Monday 30 December 2013

Lulu "Independence" (1993) (Album Review)




"Don't be surprised by the way I am, the way I think and act, there's too many rules, I really can't choose, I can't let these chains hold me back" "So what you're saying doesn't matter to me, I'm making my plans all alone" "Broken dreams and promises giving you the runaround, they tie you up they tie you down, your life is built on shaky ground" "You're getting tired of standing still, ambitions that you must fill, I know it's hard but I'll be here to help you reach, you've gotr the will, you've got every reason for being here" "No sense in dragging on past our needs, let's not keep hanging on, if the fire's out we should both be gone, some people are made for each other, some people can love another for life, what about us?" "Give me one good reason why you say goodnight and mean goodbye"

Lulu "Independence" (1993)

Independence/There Has Got To Be A Way/Restless Moods/I'm Back For More/Let Me Wake Up In Your Arms//How 'Bout Us?/Until I Get Over You/You Left Me Lonely/Rhythm Of Romance/I'm Walking Away/A Place To Fall


I can't tell you how much it warms the heart to see one of my beloved AAA artists doing really well after a spell away from the charts for far too many years. Shockingly it had been eleven years since the last time Lulu released an album of all-new material - and it will be eleven years before she releases another one (2004's 'Back On Track') - so the very fact that 'Independence' exists was enough cause for celebration at the time. Lulu may have looked and sounded as if she's never been away, but after a series of flop albums in the 1980s (as hard a decade for Lulu as most of our other AAA bands, strange after an actually pretty good 1970s the few times Lulu was 'allowed' to make records) the only recordings she made in the seven years between 1986 and 1993 were covers of 'My Boy Lollipop' and, err, 'Nellie The Elephant', which will give you some idea of how most record companies saw her back then, literally as another 'Millie' who never grew up. No record label had wanted to touch the singer, with even her big champion of the 1970s David Bowie deemed as past it by the 1990s (his revitalisation won't happen will the 21st century). Despite a pretty good 1970s

The only reason this album exists is because of the gamble Tina Turner took recording Lulu's greatest song in twenty-five years 'I Don't Want To Fight No More' - amazingly Lulu's debut as a songwriter (in collaboration with her talented brother Billy) at the age of 42. Turner didn't really know who Lulu was ('To Sir With Love' is the only real hit Lulu had ever had in America) and chose the song on merit, which was both a boost to Lulu's confidence and encouraged her to shop around for a 'full' album. Even with this 'hit', several record labels turned Lulu down - including several 'old friends' who simply refused to see her, which all but broke Lulu's heart according to her autobiography (also entitled 'I Don't Wanna Fight'). The only reason 'Independence' exists is because EMI subsidiary 'Dome' was looking for a 'maturer' artist who were easier to handle than the young things passing through the label's hands and the release of the song 'Independence' as a single was Lulu's most successful release in 17 years (it even made #1 on the dance charts, which might not sound that impressive now but this chart more than rock and pop was fiercely fought over back in the pre-Oasis days of the 1990s).

Between them 'I Don't Want To Fight No More' and 'Independence' set the tone for an album full of songs about breaking free, growing up and living alone (although frankly this would have been a better album had Lulu recorded the former song - sadly her version is quite a rarity now). Lulu had a bigger hand in choosing the songs for this album than she'd had since her Atco years in the early 70s (Mickie Most and David Bowie were such strong figures Lulu didn't really get much input) and they all reflect her state of mind at the time. Her much-publicised marriage to hairdresser John Freida had recently collapsed and - for the first time since she was 16 - Lulu was single and fighting for custody of her child Jordan (as 'Dome' were an English company, Lulu had been forced to leave her son with her dad in an American school - she describes this in her autobiography as being a cruel reminder of her own pop star beginnings, when as a 15 year old she's had to move to London and leave her mother in Glasgow for the sake of her career). Just as hard was the split between Lulu and her manager of twenty years Marion Massey, who'd effectively become Lulu's surrogate mother when she left home for London aged 15 and who'd stuck by her thick and thin (Lulu probably was right to leave though, however painful: Massey wanted to keep Lulu 15 years old and she'd have never made this album under her wing). Losing the three most important people in her life at once (obviously counting Jordan, who mainly stayed with his dad) must have been hell and clearly had a huge impact on this album. Despite having written 'I Don't Want To Fight No More', all of these songs come out fighting in one way or another, either reflecting on mistakes in the past or refusing to make the same mistakes in the future, songs that are lyrically deeper than most Lulu albums and almost all of which seem to 'belong' together in comparison to the 'collage of styles' approach of many Lulu albums. In many ways, it's 'Lulu's most 'independent' album, made at a time when people expected the least from her and let her get on with things, so it must have been glorious to see this album do so well in the charts (Lulu's most successful since 1967 in fact).

However, there are two frustrating things about this record that prevent it from being the masterpiece it might have been. Despite her new-found talents as a songwriter as erudite, open and honest as all the great names Lulu once envied, she only gets one co-credit on the whole of the album. Brother Billy, who'd stuck by her through thick and thin, doesn't even get that which seems ludicrous to me - surely the songwriting team had just proven themselves beyond all doubt with one of the biggest hits of the decade? Even if there were no readymade 'hits' at hand, surely the pair should at least have been encouraged to have a go at writing album tracks together? Thankfully follow-up album 'Back On Track' (2004) does the sensible thing and have the pair work together for half the album, although frustratingly again the pair's best song of the period ('Take Me Where The Poor Boys Dance') only appears on the album as a 'bonus' track in an inferior remix. And that's the other frustrating thing about this album: despite its success (the album just missed the top ten, but a peak of #11 was still extremely good for a small budget label and an artist who'd last scored a hit 17 years earlier) there will be no follow-up to this album for eleven years, by which time any interest in Lulu had long since died. It shouldn't have been like that: so much of Lulu's career seems to be one of missed opportunities and bad career decisions and the lack of a true follow-up to 'Independence' is one of the most frustrating of all.

After all, in 1993 (and indeed now) Lulu still has the looks, the talent, the character and most importantly the voice. She should be revered as the UK's greatest female singer (seeing as the Americans got lucky with the birthplace of Janis Joplin and Grace Slick) and this album should have been the start of the most successful period of her life.
Like many an album released in 1993 'Independence' is also a tad, well, 'noisy'. Just as the 1960s didn't really stylistically start till 1963 (and 'Please Please Me'), so the 1990s only really got going and found its own identity in 1994 (before you laugh the 2010s haven't got going yet in 2013, sounding just like the decade before). As a result 'Independence' sounds like all those other AAA productions from the 1980s/early 1990s we keep moaning about for tinny digital drum effects, keyboards that sound more dated than anything from the 1960s does to modern ears and a general sense that the band are playing in separate cities, never mind studios. Lulu is by far the most soulful thing on the record and it's a shame that the rather anonymous backing doesn't help her more on an album that's actually quite emotional and heartfelt. That said, for all the sterile recording and occasional songwriting anonymity Lulu herself is on terrific form across this record. There's no reason she made such a splash with the title track: every other person of Lulu's age (42) was still trying to sound young and 17 again (close competitor Cilla Black being a case in point), but Lulu is deeper and punchier than in the past. The last time we wrote about Lulu on this site was for 1968's 'Lulu's Album' when we praised half the album for having this sort of punch but also passed on our frustrations at how twee and girly the rest of the album often was. That isn't a problem here. Lulu is at her vocal best across this album, making the most of lesser material.

Apart from the title track there were two real talking points critics and fans made about this album. The first is the successful duet with Bobby Womack 'Back For More', which was successful enough to spawn a whole album of duets ('Together'), although in common with the speed of most decisions of Lulu's career it didn't come out for another nine years. Womack is best known to us AAA fans as the writer of Rolling Stones hit 'It's All Over Now' as well as several hits for himself in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Bobby may have had a completely different upbringing to Lulu (although there is a case to be made that his home-city of 'Cleveland' is the American equivalent of 'Glasgow') but the pair's careers were very similar. A child star who saw his life turned upside down when his first song became a hit in his teens, Bobby worked closely with his brother before watching his hits slowly dwindle and becoming 'stuck in the past' according to most record labels (a drug habit in the 1980s didn't help, about the only thing he didn't have in common with Lulu). By 1993 both were hungrier than ever to be in the music business and were in a similar position of needing a 'hit' to help them bounce back with. Lulu had always been a big admirer and their collaboration seems to have been a natural fit according to most reports, successful enough for Lulu to have tried the scheme again with another 11 singer-songwriters on 'Together' (of which only old friend Paul McCartney, appearing on a 'rap' version of 'Let 'Em In' of all things, is the only partnership as successful as this one). 'I'm Back For More' is, like all the album, depressingly poorly mixed, with an emphasis on what sounds like a chestful of percussion thrown on the floor for every second beat in the bar, but the interaction between Bobby and Lulu is priceless. A smaller hit than 'Independence' but still more successful than anything the pair had achieved solo throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, it's one of Lulu's proudest achievements that she helped kick-start Womack's career again. Admittedly, like Lulu, this kick-start seems to have been much delayed (Womack won't release a full album after this until 2012's popular 'Bravest Man In The Universe'), but the decision to put these two similar stars together is a good one.

Similarly, Lulu was brave enough to approach her ex-husband Maurice Gibb and her ex-brothers-in-law Barry and Robin for help when it came to choosing the songs. Despite what the papers have always tried to say, Lulu and Maurice were always on friendly terms after they parted in 1973 and Maurice wrote songs for her right up until 1976 (and then only stopped because Lulu moved to America to be with John Frieda and David Bowie, for family and career reasons respectively). The Bee Gees hadn't been having a great period either in the late 1980s/early 1990s, their comeback hit 'You Win Again' in 1987 - like Lulu's 'Independence' - not really leading to a consistent run of releases for some time. 'Let Me Wake Up In Your Arms', which seems to be primarily a Barry Gibb effort despite the three-way writing credit (its interesting that he's the only Bee Gee pictured with Lulu on the back cover), isn't classic Bee Gees and doesn't bear comparison with anything on the Gibb brothers' next album 'Size Isn't Everything' (1994), arguably their best album since 'First' in 1967 however well their 'disco' albums might have done. What's interesting, though, is that this song is clearly addressing an 'old flame', pleading with an unknown 'them' to forget the years that have passed them by and the mistakes made. Admittedly this is not unusual a theme for songwriters - and The Bee Gees had sung about regrets and lost love more than most - but the brothers must have been aware that they were writing this song for one of their ex-es and how it would look. Maurice remained married to his second wife Yvonne (who he'd wed in 1975, the same year Lulu married John Freida), but their relationship had hit it's own problems as recently as 1991 when, in an alcoholic stupor, Maurice pulled a gun on his family (she rushed to Bary Gibb's house for moral support and Maurice bravely quit drinking after a long stay in rehab that was all over by 1993 when Lulu came calling). Long dismissed by critics and even the pair themselves as a 'mistake', the marriage between Maurice and Lulu may indeed have occurred when the pair were 'too young' (he was 20, she was 18), but underestimate it at your peril: the pair shared a close bond right up until Maurice's sad early death in 2003 and it too often gets 'overlooked' when people discuss either star. Lulu would only have been human if she spent this period wondering 'if only' after splitting up with John Freida, wondering if her life might have been better with Maurice after all (who had even turned his back on alcohol for good by 1993, one of the main reasons that had broken up their marriage in the first place).

With two big names 'back on board' for the album, in many ways it's a surprise that 'Independence' wasn't bigger. But then, this is an album about old friends getting back together who haven't had a single hit in five years between them, trying to give the music charts one last roll of the dice. Nobody expected the album to be a hit and at the time both Bobby Womack and the Bee Gees were old names too. So good on record label 'Dome' for allowing Lulu to go back to working with people she felt comfortable with, instead of coupling her with a hip-and-happening wannabe youngster who dictated how the album went from the start. That said, there are way too many names you won't recognise in the writing and production credits for this album for my liking, which seems to use a new producer for every song. That's never a good sign of a 'healthy' album and it may be that, expecting this album to be a flop, 'Independence' was recorded piecemeal with Lulu being passed around studios to anyone who had an interest in working with her rather than any great 'feel' for the direction of the album. What's puzzling, though, is that even with all these names involved it somehow all sounds the same (even the Bee Gees production).

'Independence', then, gets much right: Lulu finally gives up trying to hold on to her cute-15-year-old image and makes great use of her soulful, gorgeous voice that has more passion in one note than a whole chart full of boybands can manage. Working with two old friends is a great move, helping their careers as well as her own, and the simple fact that Lulu had the guts to stand up and make another album when nobody wanted to know should be applauded. She's rightly proud of the album and the success it was, despite having very little interest or support from anyone and it rightly launched her 'comeback' alongside singing Take That off the stage the following year with 'Relight My Fire' (where Lulu proves to have a stronger voice than all five members singing at once!) and her own artistic triumph with 'Take Me Where The Poor Boys Dance' later in the decade . For the sheer courage needed in taking hold of her career and giving herself another chance, instead of simply fading away like everyone expected to, 'Independence' is a success and a triumph of the highest order. Not all of the album lives up to the title track, however, and by her own admission Lulu was 'lost' during the making of this record at times, when technology had moved on so fast and progressively that she didn't have a clue what all her various producers were doing to her voice and backing tracks. Too much of this record plays 'safe', trying to make Lulu sound like every other hungry teenage wannabe out there, instead of working to her strengths and the fact that Lulu had just had two huge hits about growing older and being maturer. A whole album of songs like 'I Don't Wanna Fight' 'Independence' and 'Take Me Where The Poor Boys Dance' or simply an album full of songs penned with brother Billy would have transformed her career for good, instead of allowing 'Independence'; to simply be the latest upward swing in a rollercoaster of a career. At times 'Independence' is a tough album to listen to, with an awful contemporary surface sheen and a good half album of songs that are actually no better than the songs Lulu was given to work with in her troubled 1980s career. But at times - on the title track and the two 'collaborations' especially - this album shines with such a golden glow you can't help but applaud. And above even the worst songs on the album sit that wonderful voice, undimmed by the years. She 's still a real 'Lulu' on this album, even if she isn't a real 'Lulu of a kid' anymore.

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'Independence' might not sound that startling now for fans who've got used to seeing Lulu as older and maturer and the fact that she's tried for the past 20 years to stay as contemporary as she can (to mixed success), but boy was it a shock when this song came out. Despite the fact that the 1980s and 1990s saw even more women releasing records than in the 1960s and 70s (particularly in Britain), most of them were bright new young things - you just didn't see anyone in their 40s making records (even Grace Slick retired in 1986 claiming 'it's outrageous for a middle-aged women to get up on a stage singing rock and roll). The only competitors were Cher and Cilla (who both weren't quite back on the scene just yet) and Tina Turner (who, as we've seen, scored her biggest hit of the decade with one of Lulu's songs). 'Independence' might sound production-wise as if its ticking every contemporary trendy box on the list, but lyrically it's an astute and brave choice, doing for older women what 'Respect' did for younger women in general (and Aretha Franklin in particular) in 1966. Interestingly, like 'Respect' (an Otis Redding song originally) 'Independence' was written by two men. Leon Ware wrote the song along with Winston Sela after working for years as a producer, most famously with Michael Jackson on the days Quincy Jones didn't bother to turn up. Like 'Respect' there's nothing gender-specific about either lyric yet somehow it makes more sense as an anthem for suppressed women rather than as a general cry for freedom. Lulu, having gone through a painful divorce splashed across all the papers - she was married to one of the three hairdressers even non-fashion icons like me have heard of and no it wasn't Vidal Sassoon as so many reports get wrong - clearly has an affinity with this song and sings the hell out of it, sounding deeper and older than she does across the rest of the album. Lulu must have particularly relishes this song's lines about how 'I've never known what it's like on my own' after being alone for the first real time in her life. The song's best feature is its ability to cover all bases at once: those who simply dream of escape or are enjoying it get to sing along to that thrilling chorus and feel good ('I want my independence! I want my freedom!') However those who, like Lulu, had second thoughts about breaking up and were torn in two got lyrics that sound genuinely reluctant and puzzled in the verses ('Don't be confused, please understand, I couldn't respect your wishes more!') This is a song that demands freedom in one breath and then begs, pleads and negotiates for it in the next: one of the very best expressions of 'Independence' made, certainly in the 1990s. Of course, this being the early 1990s in particular, the song sounds flat and tinny now, Lulu surrounded by so many ghastly contemporary features that threaten to out-do her. Of course, this is just what she needed to do at the time and she probably wouldn't have got anything released in 1993 without trying to sound contemporary, but in retrospect it's deeply wrong to hear such a soulful song performed by such a soulful singer to such an anonymous and empty backing, the one thing that prevents 'Independence' from ranking alongside Lulu's very best. It's still very good, however and clearly an important song for Lulu - and not just in sales terms either.

'There Has Got To Be A Way' by Sami McKinney, Kenney Moore and Allee Willis (the last of whom will go on to write one of the world's most irritating theme tunes to one of the world's most irritating TV shows, 'Friends') kind of pulls in the same direction, though not as cleverly. The song has a couple on the brink of splitting up both wanting to get back together but so trapped in their own unhappiness they can't see a way forward, wondering what the best thing to do is. Having re-read Lulu's book 'I Don't Wanna Fight', it's interesting how close the words to this song are to what she says to both her husbands, Maurice Gibb and John Frieda. In her experience (and we only have Lulu's word for it so far - sadly Maurice never did get to write what would have been a fascinating autobiography) Lulu was the one doing all the negotiating while her husbands didn't even want to admit there was a problem. However, this song is about both halves trying to find common ground, so this song may have been wish fulfilment more than anything (one of her most quoted examples from her book is sending Maurice to a marriage guidance counsellor with whom he was diplomatic and sorrowful, before coming home to tell his wife 'he said I was magnificent and the marriage is great - but he thinks you're a crank!') Alas this interesting scenario doesn't have any memorable hook and the melody is completely forgotten once you've finished playing the track. The backing singers are also at their most obtrusive here, sounding awfully anonymous and soul-less, especially when compared to Lulu's soaring lead.

'Restless Moods' is miles better, as a song at least if not production. Co-written by soul singer Ruby Turner, this is more the sort of material Lulu should have been given in her youth (she was always and r and b fan - as demonstrated by 'Shout!' , popular in her shows even before she got snapped up by Decca). However the older, deeper Lulu is probably more suited to a song that doesn't work like ordinary songs: it's the closest Lulu ever came to a dance record, this one, with a hypnotic groove and no real separation between verses and choruses, with long held vocal lines meaning that you can't tell when one phrase stops and another begins. This time around it's the narrator whose faithful, putting up with her husband's changing moods before sighing in the chorus about 'broken dreams and promises giving you the run around'. The best couplet in the song comes from the narrator's breaking facade at trying to pretend everything's normal: 'When people laugh 'cause laughing's fun, you toss, you tun, you wanna run'. The album's slow burner and quiet highlight, more subtle than most songs and surpremely irritating production-wise (could the drums be any louder and more out of synch with the rest of the song?!), but a tad better than most of Lulu's material of late and a good chance for her to show off her vocal skills.

'I'm Back For More' is the second most popular song on the album after the title track, a well received duet with Bobby Womack that boosted both singer's flagging careers. As we've discussed, the pair are a natural fit: both are child stars fallen on hard times and wanting to create art through their hardship. The duet was at Lulu's suggestion, apparently (who'd long been a fan of Womack's) and they make a great team, egging each other on throughout the track. You can see from this song why Lulu figured doing a whole album of duets later would be good - but not one of her choices (even close friend Paul McCartney) are as sympathetic to Lulu as Bobby is here. Full marks to the record company for not trying to pair Lulu with somebody young and trendy which would have been a disaster - this tale of two veterans of love having played around and come to the realisation that they were better off with each other after all has to be by two 'maturer' singers. Interestingly, this isn't a Womack song (he's better known as a writer rather than a singer) but one by Motown producer and occasional singer Ken Stover (who worked a lot with Marvin Gaye). It would have been fun to hear Lulu and Maurice singing this one, with its references to 'love regenerated' and how 'it's better the second time!' Again the production does its best to sink this song, but the two singers are simply too good to let that happen.

'Let Me Wake Up In Your Arms' is the Bee Gee's specially composed song for Lulu - and again it continues the album's themes of regret and breakup. This is by far the happiest song on the album, however, with the narrator imagining they're back with an old flame in their sleep and loving the memory. It's so tempting to see this song as wish fulfilment on Maurice's part and the Gibb brothers must surely have realised how this song would like, although in that case it's odd that this song has so many of Barry's characteristic touches and that it's him who both produces this song and sings his characteristic high backing vocals on it. The song itself has far more in common with the Bee Gee's late 80s recordings ('You Win Again' especially) when they also suffered from glossy contemporary productions obscuring their heartfelt songs and it's a shame that Lulu wasn't given one of their batch of songs from slightly later in the year (the following year's 'Size Isn't Everything' finally sounds like a 1960s band reinventing themselves in the 1990s should). The opening verse, with its references to 'another lonely Monday morning where I don't want to face the world outside' are actually more interesting than the rest of the song, whole the second verse's sudden moment of realisation that 'you never co-operate or share your love with me' sound like Maurice repeating back at Lulu what she used to say to him for real. The part of the song that's remembered, though, is the typically anthem-like chorus , which in typical Bee Gees style is actually saying something quite different to the rest of the song. Curiously Lulu sounds less comfortable with this song, even though it's closer in style to the sort of brainlessly happy song Mickie Most tried to get her to sing (the song sounds slightly out of her range, perhaps it was changed so Barry would find it easier to sing? Certainly he sings very well on it). Another of the album's better songs.

However the best song on this album that 'nobody' knows (i.e. which wasn't a single or co-starring somebody famous) is side closer 'How 'Bout Us?' Writer Dana Walden was a member of the sadly forgotten 1980s band Champaign (who were named after their home city in Illinois, by the way, although combining champagne and campaigns sums them up pretty well too). 'How 'Bout Us?' has a beautiful soaring melody that's born for a singer who has as much oxygen in her lungs as Lulu that's easily the best on the album, the Gibb Brothers' contributions included. The lyrics, too, are perfect for this album with Lulu quietly summing up why she wants to be on her own again. The first verse concludes 'if the fire's out, we should both be gone' before asking over and over in the chorus the question that Lulu must have been asking herself for the past few years: 'some people can love another forever, some people can't, so how 'bout us?' She even concludes sadly 'I'm not trying to end it all', before listing a whole load of reasons why that's exactly what she's reluctantly concluded to do. There's a rather lacklustre middle eight in there somewhere ('Are we gonna make it girl? Or drift and drift and drift?'), but a middle eight is usually the sign of a songwriter who cares about his craft and it's noticable that this is about the only song on this album to give us one, which speaks volumes about the craft and care in this song. Even the production is better here than elsewhere, the backing harmonies actually sounding harmonised and with a proper guitar sound and a marvellous saxophone part which drifts dreamily across the song (yes, despite haranguing them every other review I do like sax solos played the right way and when a guitar can't play the same part better!) even the drums sound just about palatable! Overall, this is might well be the single greatest Lulu song of the 1990s that Lulu herself didn't write (not that there's an awful lot of competition that decade!), with Lulu not only singing something suitable for her older, maturer self but that sounds instantly as one with her younger self.

'Until I Get Over You' , alas, features a nosier production than ever before and Lulu has never sounded more out of place as she desperately tries to sound both modern and heartfelt in what is again an older person's song. Lulu - or more likely someone helping her with the album - has clearly had their ear to the ground for obscure 1980s acts and two of this song's three writers Climie, Fisher and Morgan are from short-lived band Climie Fisher (guess which ones!) along with a Nashville songwriter who wrote many of that band's best known songs as well as a few for Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. This song is noticeably more alien to Lulu's usual style - she's clearly trying to sound like the original rather than herself - and she struggles again with this song. The lyrics, despite being written by much younger writers, fit the album well though: the narrator tries to move forward with her life and to forget a past love, but she finds herself 'frozen in time'. The words even get a bit Ray Davies-ish, with Lulu seeing lovers everywhere she goes and haunted by times past. I'm not so sure about the 'live it' and 'forget it' rhyme and the keyboard solo - which appears to be played on a casio keyboard that even my school would have rejected for sounding too out of date and cheap - is atrocious, but otherwise this is another classier-than-normal song that gives Lulu a nice lot of emotion to play with.

'You Left Me Lonely' by songwriter Errol Henry is a little more anonymous, alas. Another slow-burning song, which doesn't so much bloom into a chorus as slowly unravel, it finds the narrator again fixating on her past and feeling that she must move on 'though it is so hard to do'. Recognising that change in people is inevitable and that couples have to hope they change in tandem with each other, this song asks to be appraised afresh without any thought given to their 'old' self ('Take a look and tell me what you see'). Unfortunately, without a proper melody or a hook to go with it, this sounds like something a drippy boy band would come up with rather than something in keeping with Lulu's reputation. The backing singers are also unbelievably intrusive on this song, the effect exaggerated by keeping Lulu's voice so far down in the mix, while the drums couldn't have been noisier if they'd been played by Keith Moon in a drumstick-breaking contest! Only a nice but again lowly-mixed Spanish guitar part and a subtle trumpet part comes close to lifting this song anywhere out of the ordinary.

'Rhythm Of Romance' isn't the Nils Lofgren song of the same unfortunately (darn it, there's another one I'll have to add to my 'AAA songs with the same name' article....I knew there was another one in hiding!) and it would have been a far better choice. Another rather pedestrian MOR ballad, I really expected this song to be better given that one of the song's two writers (Kerry Chater) came from 1960s band Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and is only three months older than Lulu, so should be writing something more for her age bracket than the 'teenagers' who are actually writing more suitable songs for her on this album. The song sounds deeply out of place on this album, too, being about infatuation and the start of a 'new' romance rather than the end of a new one. Admittedly the chorus is quite catchy and could have been a really good part for someone with a voice more suited to the song (err Gary Puckett, strangely enough), but Lulu isn't bluesy enough to smoulder the way the song demands. Not one of the album's better ideas, which makes Lulu sound like Kylie Minogue during her Jason Donovan days. Ironic, really, that a song about embracing the past should be tied to music and production that sums up everything about an era you've tried hard to convince yourself to forget!

'I'm Walking Away' is better (what isn't?), with a moody keyboard opening that adds a prog rock atmosphere to the album and at last a sense of urgency to proceedings. It's not what you'd normally expect to hear from Lulu, but she seems to have had more input into this song than any other - not least because it's her sole writing credit on the album (alongside co-writer Steve DuBerry, who wrote the music for 'I Don't Wanna Fight' too). Unfortunately the song proper isn't as good as the ear-catching opening and certainly is no match for 'Fight', even if it treads the same weary paths of wanting to leave for a better life but not being entirely sure if that's the right decision. The music sounds like a Take That B-side (and believe me, that isn't a compliment) and you can almost hear the backing-singers-on-stools-clutching-microphones as the song continues. Lulu's lyrics, while spirited, doesn't match the other songs she was writing in this period and the chorus is especially trite and annoying ('I'm walking away don't ask me to stay, I'm walking away from you') without the lyrical sweep or compacted drama of 'Fight' or 'Poor Boys'. That said, there are some interesting and clearly heartfelt lyrics in here, some observations that wouldn't have been in the songs of Lulu's younger self: 'I wanna stay as friends, give it time...we'll see' (which isn't what narrators in teenage relationships say). Still, though, considering that Lulu at least had the chance to prove herself after her first hit as a writer on this album (heck, her first song as a writer) and with so much clearly to say after this most turbulent period in her life that she couldn't find something deeper to say than 'I can't take it, you can't take it...wooooh!' I too am walking away unless the second half of this album improves!

But oh dear 'A Place To Fall' is worse still. Imagine a breathy ballad even Starship would have rejected for being too cloying and you're halfway there - quite why a singer with the breadth and range of Lulu thought she could get by with coasting on a song like this goodness only knows. It's not as if author Chuck Jones didn't have a pedigree writing for various people during the 1980s (and no, he isn't the Looney Tunes director most associated with the Road Runner cartoons), but the problem is this song - which does seem to have been written specifically for Lulu - sounds like all the others and could have been by anyone. Drippy, dippy and distinctly unhippy, the narrator of the song even starts off by referring to her lover as a 'boy' - which really sticks out as being wrong on this album about growing older. This time the drums behave - comparatively speaking - but dear God this time there's a slap bass in the way of Lulu's voice, sounding spectacularly wrong, as if it's so loud it just happens to have been picked up from a neighbouring studio by accident. There isn't even a real chorus to this song either, just an elongated verse that always seems to keep coming back to the title phrase. Easily the worst song on the album, despite the competition for much of this album's second half.

Now, the album proper ends with a brief reprise of 'Let Me Wake Up In Your Arms'. My CD copy doesn't have that track (it features a rather noisy cover of 'Take A Piece Of My Heart' instead - which isn't much of a substitute to be honest), but I do remember it from my old vinyl copy (yes, even though this record came out in 1993 - that's how up-to-date I was with modern technology back then!) It's a bit pointless, really, so I'm not surprised they missed it out on the CD. It's that Bee Gees song back again, but slightly slower and more wistfully, with an emphasis on the background rather than Lulu. It kind of works, though, in the sense that the song and the dream that inspired it now seem to be a fading memory as the narrator has to get back to the harsher side of life.

Overall, then, 'Independence' is a bit of a mixed blessing. The first side is genuinely inventive starting with the defiant title track, resurrecting the careers of Bobby Womack and the Bee Gees and ending with 'How 'Bout Us?', the best Lulu cover in years (1976 to be exact). But oh the second side - as so often happens with Lulu she grasps hold of her career in both hands, shows just what a fine and wide-ranging voice she's got and then she ruins it all by recording the kind of bland filler material any singer who can string a couple of notes together can do. Lulu can do so much more than that, as she proves so often on the first side of this album, with 'Independence' a record at its least impressive when she's at her least 'independent' and too obviously taking cues from the succession of hip young things brought in as producers (apart from Barry Gibb, anyway). However, the fact that this record exists at all, almost ten years on from Lulu's last album and after the singer was rebuffed by every record company going, is a triumph for which Lulu should be rightly proud. At its best 'Independence' is exactly the album Lulu needed to get herself 'back on track' (to quote the natural 'follow-up record', delayed till 2004), showing off how much she deserved this chance, how much she's learnt during her 'missing years' and how she's so much more than a 1960s has-been everybody assumed retired when she hit 20. Lulu is one of the UK's greatest singers and while half of the album does nothing to add to that claim, half of this album does with style. It's just unfortunate that, after claiming her independence so vocally and proving all her detractors wrong with her biggest charting album in 25 years, Lulu won't make the most of the promise of this album, ending up becoming more famous for her looks, her makeovers and her B-list TV shows than for her true genius, her voice (and her secondary, just discovered genius for writing lyrics). The sort-of follow-up to 'Independence' (the extraordinary self-penned 'Take Me Where The Poor Boys Dance', like much of the better side of this album) won't come out till 1997 by which time, whatever the single's obvious worth, it's all too late. Overall rating - 5/10

Review Of The Year 2013 (News, Views and Music 226)




Alright, so in 2013 our analogy finally fell apart. If 2010 was like 1963 (lots of Beatles and Searchers), 2011 was like 1964 (Hollies, Kinks and yet more Beatles) and 2012 was like 1965 (The Who, The Beach Boys and even more Beatles), then sadly 2013 was nothing like 1966. Indeed, there was only two bona fide 'new' releases the whole year (with Neil Young's latest poised just as we write this review) and they featured Paul McCartney trying to sound modern (who didn't go solo till 1970) and Beady Eye, all of whom weren't actually born in 1966. Both albums were promising, though, not quite masterpieces but still a step in the right direction, which puts 2013 a nose ahead of 2012 (when The Beach Boys reunited to poor effect, Neil Young and Crazy Horse released a weird album of American covers and Paul McCartney became a crooner, briefly - strange AAA albums all). Where 2013 loses over previous years, however, is in the dearth of classic re-issues: we finally had the much delayed Stephen Stills box set, yet another Beach Boys box set, The Beatles at the BBC volume two and another in the McCartney deluxe editions, but even this was down on years gone by. The list of AAA documentaries has been especially poor, particularly on radio, where the cloud hanging over the profession thanks to the Jimmy Saville scandal and all the knock-on effects leading to arrests of other leading DJs and presenters has rather killed off the momentum of new product. What we have had has been rather good though and finally some of our less appreciated AAA stars have been under the spotlight, including Otis Redding and Mark Knopfler, alongside yet another Who documentary on 'Tommy'. Shockingly there hasn't been one proper 're-issue series' all year, so we've scrapped our 'best' and 'worst' entries for this year - but on the positive front this is the first year in our site's five-year history where we haven't had to write an obituary for one of our stars. Long may that continue in 2013!

What we do have is a promising list of possible releases for 2014: Neil Young has already announced yet another new album in the dying weeks of this year (so we won't have a chance to review it before publishing this alas: we'll add it to next year's tally instead), David Crosby has announced his first solo album in twenty years in January with some help from Mark Knopfler (a nice bit of AAA cross-pollination there!), CSNY are still talking about the release of a box set celebrating their 1974 world tour, which has been promised since 2011 and has now grown from a simple re-issue of the record-breaking Wembley concert (which the band are afraid to release in full because they sounded 'jittery all night' - they sound pretty good on my semi-official copy I have to say) and the next Paul McCartney deluxe edition has been announced as 'Wings At The Speed Of Sound', even if a release date hasn't been given just yet. Speculatively, Noel Gallagher might have a new album on the cards too. Alas the Belle and Sebastian album that looked on the cards for this year never materialised, ditto the new CSNY record although as the band played Neil's Bridge School Benefit concert in October it might be back on again, Beady Eye appear to have split up or at the very least been heavily delayed by a nasty accident that left guitarist Gem in hospital for the past few months and the vague talk about re-issuing The Beatles' 'Let It Be' seems to have been replaced with this Christmas' rush to get 'Beatles at the BBC 2' into the shops. As ever, we'll keep you posted on what everyone is up to during the year and probably into the next pair beyond.

THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

1) Stephen Stills "Carry On"


Much-delayed, the Stephen Stills box - compiled as ever by partner Graham Nash - finally arrived in shops seven years after the David Crosby set 'Voyage' and five years after the Graham Nash set 'Reflections'. Like the other two, it features several juicy unreleased items squeezed between a generally fair and comprehensive selection of songs from Stills' solo, CSN and CSNY careers as well as Manassas and the Stills-Young Band. The difference was that Stills' eclectic output means that the set was extended to four CDs rather than three as with Crosby and Nash. The packaging was a sumptuous as ever, full of lots of photographs that had never been seen before, although it's sad to see that most of the writing was taken up by two rather boring career overviews rather than the revealing song-by-song analysis of the other sets (Stills really doesn't like talking about his songs and it speaks volumes he's the only member of CSNY not to pen an autobiography - yet!) While this set was particularly useful in terms of released performances, (I already had all of Crosby's and most of Nash's albums on CD, but there are so many, lots of them rare, Stills solo LPs from the 1970s and 1980s there were lots I was missing) it's the unreleased material that appeal the most in these sets and what we had was a bit of a mixed bag. It's wonderful to hear a high-pitched 17-year-old Stills warbling Ed Wheeler's classic 'High Flying Bird' on a student radio station (tapes of which weren't even known before this set came out, never mind bootlegged), ditto one surviving tape from what became the Stills-Young Band album 'Long May You Run' back when it was intended as a CSNY reunion (legend long had it that Stills had slashed the tapes with a razor-blade to stop them ever being released - so where the heck did this version of 'Black Coral' come from?!) The much-bootlegged early version of 'Little Miss Bright Eyes' and Stills' unreleased 1979 latin number 'Cuba El Fin' are also nice to have on a proper shiny CD at long long last. As ever with these sets, though, a great deal of the 'unreleased' material turned out to be remixes that aren't that different (barring an abandoned latin freakout on the front of 'First Things First', that took me by surprise) and a lot of the live rarities on CD4, when Stills is losing his voice or his ideas, are dispensible (the awful 'Man Alive' album from 2005 ends up being better represented than 'Stephen Stills' or 'Manassas', which is just plain wrong!) You could quibble with the track listing too: Stills' greatest song (says us anyway) 'Word Game' being replaced by the poppy 'Mariane' is the one that gave us apoplexy in our review - but there's enough here to keep collectors happy and more than enough to give fans new to Stills' talent something to celebrate. Cheaper and smaller than the McCartney deluxe editions, but with more music and more rarities without stinging on size or packaging, these three CSN re-issues got the balance about right I'd say and my shelf now looks very handsome with the large 'C S and N' logos sitting on their spines! Not perfect, but very very welcome.

2) The Beatles "At The BBC Volume Two"

We said nearly five years ago now on this site that Apple got it wrong - most of the casual public thought 'Anthology' was dragged out at six CDs full of some awful filler and yet felt short-shrifted by only two CDs of BBC sessions. There's enough great performances from 'Pop Go The Beatles' alone to make a lovely five CD set, never mind all the others shows the fab four appeared on between 1962 and 1965. Raw, punchy and often under-rehearsed, they reveal - especially in the earlier recordings - a band that could really play and knew each other inside out, the closest we'll ever get sadly to what they sounded like in their 'Hamburg' days. The first volume of the BBC sessions released as long ago as 1993 did the sensible thing, with alternate BBC versions of all the band's most famous singles and a majority of the songs exclusive to BBC recordings. This second set complements the original nicely, though, with alternate versions of those famous hits, some album tracks like 'Misery' and 'There's A Place' that sound particularly fine in these versions and better yet the first official release for a small portion of the 'banter' between songs, revealing the fab four as natural comedians and a delightful mix of the proud and humble (George even gets the band to say 'hello' to his mum 'who listens to Saturday Club...because it's the time she's outside doing the digging!') The One Show had a reunion of a lot of the people who wrote in recently and - although they mucked it up by not taking it seriously as ever - you could feel the warm nostalgic glow in the room as the Beatles, who used to represent a bright brave new future, now represent a golden rosy past. While on the surface this set is less interesting than the first (the only songs collectors won't know are a still-muddy recording of 'Dream Lover' from the band's first appearance in October 1962 and the Hamburg favourites 'Lend Me Your Comb' heard in an alternate version on 'Anthology' and some less than fab covers of 'Glad All Over' and 'Sure To Fall' (the weakest of the Beatles' BBC-only covers), you do get a better sense of history from this second set, with more 'context' in the shape of the speech and the fine extensive liner notes. This second volume is a better representation of what those Beatle BBC shows were all about, when an hour on saturdays was a teenager's only real chance to hear 'their' music on the BBC and when they had to put up with the 'elder generation' presenters to get to even that. This set should have come out years ago - and there's easily another three volumes to come if Apple and the BBC choose to do them that way - frankly, they should. This is 'The Beatles with their trousers down', which Lennon wanted to ape with 'Let It Be' and hearing the band so young and so full of life is a wonderful experience indeed.

3) Beady Eye "Be"

While not quite as groovy or full of as many peaks as the Oasis spin-off's debut album, 'Be' was even more consistent and evidence of what a great band Beady Eye are/were (depending on whether this is indeed their last release or not, as threatened). For some reason the public have very much decided on Noel's half in the Oasis mud-flinging wars that have been going on the past few years despite the fact that a) it was Noel who actually ended the group (even if he didn't throw the actual tangerine that split the group - a long story we've covered on many issues now) and b) Beady Eye are making the better music (Noel's debut album was a bgunch of superb Oasis outtakes and some ghastly new songs). A winning mixture of Oasis noise and something further, Beady Eye have all the swagger of old but a quiet, still heart that allows them to indulge in long slow ballads and electronic effects Oasis would never have dared to use. Liam, especially, has grown tremendously in the new setting, opening his heart to his brother in the plea for forgiveness 'Don't Brother Me', the spooky and sparse 'Second Bite At The Apple' and the Coalition-rousing 'Flick Of The Finger'. There's nothing here to match the wonderful 'Wigwam' from their first album (The best Oasis-linked song in many a long year), but there also isn't a 'bad' song on 'Be', which manages a very consistent vibe and texture throughout. I really hope this isn't the end of the band, because they've proved themselves to be way ahead of the opposition (poor Noel seems to be stuck working with either Take That or old enemies Blur on his next LP, depending which rumours you hear), even if they're hopelessly out of fashion for now.

4) Paul McCartney "New"

We reviewed this album in full not long ago, but to sum up: 'New' is a mixed record that isn't quite as inventive or consistent as Macca's stint as 'The Fireman' in 2011 but is a big improvement on his other 'pop' records of the past decade and a huge improvement on his last release, the standards 'Kisses On The Bottom' where the only good thing about this onslaught on the 'Great' American Songbook (which Macca can out-write in his sleep) was that it was still a lot better than Rod Stewart's efforts on the same theme. On the plus side, Macca sounds happy again after a troubled decade with Heather Mills and is back to writing love songs again: 'Hosanna', for new wife Nancy, is as good as any in Macca's great canon. His newest batch of songs reflecting on his 'ever present past' also result in 'Early Days', a song all but guaranteed to make Beatles fans cry, while he doesn't turn away from the sadness and harshness of life as he often does, coming up with a magnificent ending in 'Road' (a very dark song) and 'hidden track' 'Scared', which digs even deeper, with a haunting melody that follows you around long after the CD stops playing. If only the rest of the album was up to this standards then 'New' would easily be our album of the year: but alas Macca seems too keen on making this a 'pop' album, straining too hard to sound contemporary and many of the other songs are twee or poorly written with some awful rhymes, or in some cases both ('Queenie Eye' especially, is the worst McCartney song in many a year which even Ringo would consider too facile to sing). A mixed bag, then, but at its best 'New' is a reminder of how great Macca can still be and hints at the possibility of an even stronger album next time around...

5) The Beach Boys "Made In California"

We'll start with the bad points: there already exists a perfectly good Beach Boys box set released in 1993, which could and should have been re-issued instead of this new one so fans could enjoy it without having to fork out the pricey amounts it now sells for on Amazon and Ebay. Wanting to avoid repeating the same tracks as before, this is basically a 'second-best' box set, mainly designed for fans who already own the first set and none of the band's actual albums (frankly if you're into the Beach Boys enough to own the first box set, you already own all the albums too). This six CD set is also pricey in the extreme, suggesting that the Beach Boys are just trying to flog more product. And yet, even having pulled six discs for '30 Years Of Good Vibrations' in 1992, the Beach Boys made so much wonderful music during their career that the lesser known music on this set is often extraordinary, every bit as good as the better known material. 'Lonely Sea' 'Busy Doin' Nothin' 'Baby Blue' 'Solar System' and 'Angel Come Home' especially are as good as any of the better known and loved hits and fully deserving of re-appraisal. The unreleased material is astonishing, too, given how many previous Beach Boys 'rarities' sets there've been over the years, including some recently unearthed unbootlegged BBC sessions, some stunning vocal-only mixes, no less than 17 live recordings (which are mainly ropey but fun and occasionally quite different to the album versions) and five completely unreleased songs (sadly mainly from later on in the band's career, but still mighty interesting to hear). The packaging, too, is done with care and a lot of love - certainly more care and love than the awful Beach Boys reunion album last year.The biggest surprise? A full 'Meant For You', the 30 second song that kickstarted the 'Friends' LP extended to ninety seconds of complete joy and another stunning eight minute medley of a capella sections from 'Smile' that's as perfect as perfect can be. You could argue that the Beach Boys deserve better, that fans have already got almost everything here and that we'd much rather the complete sixth disc of rarities had been released in a 2 CD pack with the outtakes spread across the rest of the set, and you'd be right. But there's a lot of wonderful things about this set too, which is more than worthy of the Beach Boys name and even in a decade pretty spoilt for lush expensive Beach Boys sets this one is special, though sadly not definitive.


THE BEST TV/RADIO DOCUMENTARIES OF THE YEAR

1) Otis Redding Night (TV, BBC4)


An unseen-for 45-years Stax Revue night from Norway was an excellent starter, featuring Sam and Dave and a whole load of B-list soul stars warming up the crowd before an exuberant Otis Redding bounced on stage treating us to a typically breathless 20 minute set (although Sam and Dave were actually better, I thought). However the main course was sensational: 'Soul Amabassador', a new documentary about the late great gentle giant of soul that portrayed him a bit more fairly and deeply than most other documentaries I've seen. Otis' family were fully involved with the project, with the shots of Otis' widow Zelda still in the home he bought for her all those years ago more moving than any of the actual recollections in the film. Booker T and as much of the M Gs backing band as possible also contributed, clearly still in awe of their former singer but not as keen on making him out a 'saint' as previous documentaries. Otis comes across as troubled, not so much the self-proclaimed 'mr pitiful' of his songs as 'mr worry', concerned about his family, his fans and his career prospects. Otis really was on an amazing journey the last year of his life and across 1967 had blown away the crowds at Monterey but was already onto a 'new thing', inward-looking sad songs of which 'Dock Of The Bay' should have been the first, not last. A worrier who hated spending money but too often splashed out, a gentle giant who nobody wanted to cross because he had a fierce temper when provoked and a family man who poured his heartout to his wife but wasn't afraid of straying, Otis finally comes across in 3D as a real person, which is the most you can ask of any documentary. Along with some rare footage and some excellent talking head interviews, 'Soul Ambassador' was a moving experience indeed.

2) David Frost meets Paul McCartney (TV, Al Jazeera TV)

One of the last things David Frost did before his death was a new series on Al Jazeera TV interviewing celebrities closer to his age range and many of whom he interviewed the first time 50 years before. Macca was his best subject, as willing as Frost to dig a little deeper than normal and opening up about his early pore-Beatles day and the pressures of fame. We got to see Macca re-live his life via specially chosen clips that brought on anger (Allen Klein) and tears (Linda), with several 'minor' characters in the Beatles story brought to life at last (particularly Paul's dad Jim). Macca has never spoken at such length about his mother Mart's death from cancer, the money troubles of their family or his early exploration of music before and while the interview loses its way a little on the more frequently-told stories of Beatles and Wings, even these are handled well, Macca more open than normal about the Beatles' split and his love for his two colleagues who are no longer here. Ever since the end of the Heather Mills debacle, Macca's handling of the media has been exemplary, more open and honest and less grudging than it was before. Macca's in a good place right now and more willing to talk about his mistakes, which is heartwarming to see. David Frost's gentle probing and the chance to talk to someone whose clearly done their homework also help bring out one of the best interviews Macca has ever done. Let's hope the set of 'David Frost' al jazeera interviews (already the best news channel on freeview, beating the BBC, ITV and Sky hands down) comes out on DVD sometime soon in tribute so more people can see this great interview (which I was lucky enough to find by chance!)

3) Mark Lawson meets Mark Knopfler (TV, BBC4)

The nearest equivalent to David Frost is Mark Lawson, whose similar quiet style and love of research puts him a nose above most interviewers. Mark Knopfler isn't the easiest of subjects: shy, often monosyllabic and far more interested in talking about his heroes than himself, Knopfler hasn't done an in-depth interview like this since his Dire Straits days, so it was quite a coup for BBC4 to get him. He doesn't let them down, either, showing off his collection of guitars, filling us in on his early years (although I'd still like to know more about his days as a reporter in Newcastle and teacher in London) and revealing just why he's happier to play for smaller crowds alone or with a small band than he was to fill arenas with Dire Straits. Sweet and honest, with a self-effacing humour, Mark Knopfler's always been a sketchy but likeable character and this interview was highly successful at filling in some of the things we didn't know.

Other recommendations: The Who "The Story of Tommy" (TV, BBC4, a nice summary of a complex story, although still not as revealing as Pete Townshend's interview on the 'Tommy/Quadrophenia/Live Hits' DVD set) and "The 50th anniversary of 'Please Please Me' (TV, BBC4, which saw 14 'guests' re-creating all of The Beatles' first album's 14 songs in Abbey Road Studios no 2 in 'real time' 50 years to the day - some were better than others but the 'links' on the album's history were interesting, especially the story behind the album cover).


THE BEST DVDS OF THE YEAR

1) Paul McCartney and Wings "Rockshow"

Recorded in 1976, released belatedly in 1980 and killed off by Macca's drugs convictions and the death of the group not long after, 'Rockshow' has been off our shelves for far too long. A full concert given in the Cow Palace arena by the 1976 McCulloch-English line-up of Wings, a lot of this music is subtly different to the 'soundtrack' live album 'Wings Over America', though the songs are much the same. Wings have finally transformed into a great band, with a charge for the rockers and a quiet space for the ballad that only Macca's currently band has ever matched again, with Jimmy McCulloch , Joe English and Denny Laine making for a tight little band for Paul and Linda to join in with. Denny's 'Time To Hide', in particular, is the highlight of the film, while the chance to see (as well as hear) the earliest performances of Beatles songs by their author on stage since 1966 (many of the like 'Lady Madonna', for the first time) is a special occasion indeed. The opening one-two-three punch of 'Venus and Mars' 'Rockshow' and 'Jet' is also a superb beginning, the crowd on their feet from the first (even if they all sit down again by the time of 'You Gave Me The Answer'), while rare closing encore 'Soilly' proves that Wings were among the best rock bands around in 1976, building to a real crescendo of sweat, vim and vigour. Not everything about this DVD - also part of the 'Wings over America' deluxe edition release - works, the show is still incomplete, running to 2 hours 20 minutes instead of three and a lot of it is shot in the dark, which gets a bit wearing after half an hour or so. But take this as historical footage (very few concerts had been shot on film before this one), accept a few songs go a bit wrong ('Yesterday' and 'Long and Winding Road' aren't up to Beatles standards while 'Picasso's Last Words' is a bad idea all round, even segued with the surprising choice of 'Richard Cory') and this is still as good as a live DVD as you'll find.

2) The Rolling Stones "Return To Hyde Park"

By contrast the Stones' latest DVD is bang up to date, a record of their summer and to-date last concert, a surprise return to Hyde Park the band had last played in 1969 in tribute to Brian Jones (I notice the show wasn't free this year, though). The Stones are on good form - much better than they were at Glastonbury - with special 'aah' moments throughout (Mick Jagger walking out in his 1969 'dress' and explaining 'I got this out of my 1960s wardrobe and it still fits!....if I loosen it a bit), Mick Taylor's return to a band he last played with in 1976 prior to the four shows performed this year and an epic elongated last encore of 'Satisfaction'. Yes the track listing could have been a little more daring, yes Ronnie Wood still seems as out of place in this band as ever (even unfit and unpractised Taylor plays him off the stage) and the arrangements of so many of these songs are so set in 'stones' that at least half of this show is interchangable with any made in the past 25 years. But the Stones are clearly having fun, enjoying their time in the spotlight and the sheer amount of fans out to see them and still turn in their best live show on DVD outside 'Some Girls Live In Texas' and their original Hyde Park appearance.

3) Grateful Dead "Sunshine Daydream"

I haven't seen it all yet, but 'Sunshine Daydream' - a lengthy Dead concert from 27th August 1972 released as a threre CD/one DVD set - finds the Dead on fine form. Never the most active of bands, their static appearance isn't always built for viewing, but the crowd of deadheads are watchable in their own right. The tracklisting is a good one too, like the 'Europe '72' album come to life as a visible concert and includes a handful of semi-rarities such as 'Black Throated Wind' 'Promised Land' and 'El Paso' (not released on albums at the time, although they've been on a few 'from the vaults' re-issues since). An epic 'He's Gone' and a daring 'China Cat Sunflower are better still. Begging just one question: where has this film been for 42 years and why only release it now?!


THE MOST DISAPPOINTING RELEASES OF THE YEAR

1) The Moody Blues "Timeless Flight"

When are some of these bands going to learn that some of us are on a tight budget? Admittedly the music in this epic box set of 17 CDs is generally superb - the studio stuff anyway - but every good Moodies fan already owns this music several times over now and asking us to shell out a whopping £130 for the privilege of some nice packaging and two so-so concerts is ridiculous. This set seems to have gone down very well, winning a 're-issue of the year' award at some big music do, but if so then the judges have got their copy for free - they haven't had to pay for it like we have. As for longterm fans, yes the new concert from the Blue Jays at the Royal Albert Hall is a great show that surprisingly escaped the bootlegger's clutches (featuring an especially gorgeous 'Who Are You Now?' and the best live version of 'Question' yet) and the 1983 shows promoting 'The Present' are quite interesting (we've not had the chance to hear many songs from that under-rated album done live before - and they sound pretty good!) But these are collection-filler curios at best and the talk of 'rare' outtakes and BBC radio sessions heard before the set come out turn out to be simply the (admittedly generally excellent) bonus tracks from the set of deluxe re-issues of Moody albums that came out a mere five years ago (and cost a fortune to buy at the time anyway). Repeating so many of these albums on CD and 'super CD' formats is daft too: fans want one or the other, not both, so wouldn't splitting the set into two cheaper lots be a better idea? Also why are there no solo albums here - all of them rarer than the Moodies albums proper, some of them never released on CD - as well as the same tired choice of album tracks (almost everything included in the 'Time Traveller' box set of 1998). Yes the majority of this music is stunning and yes it all looks gorgeous (the freebie limited edition csasette - a replica of a Moodies compilation taken into space on one of the Apollo missions - is a particularly neat touch). But surely either a shorter set concentrating on true rarities or a much bigger set encompassing every track, solo and together, without the repetition would have been better still? I'd save your money if I were you... (you can donate it to our site if you've got that much to spare!)

2) Paul McCartney and Wings "Wings Over America" (Deluxe Edition)

The weakest yet in Macca's deluxe edition series, this is another - like 'McCartney' and 'Band On The Run' to some extent - that seems to have been released despite the fact that there's nothing that excitingly new here bar the chance to have all the period songs together in the same place and with a few new photographs thrown in (plus a book this time, made up of illustrations made by the band's 'official illustrator' Humphrey Ocean which tells you everything about this style-over-substance set). As you may have read above, the 'Rockshow' DVD that comes with this set is genuinely gripping, the greatest line-up of Wings on terrific form and it's been hard to get hold of for far too long (actually it's still too hard to get hold of - I still haven't seen the DVD anywhere although I know the video well). The only problem is, it's our separately from this set at a fraction of the price and you really don't need to fork out £140 for a remastered edition of 'Wings Over America' which has never been out of print, a few edited highlights from the soundtrack of that show (which isn't terribly different to the 'America' triple album anyway) and some nice photos. Admittedly there's a nice unseen Linda McCartney book of photos thrown in too and a replica of the tour booklet that's a nice souvenir, but surely for a set costing so much money there ought to be more actual recordings here (the band's set of overdubbing sessions to 'sweeten' the sound still exists, as probably does the 'original' mix of the album before these were added). What gets me more is that there are other Wings/McCartney albums with oodles of outtakes and rarities available (take your pick from 'Red Rose Speedway' 'Venus and Mars' 'London Town' 'Back To The Egg' 'Tug Of War' and 'Press To Play' which could all double in length easily, while there's a whole unreleased album from 1987, 'Return To Pepperland', that could come out on 'Flowers In The Dirt') so why release this scraping-of-the-barrel set near the beginning of the re-issue series, not the end?

3) The Who "Tommy" (Deluxe Edition)

Talking of milking a cow long past it's saturation point, this is the seventh re-issue of 'Tommy' on CD, which has now appeared as 1/2/4 and 6 CD sets. This time around there's a series of Pete Townshend demos, which are genuinely fascinating, both for the chance to hear Pete sing these songs instead of Roger and to hear a few 'changes' that took place in Tommy's evolution ('Amazing Journey', a squawling ten minute psychedelic journey of noise and chaos is even more 'amazing' than the finished product), but for goodness sake - previous sets have released four, then six, now 24 of these demos. Why not do us all a favour and release them all properly from the beginning? What's weirder, too, is that so many of the 'stuio outtakes'; from the previous special edition of 'Tommy' have gone missing - surely we should be getting more with each release, not less? The replacement - a live version of 'Tommy' from Canada included in an even more special edition/expensive edition, is also pretty poor too by Who standards - certainly no patch on the classic 'Live at Leeds' version of the rock opera. Yes the packaging's nice and if you don't already own this album then the 2013 version is arguably the version to get - but blimey, who could possibly want to buy this album who doesn't already own it? And I can't honestly tell you to spend your money on it because, like busses, there'll probably be the fourth version in a decade along sometime soon collecting all of us this stuff together and probably more. We're not gonna take it, I tell you, never did and never will...

Other non-recommendations: "Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Live" An expensive (£20) hour-long concert of most of a not very good album that sounds even worse live, plus two rather unappetising music videos that aren't half as interesting as even the bad Oasis ones.


THE BEST SONGS OF THE YEAR

1) "Hosanna" (Paul McCartney 'New')

This song may only be a month old (to anyone outside the studios at least) but McCartney's latest quiet album highlight has already become a firm favourite for me and my mp3 player. revelling in the joy of being in love again, this is McCartney full of praise that he's finally found again the love and hope he's spent so much of his career discussing and searching for. A modern hymn, 'Hosanna' sounds both as complete as if it's been around for hundreds of years, like the best McCartney songs, and a step into somewhere new, with an edgy voodoo-ist backing that makes time sound as if it's standing still before running backwards. This is another silly love song lyrically, but the tension in the music and the older, maturer McCartney allowing his vocal to crumble with age and emotion means that this love sounds hard fought for. The experience is a truly moving one and - for me - this is McCartney's best song in 12 years, maybe even longer. Hosanna indeed.

2) "Talkin' 'Bout You" (The Beatles, 'BBC Volume 2')

Oh how we moaned at Apple and the BBC for missing out this song when they compiled the 'first' set of fab four BBC sessions. One of the few Beatles BBC covers unreleased on album and not added to that first box set, it's one of the band's greatest ever interpretations of an American standard, a Chuck Berry track that presumably never made it to album because both the Rolling Stones and Hollies got their first. Taking its cue from both, this leering song is slowed down to a mid-paced sneer, halfway between the Stones' pure blues and the Hollies' histrionics, Lennon channelling his inner teddy boy on a song that both ogles and idolises the girl of the narrator's dreams. The rest of the Beatles cook up a storm behind him, with Ringo's snapping drums far more on the ball than usual, ending up with a performance that could easily have graced period album 'With The Beatles' and been better than a good half of it to boot. For those who haven't heard it yet (as it's been much bootlegged down the years), this is another chance to hear the young energetic Beatles at their finest, back when they were wild and dangerous and raw.

3) "Don't Brother Me" (Beady Eye, 'Be')

A weary plea for peace, this is another fine Liam Gallagher song that clearly reflects on the sudden and undignified end to Oasis, no matter how many times he tried to dodge the subject of this song in interviews. Alternately petulant, goading, whining, cajoling, pleading and genuinely regretful, this epic song is quite a journey, name-checking Noel's recent songs as well as his own ('Did you shoot your gun?')before pleading 'come on, give peace a chance!' The song then doesn't so much end as transmorphosise into a hazy enveloping world of ghostly synths, glockenspiels and electronic trickery that shouldn't work but surely does. Yes, nothing on 'Be' quite matched the highlights of last album 'Different Gear, Still Speeding', but on songs like this and 'Second Bite Of The Apple' Beady Eye prove that they have a far bigger canvas than Oasis had in their final days and still know how to go somewhere enticingly new, with so much still to say.

Other recommendations: The Moody Blues "Where Are You Now?" (Live Version) - the best of the previously unreleased stuff from the Moody Blues box set, with this gorgeous and rarely performed song capturing the Blue Jays on a good night at the Royal Albert Hall in 1976 (this CD should have been released separately, though, not stuck in a £140 box set), The Beatles "Lend Me Your Comb" (another 'Beatles at the BBC' song and another that more than deserved to be on the first set, although an inferior Anthology version means this one isn't quite so special) and Stephen Stills "Cuba El Fin", an exciting jam that's the 'missing link' in the much loved set of Stephen Stills' songs about his latin american heritage, from the 'Carry On' box set.


That only leaves us to bid 2013 a fond farewell with our collection of our best articles of the year, as nominated by our readers. We had two of you giving suggestions this year, so again these might not be all that comprehensive, but nevertheless they offer a good range of what we wrote about at the AAA during this year. And what a year it's been, dear reader: max The Singing Dog returned to Youtube, we raced past our target of 100, 000 hits (we're now around 160,000) and our articles have been re-posted and re-tweeted by Kinks guitarist Dave Davies, the official Lindisfarne page and, err, Dr Who News. So anyway enjoy again (or for the first time if you've only just joined us) some of our best extracts from the year, along with links for where to read them:

THE BEST AAA ARTICLES OF THE YEAR

1) Top 101 Songs: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2013-04-22T02:30:00-07:00&max-results=7
After being challenged to deliver a 'top ten' of our favourite ever songs, this project got slightly out of hand (heck, it was a struggle deciding on my top 100 songs, hence the fact that this became 101 top songs, a neat reflection of our 'core 101 reviews'). However, we had fun writing it and while you always want to back and change lists like these, it does reflect quite neatly the hidden depth of the AAA catalogue and all the goodies out there that ought to be better known. Our only 'rule' was that a song couldn't be 'well known', which we took to mean 'a top ten hit'...

2) DVDs Special: http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/news-views-and-music-issue-176-aaa-dvds.html
This article, from way back in January, was our first post of the year and our now 'traditional' slot to bring you a 'special edition' of all things Alan's Album Archives (we know from practice that the 'first post' of a year is often the one newcomers look at - so giving you a new angle on every AAA band rather than details of one is the best way of letting people in to our mad world slowly). This year it was all about Alan's Album Archives DVDs, every single one that we knew about at the time (we've updated a couple since), ending up at an eye-watering 42,000 words. It appears to have been a 'hit' with our audience, some 2886 of you having read it at the time of writing, our fifth most popular post. As ever the entries are listed in alphabetical, then chronological order.

3) April Fool's Day: Max The Dog's AAA Museum: http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/news-views-and-music-issue-7114-maxs.html

We love fooling with time on our April Fool's editions and taking a break from bringing you 'real' AAA events and releases so we can instead 'imagine' a few. After sending our characters forward to the near future, distant future and back to the past (in a parallel universe where everything happens at once), we thought we'd give poor Max The Singing Dog a break and have him as the worn-out robotic host of an Alan's Album Archives museum. Yes, some of the exhibits have stopped working and by the time of issue 1,000,000,000,000,000 our readership isn't quite as big as it was in our heyday a thousand years earlier, but a steady stream of guest-visitors nostalgic for the 21st century means we're still popular around the galaxy. Oh and if Robo-Max starts acting funny again, just give him a slap from us would you?...

4)Longest and Shortest Average AAA Running Times: (link not available yet)

Well, this took a few of my fading braincells I can tell you. After confidently saying that Oasis' "Be Here Now" had one of the longest average-running lengths per song of any AAA album I thought I'd better go back and find out what the other competitors were. The results may astound you! (Well, they might, if you're easily astounded anyway...) As if that wasn't enough, we then decided to review 'Sufin' USA' by the Beach Boys and the quest then started for the shortest average-running lengths per song of any AAA album. The results are closer than we expected, resulting in a lot of head-scratching, broken calculators, an awful lot of swearing and what we think is a genuinely pioneering article...

5) Dr Who "Lost and Found": http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/dr-who-lost-and-found-script.html
Finally, back in the Spring, when I had a bit of spare time on my hands (for what was probably the last time what with one thing and another) one of my readers said that I always seem to mention Dr Who a lot on my site (our April Fool's Day articles generally have a column on what the Dr's been up to, whatever incarnation he might be in at the time)and had I thought about expanding one of my 'fake' Dr Who stories into a proper story for this, the 50th anniversary year? I wasn't getting anywhere with any of my 'fake' stories until I suddenly had a dream about the plot of this new adventure 'Lost and Found' and, having woken up I was desperate to know what the ending was. We even followed it up with another three stories although they, err, got a bit out of hand (the Master was back for 'Remastered', filling the world with Spice Girls music that could only be prevented by downloading the complete Alan's Album Archives website in one go!) so we only printed two ('The Vikings' is available to download on this site too - check out the very bottom of our 'contents' list below) It's got nothing to do with Alan's Album Archives, but some likeminded fans might find it fun to read...

And that really is it, not just for this article, but for the whole of this year. Thankyou for being one of our Alan's Album Archives readers during the past 12 months. We've grown quite considerably this past year and hope to do so again in 2014, when we'll be inching closer to our goal of covering every single AAA album somewhere around the end of 2016. It's quite a task, but we're having fun doing it and aiming to become the most detailed (if specific) album review site on the internet. Welcome those of you who've only just joined us on our adventure, happy travels to our older readers who've been with us for a long time and a time-delayed 'hello' to those of you reading these pages years and years after they were written. We love you one and all! Have a super 2014, which is sure to be full of news, views and music all the way through!

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