Expanded from previous posts, this is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
Teen idolatry is part of pop music, as it should be. The Beatles were as much teen idols as Bobby Sherman was a bit later on, or as any subsequent poster lads from the Bay City Rollers through whatever contemporary pretty face I'm too old to know about.
Shaun Cassidy should be held in higher regard among power pop fans. Like his half-brother David Cassidy, our Shaun could sing; the fact that both Cassidys became 16 magazine heartthrobs via TV exposure (in The Partridge Family and The Hardy Boys respectively) doesn't change the fact of their God-given talent. Shaun himself wrote a terrific teen idol anthem called "Teen Dream," a delightful ditty basically thrown away as the B-side of his hit (but less interesting) cover of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe In Magic."
And Shaun had a way with Eric Carmen songs, as evidenced by his renditions of Carmen's "That's Rock 'n' Roll" and "Hey Deanie." Carmen's own versions of these songs were fine, better than fine. But Cassidy brought them both closer to a power pop ideal. At a time when Carmen himself seemed less interested in the raucous style he’d pioneered with the Raspberries, Cassidy’s vibrant versions of these songs served as a potent reminder of the frenzied, over-the-top pop mania Carmen had decided to leave behind. Cassidy even went so far as to declare to Newsweek magazine that “I’m not teenybop, I’m power pop...melodic!”
(Cassidy also served as the direct inspiration for one other teen-pop-meets-power-pop footnote, as Syracuse, NY’s own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes later wrote a song called “Boy Scout Pinup,” telling the tale of a young girl fantasizing about her Shaun Cassidy poster coming to life...and she didn’t want him to be a boy scout, baby. And the 'Cubes used to include "Hey Deanie" in their live sets.)
Cassidy's overt pop (even power pop) was the stuff of his first two albums, Shaun Cassidy and Born Late, both issued in 1977. 1978's Under Wraps was an attempted step toward maturity. Hey, just like Eric Carmen! Being (or trying to sound) grown-up isn't necessarily a good thing, though Under Wraps does include Cassidy's capable take on Brian Wilson's "It's Like Heaven"). The album was not as big a hit as Cassidy's previous records. 1979's Shaun Cassidy Live was his farewell to the screamin' girls of boy-scout pinup stardom. It didn't sell.
So, for fifth and final album Wasp, Cassidy enlisted Todd Rundgren to produce something edgier, something new wave. It was a ballsy move; some thought it desperate, I suppose, but it seems sincere. Wasp includes three songs written by Rundgren, and a fourth written by Rundgren, Cassidy, Roger Powell, and John Wilcox. The rest of the album is filled with covers of songs by David Bowie, Talking Heads, the Four Tops, the Animals, the Who, and Ian Hunter.
Wasp also fell short of sales goals. I believe this fact should be accepted as further evidence that growing up is way, WAY overrated.
Lost in a teen dream, I still listen to Cassidy occasionally. By the time I was in college from 1977 to 1980, what Mason Reese woulda called the borgasmord of my primary rockin' pop influences--British Invasion, AM Top 40, bubblegum, loud rock 'n' roll, and punk--had gelled within the general parameters of what I considered power pop. Cassidy's version of "Hey Deanie" fit within those parameters, and it still does. The track is a durable souvenir of my own youthful pop embrace, of hearing Cassidy and the Bay City Rollers on AM radio, seeing the Ramones and the Flashcubes in nightclubs, and absolutely reveling in the sheer rush of it all. "Hey Deanie" wasn't quite as integral a component of that rush as, say, "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," but it was indeed a part of my palpable thrill of pop music in the late '70s.
And, as with many songs I love, I have a specific memory that shines its stubborn glow on "Hey Deanie." In my dorm room one afternoon in 1978, my roommate introduced me to a friend of his, an intro that included an obligatory eye-rollin' dismissal of my preferred rockin' pop musical taste. Imagine!, my roommate sort of said, Carl would rather listen to SHAUN CASSIDY than the Grateful Dead!
I shrugged it off, like I always did, like I always do. Then as now: Don't even try to tell me what to like or what not to like. "Hey Deanie" might not be the two-word response I offer to anyone making that attempt.
And also then as now: "Hey Deanie" is its own reward, a pure pop song secure in the wonder of its identity as a pure pop song. The stars are dancing like diamonds in the moonlight. We could never find a better time to be in love.
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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
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