My Sunday Song – “Always Be Mine” by Aldo Nova

For My Sunday Song #353, we are going to discuss the ballad “Always Be Mine” off Aldo Nova’s second album ‘Subject…Aldo Nova’…but I just call it ‘Subject’. The album was released on September 30, 1983 and was a very loose concept with a whole apocalyptic vision of the world. This was the 2nd single off the album but didn’t even make the Hot 100 in the U.S. which it should as this is one of the great ballads of the decade in my book. The album didn’t get a ton of press but it did eventually go Gold about 11 years after it’s release.

The song is about a breakup. A very hard break up of two people that still love each other, but they’ve played so many games, shed so many tears that it probably should be over. The guy in the song still loves her and in his heart, she’ll always be his. He is pleading with her to give it another shot, to stop the games, stop wearing the masks and just talk heart to heart and work things out. It is a little heartbreaking at times.

Musically, the song is beautifully done with Aldo on keyboards, guitars and vocals. Aldo likes to do a lot of the stuff himself. It starts off with an electronic drum beat that is followed by the keyboards…a lot of keyboards. But there is a tenderness to it all and the music has such great melody and the guitar playing…man Aldo can certainly play guitar. He is highly underrated. Aldo’s vocals pull at the heartstrings as he conveys all the love and pain the guy is feeling as he tries to win his girl back. The song sounds like the 80’s, but you know, it still works for me and is still as powerful today as it was when I first heard it back in 1983…40 years ago…damn…I’m getting old.

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Cheap Trick – ‘The Doctor’ (1986) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

After recording the fantastic track, “Mighty Wings” for the Top Gun Soundtrack, Cheap Trick headed in to the studio to record their next album. At the time, not knowing that song wasn’t written by the band, I had high hopes that their album would come out rocking like that song. Yeah, but it didn’t…AT ALL!! Thanks to the production by Tony Platt, Cheap Trick came out with an album that had no balls and sounded so dated with the massive keyboards that you threw your hands up in the air and said “what is this crap”. Yes, I am ruining this review by telling you the ending right away…that is how bad this album is to me.

The band was really fighting with their label as the label kept screaming more keyboards and the band, in the end, just threw up their hands and finished the album in 3 weeks. I don’t think they even realized at the time how weak and lame this would turn out to be. They probably had an idea as it was Tony Platt that mixed their last album after Jack Douglas had to back out due to legal problems with Yoko Ono (that is whole other story for another time). Tony turned their album. “Standing On the Edge” in to a wimpfest when it was supposed to be a rocker…at least that was Jack’s vision. Why would they expect anything different with this one.

The band line-up was unchanged from the prior as we still had Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Jon Brant. However, this would be the last album to feature Brant as the band’s next album would see the return of founding bass player Tom Petersson. And not a moment too soon. The album finally saw its release on November of 1986 and it didn’t do well at all. It peaked at #115 on the Billboard Charts and only had one U.S. single which didn’t even chart. That says all you need to know right there. The band had probably hit rock bottom at this point in their career which would make you think that after this, there was no where to go but up. We will see if that happens.

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Van Halen – “Jump” (1983) – 45 Single

When I was on vacation during this past Summer, I found a ton of 45 Singles with the Picture Sleeves at a place called House of Vinyl and I ended buying 7 Van Halen 45’s. And we’ve been through a couple so far as seen below…

And now we are on to our third of the 7 and this is another Roth Era track and one of their biggest singles ever…”Jump”. The song was released on December 21, 1983 and was the first single for the album ‘1984’ from the same year. The single went all the way to #1 and sold well over 1,000,000 copies.

The copy I have is the actual single that was released and not a promotional copy this time around. It has an A-Side with “Jump” and a B-Side with “House of Pain”. And if you notice on the label again, the engineer Donn Landee is credited again as Ted is a man of his word and wants Donn to get as much credit has him. Hell, Ted even gave up a point on each album and gave 1 point to Donn. That is appreciation folks.

According to Dave, the song was inspired by a new report he heard on the TV about a person threatening to jump from building. Dave pictured the people below says “Go ahead and jump”. Kind of sick sense of humor, but that’s Dave. Now the song isn’t really about suicide though. It is about going after what you want. Take that leap of faith and go after it.

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Tuesday’s Memes – The Synthesizer

Rock Keyboards, or synthesizers, are the butt of all rock jokes.  Well, not really as their are some great songs done with keyboards.  However, today we will poke fun at them as that is what we do.  Here are some I collected.  So sit back and enjoy!!

We have to first poke fun at the Keytar.  Why you ask?  Well why not!!!

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I am sorry, but synths are cool…

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And these are just for fun…

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Have a great day!!!