Thursday, February 18, 2010

Some pop perfection: the 60s

There’s great rock and great ballads and great grunge and great reggae, and on and on.

Then there’s the great “pop song,” a fluffy creature without substance, like Star Trekian Tribbles—and yet….magic!

Gotta love New Jersey's own Shirelles. In 1961, they had the first hit with "Baby, It's You"—before the Beatles and Smith. But the original, Shirelles version sports a seriously cheesy organ solo. It's just the best.

Don’t know why Dion opted for a haircut that makes him look like Gumby. Don’t know why the band are geezers. Don’t know why attention is drawn to the lip-sync fakitude with that awful fadeout. Still, I’ve always loved Dion’s pre-Heroin growl and the pure pop perfection of this silly song from 1961.

Maybe it’s the thumpin’ E string. Maybe it’s how the song always makes me imagine running through the night with The Girl. Dunno. Loved this silly song from Day One. 1967.

Van Morrison is a genius and, by all accounts, a difficult man. One senses that he scribbled out the lyrics of “Brown Eyed Girl” (mostly misspelt) on a napkin and got through the recording session in record time, hoping never to have to think about it again. No such luck. For me it is the perfect pop song. Producer Bert Berns and the band deserve lots of credit too, especially that nifty bass break, the drum sound, the hand-claps, and that 9-note guitar figure. Magic!

Diana Ross and the girls churned out some perfect pop fluff for many years. Exhibit A: “Where Did Our Love Go?” from 1964. It’s a great pop song, sung by babes. It doesn’t get better than that. (Actually, almost nobody wanted to record the song, since it was judged “childish.” All the resentment evaporated when the dang thing became a huge hit.)

If you listen carefully at the start, you can hear Barry McGuire’s original vocal, which was wiped out (but not completely) and replaced with the Mamas and Papas', whose leader, John Phillips, wrote the song. With the new vocal, the recording became a stunningly perfect pop song, produced by Lou Adler, as I recall. This group’s sound seemed to come out of nowhere back in ’65 and early ‘66. I definitely noticed. (Too bad this video is gawdawful.)

Pop Perfection Plus. Plus what? Plus a sense of humor, plainly manifest in this video of the band from 1968. Singer Howard Kaylan (very under-appreciated) responded to the pressure of writing a song like their hit “Happy Together” by writing this similar song that mocks, well, songs like “Happy Together.” Ironically, “Elenore” became one of their biggest hits. Love this band. Their stories of meeting the Beatles and touring with Tom Jones are priceless.

Great production. Teenage group from Queens. They're all so, um, cute. 1964. Love it.

More Shirelles, this time live. Thanks to the band, this version nearly rocks, and the girls are definitely feelin' it. Very, very cool. 1964. Please, please send me back in time!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Stop! In the Name of Love"--awful title, pretty whiny lyrics, and really really good.

Barney said...

Yeah, and what's with Dion's audience? I don't think they entirely approve of the fellow.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...