Rant #2,270: Bubblegum Is the Naked Truth

My mind has already gone off to daydream land, and it has wandered into the part of my brain where millions of songs are stored, millions of records, millions of tunes that come to the fore every once in a while ...

Before I meander any further, a little more than four months ago, in Rant #2,178 (July 11, 2018), I spoke about a podcast that I had started to listen to with some regularity, called "Echo Valley 2-6809," named after the nearly forgotten Partridge Family tune warbled by the late David Cassidy.

It is an hour-long show filled with music and memories that is geared to bubblegum music, that very basic rock and roll genre that became popular in the later years of the 1960s starting in about 1966 or so. It takes in a whole lot of genres and a whole lot of artists, and one label in particular, Buddah Records, became well-known for its stable of bubblegum artists, some real, some imagined, including the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express.

The podcast, hosted by someone by the name of Bruce Frye, who is known as "Professor Bubblegum" on the show, basically puts all of that music into perspective, centered around a place called Echo Valley, a town which actually exists but in the show's framework, it is simply an imaginary village where the only music liked, played and spoken about is bubblegum music.

This takes in a lot of music and a lot of artists, from the above-named Buddah groups to acts like the Beatles, Royal Guardsmen, Tommy James and the Shondells, Tommy Roe, the Monkees and the Archies.

Anyway, with my mind going every which way as I tried to stay awake one past workday (no, I am not going to get into that situation right now), I decided, totally in my mind, to come up with the greatest bubblegum songs of all time, in order, from one to 25.

This is a daunting task, because as I said a few lines up, bubblegum music is not just the music created by the Buddah stable of artists, it takes in more serious stuff too, stuff that was created for mass consumption but was more "intellectual" bubblegum than anything else.

But there are some similarities in all the most successful bubblegum music: the melodies and the lyrics of these songs are both catchy and repetitive, and the lyrics, in particular, are bathed in sexuality that younger kids would never understand but grownups would get very easily if they listened intently.

So, as we get closer to the weekend (boy, how I wish it was here already), here is the list, or at least my list, of the 25 greatest bubblegum songs of all time.

They kind of define bubblegum, a music without a solid definition, but let's just say the melodies and lyrics range from the very basic to the obtuse, and it is music that was really preferred by kids from about the mid 1960s--starting with 1964, a few years before it really hit with the popularity of the Monkees, who just didn't do bubblegum music--through the early 1970s, maybe through 1974, when disco started to poke its head into the Top 40 and album rock solidified itself as a force to be reckoned with.

Yes, there have been bubblegum acts and songs after that period, but the heyday of this music was the early Beatles through really their breakup--even though they were not a bubblegum act per se, they got the ball rolling for that genre to actually coalesce and be vibrant for a time.

I guess you can say that 2018 is the 50th anniversary of the height of the bubblegum era, with 1968 being a touchpoint of this genre, so if I needed a reason to so such a list, I guess I could point to that as a reason.

So again, without further ado, here is my top 25 songs of the bubblegum genre for you to remember. I might get some arguments about some of these, but each one of these songs has been played on the aforementioned podcast, and I guess if they can listen to these songs in mythical Echo Valley, they can be listened to anywhere.

Here goes:

1) Archies - "Sugar Sugar": I mean, how could this No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts song not be the top bubblegum song of all time? Not only did it get to No. 1 on that chart, but it is one of the largest selling singles of all time. It personifies what bubblegum is, what with a non-existent cartoon group created for a TV show warbling a song from the stable of Don Kirshner, who created the Monkees. When he got sick of their bickering, and was actually fired from that project, he created a group that could not bicker or argue with him. And I mean, just the name conjures up bubblegum. Real-life singers Ron Dante and Toni Wine put their best voices on this tune, written and produced by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, and it is a classic, bubblegum or not bubblegum.

2) Monkees - "I'm a Believer": This one is another no-brainer. A former No. 1 song and one of the biggest selling singles in pop history, this Neil Diamond tune again personifies what bubblegum music is, sung by what at first were a group of actors/musicians, or musicians/actors, who didn't really exist as an actual band but morphed into one of the most popular rock groups of all time, all through a fantasy TV show. Don Kirshner's stamp is all over it, and Micky Dolenz chews the vocal scenery like only he could and still can. Even if you didn't like Peter, Mike, Davy and Micky, you probably gave them a bye with this song, which was produced by Jeff Barry. Yes, it is that good, bublegum or no bubblegum.

OK, those two obvious choices are out of the way, and now the picks become a little more and even less obvious at the same time, and ascendency to the top of the charts is not a prerequisite for being on my list. However, all of these tunes are well-known and were popular in their day, so here goes nothing.

3) Ohio Express - "Yummy Yummy Yummy": Honestly, if the two previous songs on this chart never existed, this would be the one that people would say was bubblegum as its purest and best, but with those other two songs being the monsters that they were, this song is not the bride or bridesmaid, but, is at the adults' table anyway. Written by Arthur Resnick and Joey Levine and performed by a kind of fictional band--the act existed in another form, kind of morphing from the Rare Breed but with Levine only the lead singer in the studio--the song hits all the bullet points of bubblegum head on, with a catchy tune and repeated lyrics, and lots of sexual innuendo that the six year old loving this song could not yet understand.

4) 1910 Fruitgum Co. - "1, 2, 3 Red Light": No, it was not their first hit--we will go into that later--but this tune put the children's game into a different light, with the usual bubblegum virtues--earworm melody, repetitive lyrics, and of course, some mild sexuality that no six year old was going to pick up on. The song, written by Sal and Bobbi Trimachi, hits the bull's eye, and like the No. 3 song on this list, if the Archies and Monkees songs did not exist, this would be a candidate for the No. 1 song on this chart. As it is, it is a true Buddah bubblegum classic, one of the many that put kids' games into a very different light.

5) Beatles - "I Want To Hold Your Hand": I know, some of you are cringing right now. How dare I put a song by the Fab Four on a bubblegum chart!?!?! But the fact of the matter is that without this song, the genre would not have been established. Their first American hit has all the characteristics of classic bubblegum that it almost has to be on the list somewhere--a catchy tune, repetitive lyrics, and some mild sexuality. The song really is the template for all the other songs on this list and the entire bubblegum genre in general, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney's stamp on it to boot. And I know some of you are going to shake about this, but it is not the only Beatles' song on this chart--there's more to follow.

So there you have it, the top five bubblegum songs of the 1964 to 1974 time span. And again, I know that absolutely no one asked me to do this, but some things just come to me, and this topic just came to me out of the blue.

And if you want to find out more about bubblegum music, please visit the Echo Valley podcast site at http://echovalleymusic.blogspot.com. This is actually an excellent show for anybody interested in the evolution of pop music, and includes a multitude of music you probably never heard of before.

And as for this list, barring anything unforeseen, we will do five songs a week through the end of the year, culminating with a Top 25 Bubblegum Music list that will be something to behold.

Right now, I got love in my tummy, so I better take care of that. Speak to you again tomorrow.