My Top 1000 Songs #479: Spiderman

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Sure, most people remember Katrina & The Waves largely for the inescapable "Walking On Sunshine" single. And, yeah, great song, hard not to love. But I'm more partial to the b-side, a deep cut from their original 1983 Canada-only indie label debut (also titled Walking On Sunshine). Inexplicably (to me, and presumably few others), it's one of the few early K&tW tracks not to get remade for their 1985 major label debut following the success of the "Walking" remake--thereby depriving most fans of access to a truly great song.

In contrast to the perkier pop of most of their Kimberley Rew-penned tracks, "Spiderman" has a driving, reverb-looped groove (not too far afield from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now," which followed a year later). And Katrina Leskanich lays down a tour de force vocal that reveals her as a massively powerful singer, something often only hinted at in their music. The atypically heavy song surprised me and captivated me on first listen, and I've always felt particularly attached to it, even in the midst of plenty of other absurdly catchy and underappreciated songs besides that damn "Walking on Sunshine."