Don_Krider's Full Review: Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth: The Dark Histo...
"Bubblegum music" is the term for mass-produced, pre-fabricated music for a teenage audience that continues to be made these days but which had its greatest impact in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It's what editors Kim Cooper and David Smay describe well in this book as "sickly sweet confectionary masquerading as rock 'n' roll."
It's music that is supposed to appeal only to a young audience and be shunned by "serious music" fans. Of course, much of the music labeled "bubblegum" is highly listenable, spirited pop-rock, and a guilty pleasure of mine.
Bubblegum music may be defined by faceless studio groups that never really existed: acts like The Archies (studio musicians backing singer Ron Dante on songs like "Sugar, Sugar," which spent four weeks at # 1 in 1969) or The Partridge Family (only David Cassidy and Shirley Jones actually sang) used to sell millions of albums via television show tie-ins.
Some singers, like Tony Burrows, made a good living at this studio singer work. Burrows was lead singer on such hits as "My Baby Love Lovin'" by White Plains, "Gimme Dat Ding" by The Pipkins, "United We Stand" by The Brotherhood Of Man, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" by Edison Lighthouse and "Beach Baby" by First Class. These were studio creations all performed by bands that never actually existed, the first four of these songs (and "bands") all making the U. S. Top 20 charts in 1970.
For every studio-created band like The 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Banana Splits, there were also artists who were very much real people performing songs aimed at a teenage or pre-teenage audience. Acts like The Osmonds, The Jacksons, The Bay City Rollers, New Kids On The Block, The Monkees (studio-created, but a real band once they took control of their music) and hundreds more.
Bubblegum acts have always had massive, successful merchandise tie-ins: anything with the artist's image staring back at the fan, whether it's a soft drink commercial or a doll.
This book
The book is filled with such merchandising memories presented via numerous black and white photos. Among the memories: cereal boxes with cut-out playable vinyl 45 rpm records, comic books, metal lunch boxes, clothing and more.
Kim Cooper and David Smay edited this collection of writings on the subject. Some of today's best pop music writers (including Gary Gold, Carl Cafarelli, Greg Shaw, Bill Holmes and Dave Thompson) take a serious, but often humorous look at the genre.
Among the artists profiled are The Osmonds, The Defranco Family, The Bay City Rollers, The Partridge Family, The New Kids On The Block, The Turtles, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Tommy James & The Shondells, Kiss, The Monkees, The Cowsills, The 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Ohio Express, The Lemon Pipers, Gary Glitter, The Sweet, Slade and Dino, Desi & Billy, among others.
Also profiled are the producers and songwriters (remember that The Monkees songwriters included Neil Diamond and Carole King), folks like Don Kirshner (producer of The Archies and The Monkees), Ron Dante (lead singer for The Archies and The Cuff-Links ("Tracy"), later Barry Manilow's producer), Eric Stewart of 10CC, Jonathan King (the singer of "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" who later guided the early success of acts like The Bay City Rollers) and more.
The profiles feature interviews with many of the artists, songwriters and producers.
Included are several lists of "best songs of bubblegum" from different writers: the lists often include the various writers commenting on each song and why they chose it for the list (lists that include acts as far apart as The Raspberries, O-town, The Spice Girls and Britney Spears make some of these lists, which is part of the problem of what is loosely defined as bubblegum; the definition can depend on who is doing the defining).
At 328-plus pages (including an introduction and an index), the book is a fun read. It's full of memories (I had forgotten about cutting records out of cereal boxes and trying to fit the flimsy vinyl 45s onto a record player turntable, for instance), lots of photos, good interviews and intelligent analysis. If you've ever sung "yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy," you'll probably get a kick out of this book.
From the Archies to Britney Spears, this ambitious anthology reveals the light and dark sides of bubblegum music and features interviews with many of ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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