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The Sixties: Bubblegum Gold
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Average customer review:
Track Listing
- Sugar, Sugar - The Archies
- Bend Me, Shape Me - The American Breed
- I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight - Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart
- Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) - Steam
- Dizzy - Tommy Roe
- Rain, The Park & Other Things - The Cowsills
- Come on Down to My Boat - Every Mother's Son
- Western Union - The Five Americans
- Tracy - The Cuff Links
- Lightnin' Strikes - Lou Christie
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #202085 in Music
- Released on: 2006-02-28
- Number of discs: 1
Customer Reviews
very good--but they could have added another song or two
The Sixties: Bubblegum Gold is a strong start to a good bubblegum music collection. These tunes hit the airwaves big enough back then for companies to still want to sell them on CD today; and I think that says a lot about the overall value of this music. The quality of the sound is excellent and I really like that artwork!
The Archies start things off with their mega hit entitled "Sugar, Sugar." "Sugar, Sugar" was in all the jukeboxes; and The Archies sold a lot of these "45s" back in the day. The Archies sing and play this to perfection; they use good modulations between major and minor keys to make "Sugar, Sugar" a feel-good tune. In addition, "Bend Me, Shape Me" by The American Breed really brings back memories for me; this tune has a great sixties flavor to it. This rocks in its own way and offers people a true alternative to the hard rock and the psychedelic rock of that era. Great!
"I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" has an upbeat melody that almost belies the seriousness of the lyrics; Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart really do this one up right and I'm very impressed. "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" is probably underrated; I like this very much and it's great for dancing as well. And there's no denying that there's a huge, huge hit for the quasi-fictional band called Steam when they turned out the great tune "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)." "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)" will always be a strong hit; it just plain sounds so good and Steam never falters--they do this without letting go of a superfluous note and that's awesome.
Tommy Roe scored a big hit for himself with his tune "Dizzy." "Dizzy" was played over and over again in the jukeboxes and at many, many parties. "Dizzy' features Tommy Roe squarely front and center--the music never steals the show from Tommy! In addition, we get what was probably the biggest single hit for The Cowsills, "The Rain, The Park & Other Things." "Rain, The Park & Other Things" has The Cowsills singing and harmonizing to perfection and it proves they had the chops to do whatever they wanted to do had they continued their all too brief career.
Every Mother's Son uses some psychedelic tones to make "Come On Down To My Boat" really good; but I guess it still belongs in the bubblegum category anyway. Listen also for The Five Americans to perform "Western Union;" this fine tune showcases their excellent talent. The Cuff Links do a splendid job on the upbeat and infectiously catchy "Tracy;" and the CD ends strong with Lou Christie performing his huge hit, "Lightnin' Strikes." "Lightnin' Strikes" has Lou right in the spotlight but those backup vocalists still sound good anyway.
Overall, The Sixties: Bubblegum Gold has some mighty fine hits; but we know they could have added at least another song or two to this CD. I don't like that; and so this will be a four star review (and even that's a tad generous). This is a good addition to your bubblegum music collection; but it's even more useful as a budget priced CD for people who just want a few of the truly significant bubblegum tunes from the sixties. It's also a good starter CD for people just discovering this genre of music.
BUBBLEGUM???? Let me chew on that awhile...
This is more of a "light pop/rock" CD than "bubblegum", but all TEN tracks are classics!! I LOVE BUBBLEGUM; the music came along at a weird time in the late 60s when we were being inundated with heavier, more hard-psychedelic songs on the AM radio...and bubblegum arrived as a breath of much-needed fresh air. The music was light, fairly innocuous and innocent, fun to listen to and easy to dance to!!! GREAT!!! Many of the songs on this collection actually fall into "sunshine pop" genre, which was more like bubblegum from around the Spring of 1967, when "sunshine" was really on the radio. Personally, I consider only "Sugar, Sugar", "Dizzy" and "Tracy" (all of them EXCELLENT, by the way) to be the only "true" bubblegummers on here, but all ten of these tracks are fairly-light, not-too-heavy pop classics, so the mix you are getting is really, really GREAT!!! But be WARNED; the price is getting WAY up there...you can probably find all these songs on other CDs, but I have noticed quite a rise in prices for good bubblegum music compilations, which tells me that there is a great demand for this FUN FUN FUN music!!!
