Bubblegum 101: Notes on genre

Sooner or later, I knew I'd have to write about my love of bubblegum music. Years ago, when I first stated toying with the idea of creating my own blog, I envisioned it as one devoted to my love of bubblegum music. Partly this was because I couldn't find many Internet resources devoted to it, and partly because I was going through a personal resurgence of interest in the genre, as many "lost" bubblegum treasures, by artists like The Partridge Family, Sagittarius and Boyce & Hart were being unearthed on CD, and many that never made the switch from vinyl to CD were accessible through Napster 1.0 (God rest its soul).

So this is the first of a series of occasional entries about bubblegum. I’ll start by trying to define the genre. There seem to be dozens of ways to define it; I believe in genre and categorization, but I’m also inclined toward inclusiveness, so bubblegum, like obscenity, is to some extent in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. It’s upbeat and simple, fizzy and fun, often sounds both grungy and glossy at the same time, has a little guitar and a lot of organ, and it's usually about romance (by which I really mean, sex), buried beneath lots of references to the things of childhood (candy, as in "Goody, Goody Gumdrops" or "Sugar, Sugar," or nursery rhymes, as in "Simple Simon"), hence the assumption that this is music for kids only. Of course, you had lyrics like this (and this is 25 years before folks like R. Kelly):

“Yummy, yummy, yummy/I’ve got love in my tummy
And I feel like lovin’ you
Love, you’re such a sweet thing/Good enough to eat thing
And that’s just what I’m gonna do”

Sometimes, the band that makes the music isn't a "real" band; often, the groups were either studio concoctions or pre-existing bands which were molded into bubblegum bands. Some of the animosity against bubblegum may stem from the fact that, like disco, it is seen as an “inauthentic” music since it is more obviously “produced,” assembly-line fashion, than other genres. I could write a whole post on this issue (for an interesting if flawed and incomplete discussion of this issue, see the recent book "Faking It" by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor) and might some other time.

The "golden age" of bubblegum is usually assumed to be 1967-1970 when Buddah Records (led by the producing team of Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz) were cranking out hits by the Ohio Express, the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and The Lemon Pipers, and when the TV bands The Monkees, the Archies, and The Partridge Family were at their peaks. However, some have argued the roots of bubblegum go back at least to Little Richard ("Tutti Frutti"), and to this day, critics of the glossy teen pop of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys use the "bubblegum" label for them, automatically assuming that's a bad thing. OK, that's enough background. For a great web site on bubblegum music, visit the Classic Bubblegum Music Page. In the future, I'll write about some of my favorite bubblegum tunes, both well known and unknown.