about fame and fortune are.

The title track of the album is probably the song most fans know, having appeared in various films and TV soundtracks down the years. Film and programme makers probably seized on this song because it’s such a good example of Murdoch studying the ‘ordinary people’ he sees around him. The narrator is on a bus journey that’s only for a ‘mile and a half’ but in that time his mind wanders over all sorts of subject matters, including prison, suffering, sex and communication with the audience. It’s the closest Murdoch has ever come to fitting one of his superb but rambling sleeve notes into a song (alas there isn’t one on this album – another sign, perhaps, of the speed with which this record was made?) The narrator is struggling to come to terms with his lonely existence, that ‘nobody gives you a chance or a dollar in this old town’ and trying to urge his girlfriend to leave with him, although you know from the tone of the song that it’s never going to happen – there’s nowhere else for them to go. The characters belong here, on this interminable bus ride, trapped by their own problems. The hint is that the narrator has just been let out of prison and that the ‘solitary cell of the mind’ isn’t all that different from the people he sees on the bus who are all equally lonely and trapped in some way (‘everyone suffers in silence a burden’). Staggering off the bus the character isn’t any freer, boasting remarks to the crowd of people passing who he knows well (because everyone knows everyone in this town), who all know he’s really ‘soft’ (‘because we’ve all seen you dancing’) and yet know he’s not that soft (‘because we’ve all seen you drinking’). This lyrical tour de force is accompanied by a fascinating backing, featuring a sea of keyboards all playing the same hypnotic riff and a chirpy fleet of recorders, all playing inanely out of tune together (if that makes sense...), desperately trying to turn chaos into order. Murdoch’s vocal is a delight, freer and less inhibited than his others for this album and the band appear to be having fun with this song by trying to re-create the rhythm of a moving bus, together creating another of the highlights of the album. Listen out for the conclusion of the song though, which if you turn it up high runs for a couple of extra lines mixed so quietly you can’t hear them if you play back the album at a standard volume (the opposite of most B+S tracks, which tend to start rather than finish this way!)

‘Chickfactor’ is a second Stevie Jackson song that sounds like a Moody Blues outtake rather than a B+S song. Sung to the accompaniment of a mellotron set on a flute setting (as a big Beatles fan Jackson was probably trying to get the same sound the Beatles did on ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ which uses the flute setting too) and a piano, this is a quiet, muted song that’s hard to hear without the aid of the lyric sheet. In many ways this is the complete contrast to ‘Seymour Stein’, relating a journey Jackson took to New York and how it widened his horizons simply by letting him meet girls who were delighted to meet a member of an Indie pop band (as opposed to back home in Scotland, where most people just think he’s mad).Note the way the narrator doesn’t just leave New York for Scotland in the last verse he ‘falls from outer space’ (making for a neat tie in with Stuart David’s track too). Jackson is one of the biggest music anoraks around (and almost as obsessed as I am) and his songs nearly always include some reference or other to some 60s band – in this case it’s the Rolling Stones, with Jackson getting in references to two cult B-sides ‘The Spider and The Fly’ and ‘The Singer Not The Song’. This is a song that often gets overlooked on this album, perhaps because its mixed so strangely it’s hard to hear, but with a different mix this is as good a song as any on the album, with its cute retro rhymes (‘Aeroplanes they fly, high in the sky, pretty girl says ‘hi’...) and its subtly psychedelic swirly feel.

‘Simple Things’ is Murdoch’s retro song, sounding like a mid-60s angst ballad which, for a third song in a row, is mixed so strangely it’s impossible to hear the lyric. Less poetic and image-filled than most of Murdoch’s compositions, this sounds like another episode in the Belle and Sebastian soap opera, with ‘Sebastian’ asking for some emotional reaction from ‘Belle’. The first verse has him offer to be there for his girl any time, the second says he’s available – but not in the usual places (‘subtle as the wind is grey’ in a rather confusing line), the third imagines her growing old and still not admitting her love for him (‘I saw your arms in a dream and there were blue veins!’) while the last urges her to get to know him, to ‘ask a thousand questions’. The song is rattled off at top speed, so fast that it barely lasts a couple of minutes and doesn’t so much end as collapse, falling apart on a rhetorical question mark delivered by Jackson’s shimmering guitar-line. Less deep and less satisfying than most of Murdoch’s songs, this is still a poignant piece that adds a welcome slice of anger and frustration into the often muted story of Belle and Sebastian’s relationship.

The album then ends with ‘Rollercoaster Ride’, another album highlight with Murdoch and Martin sharing the vocal on a pastoral song about life’s ups and downs. This acoustic song is one of Murdoch’s prettiest, with a melody that cleverly reflects the rollercoaster in the lyrics, reaching high and low with each contrasting line. The song opens with a harkback to the 60s style of songwriting looking at people through ‘windows’ (a device used by The Hollies in particular), the contrasting mixture of ‘fun and sorrow’ going on in the people’s faces and starkly reflecting on these fleeting feelings as ‘you’ll be gone tomorrow’ –out of the narrator’ sight and a possible reference to the fleetingness of life for human beings. Judy, one of Murdoch’s favourite recurring characters, makes her last appearance here, perfectly happy despite still being an outcast, filling her unfashionable huge coat with ‘the pharmaceuticals she takes to fix her brain’. The narrator then pauses to reflect the ‘puzzle’ on his mind – whether to embrace his partner, with a bay on the way, and ‘normality’ or to run away. This lovely humble song barely makes it above a whisper despite packing quite a punch in its few lines, as delicate and whimsical yet as tough as B+S are at their best. Martin, especially, excels on this song and her fragile, wispy vocals weave in and out of Murdoch’s path very well before joining him in one of the best harmony vocals B+S ever recorded. Jackson, too, adds some superb slide guitar that sounds not unlike Syd Barrett’s work on his solo albums (when the Floyd guitarist actually overdubbed his parts on by playing the song backwards!) Listen out for a ‘shush’ from Murdoch about 2:50 into the song and later an unexpected giggle from another member of the band (Martin or Campbell) about six minutes in, hidden deep in the mix. There’s yet another strange, unexpected end to the song too where most of the musicians are faded out to leave just one organ note left unresolved and hanging in the air...

Overall, then, ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ is another excellent Belle and Sebastian record that does much to back up the band’s belief that they really would work best as an independent un-pressurised cult band rather than a mainstream commercial success. It’s not a perfect album – not as perfect as the first two superb albums anyway – but then that was part of the plan, with B+S exploring their darker, more eccentric side and playing around with their usual formulas before they got ‘old’, adding new voices, new songwriters, new instruments and new styles. Some of the songs here are half-baked, some of them are badly mixed and other poorly executed but that shouldn’t get in the way of how good the best of these songs and performances are. I love the fact that B+S aren’t perfect and leave a lot of their rough edges in their songs, even while it angers and annoys some fans, and that arguably is what Seymour Stein and his offer of bigger budgets and advertising campaigns didn’t understand. I feel that ‘Arab Strap’ – like its successor and close cousin ‘Fold Your Hands, Child, You Walk Like A Preacher’ – is an overlooked gem in the B+S canon, not as obviously unique or groundbreaking as the better known ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ but still full of strong ideas. Belle and Sebastian, and especially its chief writer and singer Stuart Murdoch, are as good as music gets once the 70s ended and they honestly were worth the big record company attention given to them – however its probably for the best that B+S stayed independent and small, passed on by word of mouth, as it meant the band stayed ‘ours’ that little bit longer.


A Now Complete Link Of Belle and Sebastian Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:
‘Fold Your Hands, Child, You Walk Like A Peasant’ (2001) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/belle-and-sebastian-fold-your-hands.html
'Storytelling' (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/belle-and-sebastian-storytelling-2002.html

'Push Barman To Open Old Wounds' (EP compilation 2003)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-100-belle-and-sebastian-push.html

'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' (2004)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/news-views-and-music-issue-139-belle.html
'The Life Pursuit' (2006) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/belle-and-sebastian-life-pursuit-2006.html

'Write About Love' (2010)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/news-views-and-music-issue-86-belle-and.html
'God Help The Girl' (Stuart Murdoch Film) (2014) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/belle-and-sebastianstuart-murdoch-god.html
Girls In Peace Time Just Want To Dance (2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/belle-and-sebastian-girls-in-peacetime.html

Belle and Sebastian: Existing TV Clips http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/belle-and-sebastian-existing-tv-clips.html
Belle and Sebastian: 12 Unreleased Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/belle-and-sebastian-12-unreleased-songs.html
Belle and Sebastian: Non-Album Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/belle-and-sebastian-non-album_29.html
Belle and Sebastian: Solo/Live/Compilation/Rarities Albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/belle-and-sebastian-assorted.html
Essay: B and S Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/belle-and-sebastian-essay-talking-bout.html
Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/belle-and-sebastian-five-landmark.html



A (Not That_ Short Guide To 15 Of The Best Non-AAA Bands (Nedws, Views and Music Issue 170 Top Fifteen)


This week’s top five/ten/whatever is going to be a little bit different. Originally when I conceived this site I wanted to tell you about some of the best non-AAA albums around and I did indeed cover a handful (Abba’s ‘The Visitors’, Badfinger’s ‘Straight Up’, Jethro Tull’s ‘Warchild’ and Johnny Cash’s Christmas album) before realising that the idea wasn’t really paying off. There are lots of artists I collect and enjoy, but as a sort of ‘sceond tier’ to my main batch of 30 or so artists I can’t live without who make up the AAA list. Writing about artists I don’t know inside out also means I struggle to convey context and knowledge to you, dear readers, and that I end up sounding like another interested fan rather than a knowledgeable one (not that I know everything, of course, but you tell me who else could write 8000 words on a pre-fame 10cc record nobody else has ever heard of?!) I still want to offer up some ideas, however, to interested readers who’ve got this far through the site, either already own or have built up a collection of all the records I’ve mentioned thus far and want a bit of variation. Hence this week’s handy and – comparatively – brief guide to 14 chosen special artists that are worth a look and made one or two indispensible albums everyone should own, even if their canon as a whole is either too poor or too unwieldy to add to the tally of AAA artists. Frankly there’s a few bands here I wish I’d added to my core 101 list, either because their records have really grown on me or because I discovered them too late, long after the site was up and running. Anyway, here’s my guide to what else you might fancy listening to and where to start and my reasons for leaving them out of the ‘site’ as a whole...

Johnny Cash (1955-2003):
I only discovered The Man In Black about a year or so before starting this site and Cash made so many albums in his career (60, including live albums but not compilations) that I’d be hard pressed to cover them all on this site anyway (not to mention the fact that I’ve still got 25 albums to go...) What impresses me most about Cash’s work is his ecleclticism and his bravery in trying new genres and embracing concepts so fully he frequently falls flat on his face. Not every album Cash released is a gem (his 1980s work ‘One Piece At A Time’ is horrid, as are his Christmas album and all but one duet with wife June Carter) but even at his worst Cash’s gruff vocals and earnest ideals shine through, with Cash never less than honest and open about his darker side. I’ve listed my two favourite albums below but really, like Neil Young, you need to hear a little bit of everything he ever made to understand Cash well – the boom-chikka-boom 1950s years, the Americana travelogues of the 1960s, the gospel albums, the ‘drug’ albums and, best of all, the wizened battle-scarred final years with producer Rick Rubin when Cash was poorly but was brave enough to let it show in his music with dignity and grace. Above all I love Cash’s bravery – his ability to empathise with convicts and bring them as close to revolt against unfair social systems as he dares, to sing about his darker side with drink and drugs and to record songs so out of step with everyone else and so controversial most artists would have given up long ago. It seems odd saying that a man ‘died too soon’ at 71, but Cash’s last years were among his finest and we were robbed too soon from the lessons of how to stay dignified and relevant to the end. Album Highlight – ‘Bitter Tears’ (1963) is the bravest album I own, a white American’s attempt to come to terms with the warfare of his ancestors against the native American Indians. It could have gone very wrong, turned either preachy or patronising, but Cash means every word he sings and the backing is as bleak and bare and dignified as the subject matter. Every song is a gem, but the lovely ‘Drums’ and the hilarious ‘Custer’ (with the giggled refrain ‘the General don’t ride well anymore!’ after coming out worst against a bunch of Indians) are particularly superb. Your next best bet: any of the ‘American’ recordings made towards the end of Johnny’s life, especially ‘IV: The Man Comes Around’ (2003), the last album released in the great man’s lifetime.

The Everly Brothers (1957-1973)

As regular readers of this site will know, I love my harmonies. From The Beach Boys to CSNY to lesser known but equally lovely sounds recorded by The Who and 10cc, hearing very different voices combine into one amazing whole moves me far more than flashy guitar solos or strinbg sections ever will. I’d love to say ‘my guys’ invented harmonies, but in truth they simply worked on what was already there from the 1950s – and what was there were two brothers with perfect pitch. The Everlys didn’t write many songs (not till the late 60s anyway), they rarely played instruments and all too often their work got stuck in one place (usually Boudleaux Bryant pop singles). But when they got things ‘right’ – as they did on about half a dozen classic singles and a handful of album tracks – you can almost hear the gears of the 1960s moving into place. Frankly none of their 15 or so albums, even the one they made with The Hollies, work as a whole – hence their absence from the list – but it would be churlish to overlook their handful of claims to fame. As a Hollies fan I owe this duo big time too – it was seeing the Everlys perform (and their grace in giving autographs) that made Allan Clarke and Graham Nash turn to music as a career and Phil Everly’s solo career that gave the world classic Hollies single ‘The Air That I Breathe’. The band split, badly, in the 1970s as all bands with brothers seem to do eventually, but were last seen as the ‘warm-up act’ on the last Simon and Garfunkel tour in 2006. Album Highlight – ‘Temptation’ is simply the greatest song of the pre-rock and roll era. In fact it sounds as if it should belong to the rock and roll era and I’ve waited patiently many years to hear a rock and roll band singing it. The Everly’s version didn’t disappoint when I finally heard it either– it’s tighter than the UK economy in a budget deficit, more raucous than the Spice Girls played backwards through a megaphone and more thrilling than all the rollercoasters in the world laid end to end. In short, its the record the Everlys were born to record and everything else they made is slightly disappointing as a result. This single-only appears on most Everlys compilations which are very much your best bet as a single purchase, although a close second is 1966’s ‘Two Yanks In England’ album. Realising they needed the help of some ‘youngsters’ to seem hip again the Everlys travelled to the UK and phoned up the Beatles for help. They refused, but second choice The Hollies were only too keen to help, backing the band on all of their 12 songs and offering them nine of their own songs (an intriguing mix of the known, obscure and yet-to-be released original compositions). The Everlys turn the sweet ‘Fifi The Flea’ into a melodrama and suck all the life out of one of The Hollies’ greatest moments ‘Have You Ever Loved Somebody’ but cope with the beatier, earlier songs like the gorgeous ‘So Lonely’, ‘I’ve Been Wrong’ and ‘Don’t Run and Hide’ really well.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch (1964-72):

The modern view of the 1960s seems really topsy turvy to me. Bands like ‘The Hollies’ and ‘The Searchers’ are dismissed as being ‘too poop’ despite recording some of the heaviest, most intellectual songs of the decade – while bands like ‘The Grateful Dead’ and ‘Jefferson Airplane’ are dismissed for being ‘too stuck in one time’ despite changing style more often than modern bands change their socks. ‘Dave Dee Dozy’ et al are another band who had a great run of classic singles (especially the later, lesser known stuff) but never made the big time because, as a pop band, they were seen as being too ‘lightweight’. Let me tell you, there’s nothing ‘lightweight’ about the last batch of singles, which condemn Richard Nixon long before most people realised he was up to no good and generally wave a fond psychedelic farewell to the hippie dream before most people realised there had even been one. Again, the band never made the list because it took them a while to get going on albums (their first wasn’t till late 1967, when most of the hits had already dried up) and they’re all patchy, but heck three classic singles alone gets them into this ‘extra’ list. Album Highlight – The best of five albums the band released is the first (‘DDDBM&T’, 1967) simply by virtue of including the classic mid-60s single ‘Hold Tight!’ However, you might be best set with a compilation album – that way you also get the band’s two other (comparatively) lost gems, the beautiful ‘The Wreck Of The Antoinette’ and the quintet’s final chart entry, the damning ‘Mr President’.

The Animals (1965-68):

I adore The Animals, who brought a Newcastle gruffness and bluesier, tougher, working class sound to the psychedelic 60s party, and who released one of the best ever run of singles between late 1965 and early 67, right up there with the best of them. However this is another group who can’t make a decent album to save their lives, who used the longplayer to ‘experiment’ and get so far away from their own sound that they alternate between a bad pub covers band and a psychedelic garage band. Eric Burdon is too much of a talent to lose his way entirely and even in his much mocked ‘New Aninals’ era there is muvch to love, thankfully – had the band put ‘San Francisco Nights’ their tribute to the festival ‘Monterey’, their haw-dropping fiddle-led cover of the Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’ (that even surpasses the original) and the classy, bluesy, class protest ‘Hey Gyp’ on one LP it would be one of the most played ibn my collection. Sadly they didn’t – these four songs are strung across three different LPs, two of them doubles, filled up with ‘atmospheric’ bits of nothing and jam sessions dragged out to 20 minutes. Let’s not forget, though, that in 1966 The Animals are at least a shout-in for the world’s greatest bands, relevant, tough and every bit as adventurous as better respected bands – but with a strong melodic touch too. Highly under-rated. Album highlight - The best of the Animals’ work tends to appear on singles (and B sides) so the ‘Complete Singles’ is probably my tip as single albums go, especially the mid period stuff that doesn’t get heard that often nowadays (highlights: the stormy ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’, the rebellious ‘It’s My Life’, the moody ‘Inside Looking Out’ and the best non-AAA psychedelic track ever written ‘When I Was Young’ are all classics of the pop-rock genre).Your next best bet: ‘Winds of Change’ (1967) is the best of the ‘New’ animals containing the band’s psychedelic cover of the Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’ with a violin replacing the sitar and the lovely hippie ballad ‘San Franciscan Nights’. The best Animals track of all, however, is a cover of 60s blues classic ‘Hey Gyp’ which appears on ‘Animalism’.

The Bee Gees (1966-2000):

The Bee Gees were a great band in the late 60s and early 70s, before they sold their soul to the great God of disco and became the punch line for every joke in the 80s and 90s. I was so sad to see the loss of first Maurice and then Robin Gibb before the band had become ‘rehabilitated’ back to the first or second tier of British Bands (or first tier if you count them as Australians). The band’s early teenage years are patchy but impressively good for newbies, the string of three or four albums from the late 60s to the ‘split’ are impressively good and the band were just finding their form again in the 1990s/00s with their last two albums among the best they ever made. I wanted to add this band to our list of greats, if only to get a ‘new’ perspective on Lulu’s marriage from the other angle, but reviewing the two or three great albums would have meant reviewing about half a dozen shocking pieces of falsetto shrieks and dance tunes and I wouldn’t sit through that even for you, dear readers. Take my advice, though, and give the albums below a go, especially the early ones which have a really unique sound even for the eclectic 60s, all orchestras mood swings and lyrics about furniture (chairs and fridges a speciality!)Album Highlight – Definitely ‘First’ (1967, although it’s actually the band’s second, third or fourth depending what Australian releases you count...) with the winning quartet of the atmospheric ‘Holiday’, the deliciously bonkers ‘Every Christian Lionhearted Man Will Show You’, the psychedelic ‘Red Chair Fadeaway’ and the classy ballad ‘To Love Somebody’, rightly covered by lots of AAA musicians and recognised as one of the best songs of the 1960s. Your next best bet: ‘Size Isn’t Everything’ (1993) – the band’s penultimate album - is a strong return to form, a true three-way exploration of the band’s singing and writing talents and highlighted by the gorgeous Rwanda protest ballad ‘Blue Island’.

The Creation (1966-1968):

I wanted to write a ‘top five’ about classic AAA debut singles a few issues back, but frankly no band – not even my beloved 30 – ever made a debut single as great and thrilling as ‘Making Time’, with the world’s greatest guitar riff and a solo played on a guitar with a violin bow and squeals of feedback. Frankly, I’ve never quite been able to think straight again since hearing the power and pizzazz in that one track. So why aren’t The Creation on our album review list? Erm, because they never technically released an album and even their small handful of singles become progressively worse as they go on, making the moniker ‘Creation’ rather an unfortunate one. I’d love to know what this band might have gone on to become – and I’m not the only one, Oasis manager Alan McGee loved this band so much he named his record label ‘Creation’ after them. But fans who’ve heard this band’s first two or three singles almost always cite them as their favourites and I urge you to look out for their greatest moments, particularly the ‘Nuggets’ box set out on ‘Rhino’ of other, similar one or two hit wonders if you have a spare bit of money (or, in my case, a good library). Album Highlight: The band never lasted long enough to give us a full album, but any decent compilation will give you what you need as long as it includes debut single and biggest hit ‘Making Time’, a classy pop song with what I would nominate as the best riff ever written.

Love (1966-70):

Fans claim Arthur Lee’s band are the greatest in the world, regularly voting ‘Pet Sounds With Strings’ album ‘Forever Changes’ into the top of ‘best album’ polls. Most general, casual music fans can’t bear them and think they’re clichéd hippies with a reputation for stealing melodies from past greats. AS ever, I sit in between. I’m probably the one Beach Boys fan who thinks ‘Pet Sounds’ is a bit of a weak link in their catalogue so can’t say I respect ‘Forever Changes’ that much (although the eerie ‘Red Telephone’ is as good a precise of the hippie dream as any Moody Blues or Jefferson Airplane song). In fact none of the band’s four original LPs (I haven’t bought the ‘reunions’ yet) really excel all the way through, but stick the best songs all together and you do have a pretty nifty hour or so set, with some entertaining lyrics and some lovely melodies, when they aren’t being nicked from someone else. Full kudos to Love, too, for being – as far as I can tell – the world’s first mixed-race pop group (beating the Jimi Hendrix Experience by a matter of months). Album Highlight – The much acclaimed ‘Forever Changes’ has its moments, but I would promote either the folk-rock debut album (‘Love’ 1966) with its mixture of lovely harmonies (‘You I’ll Be Following’) and topical social commentary (‘Mushroom Clouds’) although whole great sections appear to have been ‘lifted’ from other songs (‘Signed DC’ is ‘Nights In White Satin’ without the flute). Your next best bet: the esoteric half-great, half-ghastly follow-up (‘Da Capo’ 1967) which features the lovely ‘Orange Skies’, the risqué ‘She Comes In Colours’ and the punk-rock of the band’s greatest moment ‘Seven and Seven Is’. I’d give the side-long jam ‘Revelation’ a miss, though.

Jethro Tull (1967-2001):

Jethro Tull only missed our great long list of artists because, simply, I hadn’t discovered them yet at the time of writing the first draft of the site. I’m still not sure as to whether that was a good thing or not – there’s a great review in there somewhere on witty, indulgent, breathtakingly original albums like ‘This Was’ ‘Benefit’ ‘Stand Up’ ‘Aqualung’ and ‘Thick As A Brick’ – bit I’d hate to have to find something interesting to say about the 1980s harder rock Tull albums which, to be honest, I’ve barely played. I’d also have to spend every review listing whose changed and why in the mercurial Tull line-up, although then again contradictory tramp-come businessman, the controlled yet wildly nihilistic mainstay Ian Anderson alone would keep me going for several million words. Like many fans I love the sound of the early Tull albums – the folkier side of the Moody Blues, but with more of a blues leaning – more than I love many of the actual records, which either go too far or not far enough. But even the weakest albums have ‘something’ about them that makes me go back for more and the characters sketched on these songs are always well crafted and drawn with a lot of love, impressively dark without being judging or ever less than empathetic. Album Highlight: ‘Thick As A Brick’ (1972) is one of my favourite albums; daring, funny and politically charged, packed with wonderful moments especially lyrically. On paper it shouldn’t work at all – one track split over two sides of vinyl lasting 42 minutes, with no gaps (even the ‘break’ between the two sides fades in and out), a sketchy concept about a prodigal school-child’s work getting thrown out of a competition by corrupt, hypocritical adults and so many lurches from scene to scene the listener frequently gets sea-sick. But there’s a great heart beating throughout this track and the final surge, with ‘Gerald’ futilely calling on his childhood heroes to save him from the adult world, is as poignant as they come. Had I owned this record when I started this site it would have been in our ‘core’ top 101 albums for sure. Your next best bet: ‘Stand Up’ (1969), the band’s second record, is a patchy affair but includes two absolute masterpieces in ‘Back To The Family’ (where the narrator flees his busy touring life for home, only to find his family are even more annoying than his bandmates) and the beautiful ‘Reasons For Waiting’.

The King’s Singers (1968-date):

The quieter, mellower side of my record collection is full of harmony group records like these, although the 70-odd King’s Singers records are by far and away the best of the genre. Sung a capella (barring one album with ‘rock’ instruments and one with an orchestra) the King’s Singers have tackled everything since the dawn of time (well, nearly – I’m sure there’s a ‘caveman sounds’ record on the way anyday now). Naturally my list of favourites are full of AAA songs (the band did a so-so Beatles covers album too), but I do love the others as well – especially the madrigal period, where the six-piece really get to show off their mental telepathy and abilities. Like many fans I feel the band were at their peak in the early days, with the likes of Brian Kay in the band, and its their first 10 or so records that are truly groundbreaking and original (George Martin’s production helps the first three). However nearly all their records have something to recommend and, indeed, my two chosen selections seem to have come from the end of their run... Album Highlight – ‘Simple Gifts’ (2008) features ‘Black Is The Colour’, a traditional Appalachian mountain song that’s as beautiful as music ever gets, as well as the best AAA cover the sextet ever did, CSN’s gorgeous ‘Helplessly Hoping’. The rest aren’t as good, but what the heck – this album is worth buying for these two tracks alone. Your next best bet: ‘Good Vibrations’ (1993) is – despite the title – actually near enough a Paul Simon covers album, featuring lovely interpretations of ‘The Boxer’ and lesser known works like ‘Some Folks Lives Roll Easy’, plus a noisy cover of The Beach Boys’ classic as the title track.

Badfinger (1969-78):

Badfinger must be the unluckiest band in rock and pop circles. Everyone knows them now, thanks to re-releases, film soundtracks and their big ‘hit’ ‘Without You’ (which seems to have been a hit for every band and singer around in the 70s except for the superior original). But at the time Badfinger weren’t selling and they were trapped on their heroes, The Beatles’, Apple label at a time when money for all artists but the fab four was being re-drawn and comparisons between the two became unfavourable. Business matters followed the band to Warner Brothers, which proved too much for band genius Pete Ham who hanged himself in 1973 (his writing partner Tom Evans, cheated out of royalties he believed were his, hanged himself in 1983; drummer Mike Gibbons died young from cancer in the 1990s leaving just guitarist Joey Molland left). It could – and should – have been very different, as after two patchy LPs Badfinger recorded a magnificent third, ‘Straight Up’, one which sits proudly near the top of my all time favourite albums. Even that album’s warmth and beauty, however, is coupled with lyrics about the darker side of life and money troubles, with Pete Ham better able than most to translate his doubts and fears into music. The band fall apart again after this, upset at having their masterpiece dismissed so casually, but even then there are plenty of highpoints on every Badfinger record to come (not that there are that many). The irony of this band is that everyone dismissed them at the time for being safe Beatles wannabes – the truth is they were as dark and edgy as the fab four were at their best and they went their separate ways as early as the second LP. AAA fansd might be interested to learn that Paul McCartney produced their first album, George Harrison their third and the much missed Mal Evans – similarly doomed Beatles roadie, shot by police by ‘mistake’ in 1973 – worshipped the band so much he produced their fourth record when the Beatles split left him without a job. Album Highlight: Third album ‘Straight Up’ (1971) is another record I wish I’d known when starting this site as it, too, would have made up our core ‘101’. The much missed Pete Ham is on top form, with the defiant shrug of the shoulders ‘Name Of The Game’ one of my all time favourite songs. The guilt-ridden popfest ‘Baby Blue’ (covered by Hollie Allan Clarke), philosophical ‘Perfection’ and the dark and edgy singalong ‘Day After Day’ happen to be the next best three songs Badfinger ever made too, on a marvellously consistent album with no poor songs on it at all. Your next best bet: Every other Badfinger album is a pale shadow of this one, but the next best is probably ‘Ass’ (1974) – many of the songs here are awful but the classy farewell to Apple on ‘Apple Of My Eye’ and the epic self-questioning ‘Timeless’ (which should really come with a question mark) are the two ‘other’ Badfinger songs you need to own.

ABBA (1972-83):

Everyone knows the story of Abba, from ‘Waterloo’ on Eurovision to not one but two marriage splits within the same band, so I won’t repeat it. Let’s just say that the idea that a band from Sweden breaking the British/American stronghold on the European charts was unheard of before 1972 and has been since. Abba, a cheap joke for much of the 80s and 90s, are now big because of ‘Abba Gold’ (all their worst moments together on one handy disc) and ‘Mama Mia’, a candidate for the world’s worst film and certainly the worst stage musical after the Spice Girls one. Most Abba singles are terrible, dated sounding slices of empty pop, with nonsensical lyrics and featuring some of the most questionable pop videos made which don’t feature Michael Jackson. So why are they on this list? Because Abba used their final few moments, a time when they couldn’t have been more out of fashion, to do absolutely the right thing and record a mature, politically aware, musically adventurous and deeply honest record about their troubled relationships. ‘The Visitors’ might well be the worst selling Abba album, with only one semi-hit that everyone’s forgotten, but it remains their towering achievement by some miles, just as ‘Goodbye’ is the only decent song The Spice Girls ever made, in their dying embers too, sitting far above everything they did. This would have made the core 101 reviews, no question, had I not been faced with the prospect of reviewing such lesser Abba songs as ‘Sitting In The Palmtree’ (throwing coconuts at strangers) and ‘What About Livingstone?’ (what about him?!?) Album Highlight: Again there’s only one Abba album that’s a masterpiece and that’s final album ‘The Visitors’, a brave album about growing older and wiser that offers so much awful than the band’s occasionally godawful singles (shame on you, world, for promoting the tuneless spineless ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Waterloo’ over gems like this album’s single ‘One Of Us’. Better still is the alien-invasion title track which out-Kraftwerks Kraftwerk, the best family song ever written ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’, the heartfelt war protest song ‘Soldiers’ and the brave and bare ‘goodbye’ ‘Like An Angel Passing Through My Room’. Your next best bet: Hmmm....You’re better off with silence, to be honest, although ‘Super Trouper’ at least contains the moving title track and classy ballad ‘The Winner Takes It All’ as well as the production-fests ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ and ‘On and On and On’ in between the schlock (‘Andante Andante’ ‘Happy New Year’ ‘The Piper’ and ‘The Way Old Friends Do’ are all hideous, terrible songs).

Ocean Colour Scene (1989-date):

If Oasis were the 1990s Beatles (and Pulp The Kinks and Blur the Herman’s Hermits) then Ocean Colour Scene were the Hollies – reliable singles artists whose albums didn’t sell as well but were every bit as enjoyable. Britpop brought the band sudden fame with their second record, after one of the longest apprenticeships on this list, but to my ears OCS gre better with age and each album – until the 21st century anyway (I still haven’t bought their last couple of records). Sneering critics claimed the band were simply revisiting the 60s on their songs – but what’s wrong with that? The updated twin guitar sound and especially the drum fills re-create the ‘old; sound for a modern audience far better than any other group I’ve known and, though patchy, the best of their songs is closer to the 60s spirit of peace, harmony and toughness (something most people forget) than even Oasis’. Although none of their albums stays in the first-class carriage throughout, I’ve stuck the best songs from the first four albums onto one handy CD length compilation and I play it a lot. Certainly OCS are one heck of a lot more colourful and adventurous than any other reviewer I’ve read has ever acknowledged and I look forward greatly to completing my collection (I don’t have all that many albums to go now, sadly – just 25 Johnny Cashes!) Album Highlight – Fourth album ‘One From The Modern’ (1999) wins by a nose, thanks to a slightly battier, more psychedelic sound (always a winner with me) the CSNY-style anti-war singalong ‘Profit In Peace’, the slow moody but surprisingly uplifting ‘So Low’, the sweet acoustic interlude ‘Step By Step’ and the heartbreaking re-write of ‘Nowhere Man’ on ‘No One At All’. Your next bet: the famous second Lp ‘Moseley Shoals’ which features the best single of the 1990s Oasis didn’t write as well as three album highlights, the stomping ‘You Git It Bad’, the psychedelic ‘Policeman and Pirates’ and the moving ‘One For The Road’ written for one of the band’s schoolfriends who died in the gulf war. Third album ‘Marchin’ Already’ is the ‘other’ OCS album worth owning in a very close finish for bronze.

Paul Weller (1992-date):

Another artist I’d love to have included on the list proper had I discovered him early enough, I love Paul Weller’s sheer range and power despite the fact that – gulp, confession time – his first band The Jam leave me cold (perhaps they just nicked one Beatles riff too many for my liking?) Weller was always on the cocky and arrogant side of confident, but some mildly interesting but poor selling Style Council albums saw his career get cancelled and saw his solo career on the scrapheap. Add in a failing marriage and you get the first three, maybe four solo Weller albums – wonderful mixtures of bravado and guilt-ridden honesty that veer from worry to certainty from track to track. Weller’s later albums get short shrift (well, until his last two, hopelessly noisy works) but they’re ever so nearly as good – the bare bones sound of ‘Heavy Soul’ is way better than it’s reputation, containing some of Weller’ s most interesting lyrics. Even Weller’s covers album features two of my all time favourite songs (Neil Young’s ‘Birds’ – reviewed here a couple of issues back – and traditional song ‘Black Is The Colour’) and his backing musicians – many of them from Ocean Colour Scene – are exemplary, especially drummer Steve White. Album Highlight – I’m loathe to say it, but critic’s darlings ‘Wild Wood’ (1994) and ‘Stanley Road’ (1995) are still the best single CDs of Weller around. The former features pop-rocker ‘Sunflower’, a superb drumming/guitar attack on ‘Has My Fire Really Gone Out?’ and the gloriously folky retro title track, amongst a few songs that don’t quite match this high standard. The latter features the splendid one-two punch of the strutting ‘I Walk On Gilded Splinters’ (way better than the Dr John original) and the confessional ‘Porcelain God’ which, heard together, sums up Weller’s contradictions better than anything else he’s done. Opening song ‘The Changingman’ is a superb, gritty pop single too. However all Weller albums have something worth hearing, especially the much maligned ‘Heavy Soul’ (1996; the catchy ‘Up In Suze’s Room’ and ruminating ‘Science’ in particular) and my favourite Weller song, the pick-yourself-up-after-a-fall ‘Bull Rushes’ from first album ‘Paul Weller’ (1992).

Stereophonics (1996-date):

If Oasis were the 1990s Beatles then the Stereophonics were The 90s Who – classy tight three minute pop songs with a hard edge and interesting tension between the often bravado music and often sensitive words. Like The Who, it’s the slower, quieter moments that are often the most interesting, with one particularly lovely album standing out for ikts sheer eclecticism, beauty and intelligence (clue: it’s not the famous one, something regular readers will have guessed by now).Like our other bands from the 1990s these albums are patchy (or an unmitigated disaster in the case of fifth album ‘Language Sex Violence Other?’), but for the most part feature more than their fair share of gems sprinkled throughout, held together by Kelly Jones’ gravelly but impressively expression-filled vocals. I’m still new to this band and still have a couple of albums to go but their work is growing on me – far more than it did in the 1990s actually – and, again, I have a CD compilation of their greatest moments from across six albums that I play a lot. Album Highlight – Most bands are failing fast by the time of their fourth album but the much folkier, less harsh ‘You’ve Gotta Go There To Come Back’ (2003) is the band’s masterpiece, especially the harmony-fest that’s ‘Getaway’, the best Beach Boys song Brian Wilson never wrote and the barebones ‘I Miss You Now’, a world away from the heavy thrash of Stereophonics albums one to three. Your next best bet: It’s hard to pick a winner, but third album ‘Just Enough Education To Perform’ (2001) features the band’s best song, their thoughtful muse on rockstar versus family life ‘Everyday I Think Of Money’ and the joyous gallop of ‘Step On My Old Size Nines’ so I’ll plump for that.

Super Furry Animals (1996-date):

If Oasis were the 1990s Beatles then the Super Furries were a (Welsh) Beach Boys. That’s Beach Boys from every era by the way – basic surfing songs give way to deep philospohical insights, ‘Smile’ type weirdness (one track even features carrot-cfrunching in homage to that album’s ‘Veg-Tables’) and moments of Californian-sounding blessed out pop. All these aspects crop up on all Furries albums, seemingly at random, and I applaud the band’s desire to escape fame so steadily (to the extent of breaking up their loveliest pieces with unlistenable bursts of electronic noise). At their best, though, the Furries have shown a glorious evolution across their work and a melodic touch and quirky lyrical originality second to none. When they stop being clever and start being heartfelt their work is up there with the best of my collection – and as that includes their heroes, The Beach Boys, that’s really saying something. Yes, every album is patchy – and again I have a worn out CD compilation to save me going through their lesser moments – but I’m not sure I could take more than one CD of such perfection, I’d have a breakdown and risk turning into a Cliff Richard fan or something. So I’m grateful. I think. Album Highlight – Most fans say the Super Furries delivered their best work at the beginning of their career, but I think the band are really maturing nicely and have reached their peak in the second half of their career. It’s hard to choose between ‘Rings Around The World’ (2001) ‘Phantom Power’ (2003) and ‘Love Kraft’ (2005), as all three albums possess the typical Furries mix of stupendous beauty and first class songwriting (the lop-sided but surprisingly moving gibberish of ‘Run Christian Run’, the Moody Blues-ish ‘Piccalo Snare’ and the CSNY-ish ‘Ohio Heat’ respectively) alongside from really annoying sound effects filled garbage. At their best, though, these albums are as good as music gets. A nod too for the flop single ‘Demons’, one of the greatest 45s ever made, catchy and deep like all singles should be and with a stronger hook than Muhammad Ali. It should have vaulted this band into the limelight, not been left unloved on a singles compilation (‘Songbook’).

Regina Spektor (2001-date):

I’ll start by admitting I only own three Spektor albums – and none of them are up to the experience of seeing Regina in full flow on stage, even if it was only on telly. Too many songwriters – and we’re in the era of female singer-songwriters by the way – pick bland songs which, even if they sing well (as in the case of Adele) they ruin by sticking religiously to one sound that makes all their work sound the same. Not so in Regina’s case, whose as quirky as 10cc on a very quirky day and yet whose best work packs an emotional punch her rivals can’t compete with. Before you think I work for her managerial office, I have to say the riches-to-rags strike rate on her three records is depressingly low – much lower than I expected from her stage shows – and I shall only be buying the rest if I find them cheap (or if I’ve run out of Johnny cash albums to buy!) However, unlike 99% of the artists I collect, Regina has barely started and I feel confident that her best work is in front of her – she certainly deserves more success than anyone else around at the moment and she is at least making slightly bigger splashes with every record, which is an encouraging sign that the record market isn’t all woeful boy bands and empty mindless pop featuring extracts from old, awful records just yet. Album Highlight – I’m still missing quite a bit and Regina has only made five studio albums in title but ‘Far’ (2009) wins by a nose, containing the delicate religious debate of ‘God’ (as even atheists stop laughing at God when faced with their own mortality) and the quirky love song to music ‘Eep’. Your next bet: ‘Begin To Hope’ is as scattershot an album as any in my collection, alternating between brilliance and banality nearly every other line, but the best – songs like ‘Fidelity’ and ‘Samson’ – give me hope that we may yet have an AAA member of the future to add to the pile.

A NOW COMPLETE List Of Top Five/Top Ten/TOP TWENTY  Entries 2008-2019
1) Chronic Fatigue songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/news-views-and-music-issue-1-top-five.html

2) Songs For The Face Of Bo
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/news-views-and-music-issue-2-top-five.html

3) Credit Crunch Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/news-views-and-music-issue-3-top-five.html

4) Songs For The Autumn
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/news-views-and-music-issue-4-top-five.html

5) National Wombat Week
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/news-views-and-music-top-five-national.html

6) AAA Box Sets
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/news-views-and-music-issue-6-top-five.html

7) Virus Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-7-top-five.html

8) Worst AAA-Related DVDs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issu-8-top-five.html

9) Self-Punctuating Superstar Classics
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-9-top-five.html

10) Ways To Know You Have Turned Into A Collector
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-9-top-five.html

11) Political Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/news-views-and-music-issue-11-top-five.html

12) Totally Bonkers Concept Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/news-views-and-music-top-five-totally.html

13) Celebrating 40 Years Of The Beatles' White Album
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/top-five-issue-13-40-years-of-beatles.html

14) Still Celebrating 40 Years Of The Beatles' White Album
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-14-top-five.html

15) AAA Existential Questions
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-15-top-five.html

16) Releases Of The Year 2008
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-16-top-five.html

17) Top AAA Xmas Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-17-top-five.html

18) Notable AAA Gigs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/news-views-and-music-issue-19-top-five.html

19) All things '20' related for our 20th issue
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-20-aaa-songs.html

20) Romantic odes for Valentine's Day
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-22-top-five.html

21) Hollies B sides
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-23-top-five.html

22) 'Other' BBC Session Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-24-top-five.html

23) Beach Boys Rarities Still Not Available On CD
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-25-top-five.html

24) Songs John, Paul and George wrote for Ringo's solo albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-26-top-five.html

25) 5 of the Best Rock 'n' Roll Tracks From The Pre-Beatles Era
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/news-views-and-music-issue-27-top-five.html

26) AAA Autobiographies
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/news-views-and-music-issue-28-top-five.html

27) Rolling Stones B-sides
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/news-views-and-music-issue-29-top-five.html

28) Beatles B-Sides
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-30-top-five.html

29) The lllloooonnngggeesssttt AAA songs of all time
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-31-top-five.html

30) Kinks B-Sides
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-32-top-five.html

31) Abandoned CSNY projects 'wasted on the way'
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-33-top-five.html

32) Best AAA Rarities and Outtakes Sets
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/news-views-and-music-issue-34-top-five.html

33) News We've Missed While We've Been Away
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/news-views-and-music-issue-35-top-five.html

34) Birthday Songs for our 1st Anniversary
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/news-views-and-music-issue-37-top-five.html

35) Brightest Album Covers
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/news-views-and-music-issue-37-top-five.html

36) Biggest Recorded Arguments
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/news-views-and-music-issue-38-top-five.html

37) Songs About Superheroes
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-39-top-five.html

38) AAA TV Networks That Should Exist
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-40-top-five.html

39) AAA Woodtsock Moments
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-41-top-five.html

40) Top Moments Of The Past Year As Voted For By Readers
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-42-top-five.html

41) Music Segues
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/news-views-and-music-issue-43-top-five.html

42) AAA Foreign Language Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/news-views-and-music-issue-44-top-five.html

43) 'Other' Groups In Need Of Re-Mastering
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/news-views-and-music-issue-45-top-five.html

44) The Kinks Preservation Rock Opera - Was It Really About The Forthcoming UK General Election?
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-46-top-five.html

45) Mono and Stereo Mixes - Biggest Differences
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-47-top-five.html

46) Weirdest Things To Do When A Band Member Leaves
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/nerws-views-and-music-issue-48-top-five.html

47) Video Clips Exclusive To Youtube (#1)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-49-top-five.html

48) Top AAA Releases Of 2009
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/news-views-and-music-issue-50-top-five.html

49) Songs About Trains
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-views-and-music-issue-51-top-five.html

50) Songs about Winter
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-views-and-music-issue-52-top-five.html

51) Songs about astrology plus horoscopes for selected AAA members
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/news-views-and-music-issue-53-top-five.html

52) The Worst Five Groups Ever!
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/news-views-and-music-issue-54-top-five.html

53) The Most Over-Rated AAA Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/news-views-and-music-issue-56-top-five.html

54) Top AAA Rarities Exclusive To EPs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/news-views-and-music-issue-57-top-five.html

55) Random Recent Purchases (#1)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/news-views-and-music-issue-58-top-five.html

56) AAA Party Political Slogans
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/news-views-and-music-issue-60-top-five.html

57) Songs To Celebrate 'Rock Sunday'
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/news-views-and-music-issue-61-top-five_21.html

58) Strange But True (?) AAA Ghost Stories
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/news-views-and-music-issue-61-top-five.html

59) AAA Artists In Song
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/news-views-and-music-issue-63-top-five.html

60) Songs About Dogs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/news-views-and-music-issue-65-top-five.html

61) Sunshiney Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/news-views-and-music-issue-67-top-five.html

62) The AAA Staff Play Their Own Version Of Monoploy/Mornington Crescent!
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/news-views-and-music-issue-68-top-forty.html

63) What 'Other' British Invasion DVDs We'd Like To See
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/news-views-and-music-issue-69-top-five.html

64) What We Want To Place In Our AAA Time Capsule
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-70-top-five.html

65) AAA Conspiracy Theroies
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-72-top-ten.html

66) Weirdest Things To Do Before - And After - Becoming A Star
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-top-ten-aaa-stars.html

67) Songs To Tweet To
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-74-top-five.html

68) Greatest Ever AAA Solos
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-75-top-ten.html

69) John Lennon Musical Tributes
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/news-views-and-music-issue-77-top-five.html

70) Songs For Halloween
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/news-views-and-music-issue-78-top-five.html

71) Earliest Examples Of Psychedelia
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/news-views-and-music-issue-79-top-five.html

72) Purely Instrumental Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/news-views-and-music-issue-81-top-five.html

73) AAA Utopias

74) AAA Imaginary Bands
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/news-views-and-music-issue-82-top-five.html

75) Unexpected AAA Cover Versions
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/news-views-and-music-issue-83-top-five.html

76) Top Releases of 2010
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/news-views-and-music-issue-84-top-five.html

77) Songs About Snow
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/news-views-and-music-issue-85-top-five.html

78) Predictions For 2011
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011_01_02_archive.html

79) AAA Fugitives

80) AAA Home Towns
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/news-views-and-music-issue-88-home.html

81) The Biggest Non-Musical Influences On The 1960s
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/news-views-and-music-issue-89-top-five.html

82) AAA Groups Covering Other AAA Groups
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/news-views-and-music-issue-90-top.html

83) Strange Censorship Decisions
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/news-views-and-music-issue-91-top-ten.html

84) AAA Albums Still Unreleased on CD
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/news-views-and-music-issue-92-top-five.html

85) Random Recent Purchases (#2)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/news-views-and-music-issue-93-top-ten.html

86) Top AAA Music Videos
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-issue-94-top-ten.html

87) 30 Day Facebook Music Challenge
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-issue-95-top.html

88) AAA Documentaries
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-top-five-aaa.html

89) Unfinished and 'Lost' AAA Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-issue-97-top-ten.html

90) Strangest AAA Album Covers
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/newsa-views-and-music-issue-98-top-ten.html

91) AAA Performers Live From Mars (!)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-99-top-ten.html

92) Songs Including The Number '100' for our 100th Issue
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-100-top-five.html

93) Most Songs Recorded In A Single Day
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-101-top-five.html

94) Most Revealing AAA Interviews
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/news-views-and-music-issue-102-top-five.html

95) Top 10 Pre-Fame Recordings
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/news-views-and-music-issue-103-top-ten.html

96) The Shortest And Longest AAA Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-views-and-music-issue-104-top-ten.html


97) The AAA Allstars Ultimate Band Line-Up
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-views-and-music-issue-105-top.html

98) Top Songs About Sports
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-views-and-music-issue-106-top-ten.html

99) AAA Conversations With God
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-views-and-music-issue-107-top-ten.html

100) AAA Managers: The Good, The Bad and the Financially Ugly
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-108-top-ten.html

101) Unexpected AAA Cameos
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-109-top-ten.html

102) AAA Words You can Type Into A Caluclator
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-110-top-five.html

103) AAA Court Cases
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/news-views-and-music-issue-111-top-five.html

104) Postmodern Songs About Songwriting
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/news-views-and-music-issue-112-top-five.html

105) Biggest Stylistic Leaps Between Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/news-views-and-music-issue-113-top-ten.html

106) 20 Reasons Why Cameron Should Go!
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/news-views-and-music-issue-114-top.html

107) The AAA Pun-Filled Cookbook
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/news-views-and-music-issue-115-top-five.html

108) Classic Debut Releases
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/news-views-and-music-issue-116-top-five.html

109) Five Uses Of Bird Sound Effects
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/news-views-and-music-issue-118-top-five.html

110) AAA Classic Youtube Clips Part #1
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/news-views-and-music-issue-119-top.html

111) Part #2
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-120-top.html

112) Part #3
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-121-top.html

113) AAA Facts You Might Not Know
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-122-top-ten.html

114) The 20 Rarest AAA Records
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-123-top.html

115) AAA Instrumental Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011_12_04_archive.html

116) Musical Tarot
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/news-views-and-music-issue-125-top-23-i.html

117) Christmas Carols
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011_12_18_archive.html

118) Top AAA Releases Of 2011
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011_12_25_archive.html

119) AAA Bands In The Beano/The Dandy
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-128-top-five.html

120) Top 20 Guitarists #1
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-129-top-ten.html

121) #2
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_15_archive.html

122) 'Shorty' Nomination Award Questionairre
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_22_archive.html

123) Top Best-Selling AAA Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_29_archive.html

124) AAA Songs Featuring Bagpipes

125) A (Hopefully) Complete List Of AAA Musicians On Twitter
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_02_19_archive.html

126) Beatles Albums That Might Have Been 1970-74 and 1980
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_02_26_archive.html

127) DVD/Computer Games We've Just Invented
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_03_11_archive.html

128) The AAA Albums With The Most Weeks At #1 in the UK
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_03_18_archive.html

129) The AAA Singles With The Most Weeks At #1 in the UK
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_03_25_archive.html

130) Lyric Competition (Questions)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_04_15_archive.html

131) Top Crooning Classics
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_04_22_archive.html

132) Funeral Songs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/news-views-and-music-issue-142-top-five.html

133) AAA Songs For When Your Phone Is On Hold
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-143-top-five.html

134) Random Recent Purchases (#3)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-144-top-five.html

135) Lyric Competition (Answers)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-146-top.html http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-145-top-five.html

136) Bee Gees Songs/AAA Goes Disco!
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-issue-147-top-five.html

137) The Best AAA Sleevenotes (And Worst)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-issue-148-top-ten.html

138) A Short Precise Of The Years 1962-70
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-149-top-eight.html

139) More Wacky AAA-Related Films And Their Soundtracks
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/top-five-for-news-views-and-music-150.html

140) AAA Appearances On Desert Island Discs
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/top-eight-aaa-desert-island-discs.html

141) Songs Exclusive To Live Albums
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/news-views-and-music-issue-153-top-10.html

142) More AAA Songs About Armageddon
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/aaa-armageddon-songsalbums-top-5-for.html

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...

159) A (Not That) Short Guide To The 15 Best Non-AAA Bands http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/a-not-that-short-guide-to-15-of-best.html%20%0d160

160) The Greatest AAA Drum Solos (Or Near Solos!) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-greatest-aaa-drum-solos-or-near.html%20%0d161

161) AAA Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame Acceptance Speeches http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/aaa-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame.html%20%0d162

162) AAA Re-Recordings Of Past Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/aaa-re-recordings-of-past-songs-news.html%20%0d163

163) A Coalition Christmas (A Fairy Tale) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/a-coalition-christmas-news-views-and.html%20%0d164

164) AAA Songs About Islands http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/aaa-songs-about-islands-news-views-and.html%20%0d165

165) The AAA Review Of The Year 2012 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2012-news-views.html



166) The Best AAA Concerts I Attended
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-best-aaa-concerts-i-attended-news.html

167) Tributes To The 10 AAA Stars Who Died The Youngest http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/tributes-to-10-aaa-stars-who-died.html



168) The First 10 AAA Songs Listed Alphabetically
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-first-10-aaa-songs-if-listed.html


171) The 10 Best Songs From The Psychedelia Box-Sets ‘Nuggets’ and ‘Nuggets Two’ http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-best-of-two-nuggets-psychedelia.html%20%0d172

172) The 20 Most Common Girl’s Names In AAA Song Titles (With Definitions) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/girls-names-in-aaa-song-titles-from.html 








180) First Recordings By Future AAA Stars http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/first-





185) A Tribute To Storm Thorgerson Via The Five AAA Bands He Worked With http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/a-tribute-to-hipgnosis-via-five-aaa.html



188) Surprise! Celebrating 300 Album Reviews With The Biggest 'Surprises' Of The Past Five Years Of Alan's Album Archives! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/celebrating-300-album-reviews-10.html


190) Comparatively Obscure First Compositions By AAA Stars http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/comparatively-obscure-debut.html



193) Evolution Of A Band: Comparing First Lyric With Last Lyric: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/evolution-of-band-comparing-1st-lyric.html







200) The Monkees In Relation To Postmodernism (University Dissertation) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/university-dissertation-monkees-in.html


202) Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain': Was It About One Of The AAA Crew? http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/carly-simons-youre-so-vain-was-it-about.html















217) AAA 'Christmas Presents' we'd most like to have next year http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/aaa-christmas-presents-wed-most-like-to.html




221) Dr Who and the AAA (Five Musical Links) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/dr-who-and-five-musical-links-to-alans.html

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

252) Guest Post: ‘The Skids – Joy’ (1981) by Kenny Brown  https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/guest-post-skids-joy-1981.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