This was originally published in the April 25, 1997 issue of Goldmine. It was subsequently edited for an appearance in the book Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth,
partially for length and style, but also to avoid duplication with
subjects discussed elsewhere in the book. Writer Gary Pig Gold and I
revamped my original article's section on The Monkees into an amusing
debate on whether or not The Monkees were every really a bubblegum
group. Except for some minor editing, this restores the original, full-length piece as it appeared in Goldmine. This will be serialized in several parts.
"When Buddah Records was formed two years ago, most songs were about
crime and war and depression. At the time we felt there was a place for
a new kind of music that would make people feel happy. So we got
together with two talented young producers named Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff
Katz who had an idea for music that would make you smile. It was
called 'bubblegum music.'"
The above quote, taken from the liner notes to a circa-l969 sampler
LP called
Buddah's 360 Degree Dial-A-Hit, gives us both a succinct
statement of intent for the critically reviled '60s pop music phenomenon
called bubblegum and an equally-succinct recap of the genre's origin.
Although bubblegum has gained a certain cachet of cool in some
circles over the past few decades (while remaining a pop pariah in other
circles), during its original heyday it was viewed strictly as fodder
for juvenile tastes, pure pabulum for pre-teen people. Furthermore, the
music was blatantly commercial at a time when such materialistic goals
were deemed unacceptable by an emerging counterculture. Bubblegum music
held no delusions of grandeur, nor any intent to expand your mind or
alter your perceptions. Bubblegum producers only wanted you to fork
over the dough and go home to play your new acquisition over and over to
your heart's content (and, no doubt, to your older brother's
consternation).
Bubblegum is absolved of any perceived counter-revolutionary
sentiments because it was so damn
catchy. Once “Yummy, Yummy,
Yummy,”
“Sugar, Sugar,” “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin',” or “Goody Goody Gumdrops”
embedded its sweet pink hooks into your mind, it was likely to remain
stuck there like its sugary namesake would stick to the underside of a
classroom desk.
Decades after the opening salvos of the bubblegum
revolution, the best bubblegum records still stand up as sterling
examples of hitmaking craft, characterized by sing-a-long choruses,
seemingly childlike themes, and a contrived but beguiling innocence,
occasionally combined with an undercurrent of sexual double entendre.
And oh yeah—did we mention the hooks? There were hooks a-plenty.
As with many genres, from punk to funk to power pop, it's difficult
to precisely define the parameters of bubblegum, to say with authority
that
this record is bubblegum and
that record is something else again.
According to writer Bill Pitzonka, a bubblegum historian and author
of the liner notes for Varèse Vintage's brilliant
Bubblegum Classics
series, "The whole thing that really makes a record bubblegum is just an
inherently contrived innocence that somehow transcends that. It
transcends the contrivance. Because there were a lot of records that
were really contrived and sound it. And those to me are not true
bubblegum. It has to sound like they mean it."
Writing in
Mojo magazine, writer Dawn Eden put a finer point on her
description of bubblegum music. "From the get-go, bubblegum was a
purely commercial genre. Producers like Buddah Records' Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz had no
higher aspiration than to make a quick buck and get out. Yet, with the
help of talents like Joey Levine, they propagated a musical form that
continues to influence acts the world over." Drawing a distinction
between bubblegum and power pop, Eden went on to note, "Power pop aims
for your heart and your feet. Bubblegum aims for any part of your body
it can get, as long as you buy the damn record."
While we're going here with a working notion of bubblegum as defined
by the uptempo confections perfected by Kasenetz & Katz's Super K
Productions, our intent isn't really to disabuse you of your belief
that, say, The Partridge Family was the sine qua non of bubblegumdom.
Consider this as simply as a very informal history lesson. Chew away!
Pre-History: The Big Bubble Theory
Although the birth of bubblegum as a genre is generally dated from
the success of
The 1910 Fruitgum Company's “Simon Says” and
The Ohio
Express' “Yummy Yummy Yummy” in 1968, there are important antecedents to
consider in tracing bubblegum's history. In fact, there are too many
antecedents to adequately cover here. You could conceivably think of
virtually every cute novelty hit, from pre-rock ditties like “How Much
Is That Doggie In The Window” to transcendent rock-era staples like “Iko
Iko,” as a legitimate precursor to bubblegum's avowedly ephemeral
themes.
Moving away from mere novelties, the field of garage punk served as a
swaggering, cantankerous and (perhaps) incongruous breeding ground for
some of bubblegum's sonic attack. No one in his right mind would call
The 13th Floor Elevators or
The Chocolate Watchband bubblegum groups,
but there were undeniable links between the two genres. The most
obvious such link would be the overriding simplicity prized equally by
garage and bubblegum groups, both of whom recognized the excitement to
be generated by three chords and an attitude.
Moreover, garage and bubblegum groups were generally singles acts.
There were exceptions, but few garage or bubblegum acts were capable of
creating full albums that sustained the compact punch of their essential
45s. And the singles, concerned as they were with quickly hitting the
hook and hitting the road, were not as far apart stylistically as one
might think. Chicago's prototypical punks
The Shadows Of Knight, famed
for their hit take on Them's “Gloria,” would eventually make a record
for Super K. And bubblemeisters The Ohio Express scored their first two
chart singles with punk-rooted tunes:
The Rare Breed's awesome “Beg,
Borrow and Steal” and
The Standells' banned-in-a-neighborhood-near-you
“Try It.”
(The former is actually the very same Rare
Breed record, reissued under the Ohio Express name; the latter was
co-written by a guy named Joey Levine, who would play a large role in
The Ohio Express' rising fortunes. Levine would also co-write and
produce The Shadows Of Knight's Super K hit, "Shake.")
Falling somewhere between garage and bubblegum was an Ocala, Florida
group called
The Royal Guardsmen. They managed a #2 hit in 1966 with
“Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron,” a novelty tune based on the funny-looking
dog with the big black nose in the
Peanuts comic strip. The single
combined a campy kid's appeal with a punky bridge nicked without apology
from “Louie, Louie.” Although “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” and its lower-charting sequels were
certainly precursors to the recognized bubblegum sound, Bill Pitzonka
insists The Royal Guardsmen were not a bona fide bubblegum group.
"The Royal Guardsmen kind of came out of that whole '20s-revivalist
kind of thing," Pitzonka says. "That was their camp. But, you know,
just because they were on Laurie and they did the “Snoopy Vs. The Red
Baron” song, which some people consider bubblegum... that's a fringe to
me. That's pointing in the right direction, but it's not quite there
yet.
"But The Royal Guardsmen definitely contributed," Pitzonka continues.
"It was aimed at kids, and unfortunately they couldn't rise above
their 'Snoopy' image.
By the same token, a Stamford, Connecticut group called
The Fifth
Estate scored a #11 hit in 1967 with “Ding, Dong! The Witch is
Dead.”
The Fifth Estate had originally been called The D-Men, and as The Fifth
Estate had released a killer pop single called "Love Is All A Game" that
sold zilch. For "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead," the group took a song
from the movie
The Wizard of Oz and redid it as a pop song,
replete with a Renaissance music underpinning. Though considered a
novelty tune, its musical accomplishment transcended novelty value.
Unfortunately, it was the group's only hit.
And, of course, there was no shortage of acts in the mid-'60s actively
cultivating some aspect of the adolescent market.
Herman's Hermits had a
string of cuddly hits, with “I'm Henry VIII, I Am” veering the closest
to bubblegum, but they were never quite a bubblegum group.
The Lovin'
Spoonful had a goofy, goodtime vibe all about them, but they were far
too... well,
authentic-sounding to be called bubblegum. And
Paul Revere
& the Raiders had funny costumes and lots of TV exposure, but they
simply rocked too hard for bubblegum—if they were bubblegum, then so
were
The Rolling Stones.
Which brings us to the strange case of
The Monkees.
On paper, The Monkees seemed the perfect prototype for a bubblegum
band. First and foremost, they were a prefabricated, fictional rock 'n'
roll group, a manufactured commodity concocted to sell records and TV
advertising time. But it's a point of some debate whether The Monkees
could really be called a bubblegum band.
Let's review
the evidence. The Monkees--Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith,
and Peter Tork--were four guys selected from auditions to play a rock
'n' roll group in a weekly TV series. As part of the package, pop music
veteran Don Kirshner was brought in to oversee music production.
Kirshner's machinery clicked into place, and Monkees music was created
by an array of top pop songwriters (Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Tommy
Boyce and Bobby Hart, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, et al.) and played by
top session musicians, with The Monkees themselves relegated to strict
vocals-only duties on their records. The group staged a coup, and
lobbied successfully for the right to function as a working, recording
band on their third album, 1967's
Headquarters.
Bill Pitzonka considers The Monkees bubblegum, at least up to a point.
"Up until
Headquarters,"
he says, "I completely agree that they were bubblegum because they were
prefab. As long as you're under the control of somebody else and
somebody else is picking your material and you're just there to sing
along, that to me is the whole foundation of bubblegum. That whole Jeff
Barry angle [veteran pop songwriter/producer Jeff Barry produced The
Monkees' smash "I'm A Believer"]--Jeff Barry was a quintessential
bubblegum producer. So basically anything he touched had that kind of
bubblegum feel to it."
Still, some of us remain
unconvinced that the original Monkees were ever really a bubblegum act,
their prefabricated status notwithstanding. Put simply, most of The
Monkees' recordings don't
sound like bubblegum records. "Last
Train To Clarksville"? "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"? Nesmith
compositions like "Sweet Young Thing"? Nope. None of these fits the
bubblegum mold later cast by Kasenetz and Katz. Each sounds like a
stirring example of AM-friendly pop-rock, with The Monkees' (inaudible)
artificial origin the sole, negligible difference between these records
and contemporary records by the Raiders (who cut "Steppin' Stone"
shortly before The Monkees), Turtles, Dave Clark Five, Hollies, etc.
Even "I'm A Believer," regardless of its gooey pop savvy and Jeff
Barry's involvement, is more an unabashed, hook-filled pop ditty than
genuine, chewy chewy bubblegum.
"I would agree once
they started doing their own stuff it ventured away from bubblegum,"
Pitzonka concedes. "That's one of those gray areas. It's also
difficult because there's this whole Monkees mythology that goes beyond
the manufacturing. And they were also the one band that really turned
the tide on the British Invasion and made the charts safe for American
acts again."
Regardless of which side of this debate
one favors, it's worth noting a specific song that helped mark the
transition from puppet Monkees to hey-hey-we're-a-band Monkees. In
1967, Kirshner presented The Monkees (and Chip Douglas, whom The Monkees
had chosen as their new producer) with a new Jeff Barry/Andy Kim tune
he wanted them to record. Instead, The Monkees rebelled, rejected the
song, and started a chain of events that would ultimately lead to
Kirshner's expulsion from the project and he recording of
Headquarters.
The
song in question? A little something called "Sugar, Sugar," a song
which we'll be discussing at greater length in just a bit. As Chip
Douglas later told writer Eric Lefkowitz for the book
The Monkees Tale, "I'm glad I was in there at the time. I probably saved The Monkees from having to do some
real bubblegum."
[2016 NOTE: although this story has been repeated often, by a wide range of folks from Don Kirshner to Micky Dolenz to..um, me
,
it is now generally believed to be hooey. "Sugar, Sugar" was written
specifically for The Archies in 1969, so the song didn't even exist when
these other events occurred. The rest of the account is true.]
Meanwhile, another act was busy writing its own chapter in the bubblegum story.
Tommy James and the Shondells
first made the charts with a # 1 hit, "Hanky Panky," in 1966. The
success of "Hanky Panky" was a fluke--it had been recorded in 1963, been
a short-lived regional hit in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois, and the
Shondells had long since disbanded by the time that forgotten record
very unexpectedly connected with a national audience.
No
dummy, James (nee Thomas Gregory Jackson) formed a new Shondells group
and set about the task of coming up with a follow-up record. Toward
that end, James partnered with producers Bo Gentry and Ritchie Cordell,
and proceeded to craft a series of singles that perfectly presaged the
bubblegum sound. The first big hit of these was "I Think We're Alone
Now," a pulsating pop tune that coated its tale of adolescent sexual
curiosity with a candy-shell of wide-eyed innocence. Its throbbing bass
line, which James is said to have improvised on guitar as a sub for an
MIA bass player, provided a model for the chunky rhythm of what would
soon be known as bubblegum.
Tommy James didn't remain
with a bubblegum style for long, but the singles "I Think We're Alone
Now" (# 4), "Mirage" (# 10), and "Mony Mony" (# 3) were solidly in that
vein, all produced by Gentry and Cordell. James broke with Gentry and
Cordell for his next hit, the chart-topping "Crimson And Clover."
"I
don't consider 'Crimson And Clover' bubblegum," Pitzonka says. "I
don't consider 'Hanky Panky' bubblegum and I don't consider 'Crimson And
Clover' bubblegum--everything in the middle, yes. I consider their
output to be bubblegum in that whole time. I mean, you look at those
records and they're just picture-perfect production masterpieces. They
were all about the song. Tommy James evolved with the psychedelic angle
and all that stuff [and] went away from all that. But he knew it was
bubblegum; he knew it was bubblegum when he was doing it."
And now the era of full-fledged bubblegum was nearly upon us. By 1967, a
new label called Buddah was looking to score some hits. A brilliant
promotion hustler named Neil Bogart was coaxed from Cameo Parkway to
helm Buddah, and Bogart had some definite ideas about the kind of hits
the label was going to make.
The ushering in of this new era was initially accomplished with
“Green Tambourine” by
The Lemon Pipers, which entered the
Billboard Hot
100 at the end of '67 and hit #1 in February 1968. Bubblegum was now
this close to exploding. “Green Tambourine” was a perfect, giddy
bubblegum single, and two follow-up hits, “Rice Is Nice” and “Jelly
Jungle (Of Orange Marmalade),” were cut from the same chewy cloth, but
The Lemon Pipers themselves had little interest in becoming bubblegum's
favorite sons.
"The Lemon Pipers I never considered really bubblegum," Pitzonka
says. "They were acid. [Their singles]
are bubblegum; they do have real
strong roots there. I just never thought that it carried over as
intensely as it did with the groups that didn't exist. Because [The Lemon Pipers]
hated that stuff."
To be sure, The Lemon Pipers only recorded “Green Tambourine” because
they knew they'd be dropped by Buddah if they didn't record this tune,
which Neil Bogart saw as a surefire hit. Thus, The Lemon Pipers scored the
first bubblegum #1, but it was clear that their hearts were not in it.
So, with “Green Tambourine,” Buddah had the right song at the right
time to snap the bubble heard 'round the world. Now, bubblegum just
needed the right people. Two producers from Long Island, Jerry Kasenetz
and Jeff Katz, would be the guys.
NEXT: Yummy Yummy Chewy Chewy Goody Goody
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