Super Hits

Title: Super Hits
Artist: The King's Road
Purchased: 2004, Half Price Books, Madison, WI
Verdict: Like gone, man.

The title doesn't lie: these are super hits. "She's A Lady." "Isn't it A Pity." "Jesus Christ Superstar." I'm in so far. The lie of omission is that nowhere on the cover does it mention that these songs are performed by The King's Road. Who? For the sake of history, I will now transcribe the rear jacket notes, sentence fragment for sentence fragment, word for unnecessarily capitalized word, so that the timeless message of The King's Road will last until the internet dies. Or I die and this Blogger account lapses. Or I lose interest.

"The Hits and the Heavies of today.
Flick the dial, let the sound lay on You.
Jazzrock blasting big and wild.
Funky.
Music of the Woodstock Nation.
The black beautiful sounds from the ghettoes of America's shame.
Head music from the Coast via Mill Valley and The Strip.
Getting the groovy feeling all over.
Good vibrations coming down.
Superhits are like the sounds you dig.
Right on!
For a little bread.
What was that that group called that made it happen.
Our group is called King's Road.
It's a place in Chelsea.
Swingin' London. B.A. (Before Altamont)
Be free.
Dig the way these cats make it happen again.
Instant replay.
Sounds like the original. Maybe better? [transcriber's note: No]
Open up your head to the thing with someone else's music.
It's a commune for hit freaks.
People who dig talent, message, love!
King's Road are street people.
King's Road are the sounds that talk to us.
They're saying something .
That something is superhits.
Superhits all together.
Get It Together!"

It reads a little like Bela Lugosi's monologue from Bride of the Monster. The space between "something" and the period, by the way, is on the original. I thought it was probably some sort of hippy code that was important to the vibrations of the intended message. Also, note that it reads "Superhits are like the sounds you dig," and not "Superhits are the sound you dig," a subtle distinction that was clearly lost on me when the blonde in the Superman shirt caught my eye at the Half Price Books.

Okay, they do a passable "She's A Lady," which I already have on three or four Tom Jones albums. They screwed up Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden." I can forgive that, although I don't know what a bunch of swingin' mods are doing covering it. But "Knock Three Times?" I've never really thought about that song until this listen. That is a really bad song. The King's Road doesn't add anything to the songs they cover, and since I don't often have the urge to put on John Lennon's "Mother," I am disposing of this. Dig? Wild.