[78-L] Yummy, yummy, yummy [cont]

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kristjan Saag" <saag at telia.com>
> Steve Thornton wrote:
>>> "Yummy Yummy Yummy" (the song's actual name) did appear in a Monty 
>>> Python
>>> episode, but despite the credit in that episode to "Jackie Charlton and
>>> the Tonettes", that group doesn't exist; it is actually by The Ohio
>>> Express, who had the major hit with it. It was written (and sung) by 
>>> Joey
>>> Levine, who worked on a lot of records for the Kasenetz-Katz production
>>> team that made so many bubblegum hits.
>>> Bubblegum gets little respect today but was an important force in 
>>> sixties
>>> pop, and the genre encompasses a ton of great records, as good as or
>>> bettern than a lot of the "serious" music by "real groups" (many of whom
>>> used similar assemblages of studio musicians and songwriters too).
> --
> Steven C. Barr wrote:
>> BUT...?!
>> Bubblegum music was a quickly-thrown-together variety of pop 
>> music...meant
>> for the 10-to-13 (mostly female) audience...which is how/why it acquired
>> its
>> intended-derisive name!
>> Since (especially to-day!!) the pre-teen demographic has/had BUNCHES of
>> spending money, this music DID...DOES...and WILL sell in huge
>> quantities...
>> and coherence was/is/will be NOT a requisite value!
>> Those who enjoy it (for NON-nostalgic reasons...?!) might also enjoy
>> listening to music from current TV commercials...which is written for the
>> same reasons and in a very similar style...?!
> The reason WHY music is written has nothing to do with its quality or 
> value.
> Bach wrote for God, Mozart for the aristocracy, Berlin for Tin Pan Alley 
> and
> Mancini for Universal Pictures. Raymond Scott, among other things, wrote
> soothing sounds for babies and Robert Farnon, his left hand occupied 
> holding
> his son in his knee, composed the lovely "Tinkerbell" with his right to
> amuse the kid at the piano.
> It's composing with your left hand that is dangerous. When it's not done
> wholeheartedly, no matter if the recipient is The Creator himself or a 
> host
> of his 12 year old creatures.
> Good bubblegum music - some of it on Buddah Records - will always be on my
> turntable.
>
This goes back to a question often discussed by "Spats" (among others)...of
whether there is any coherent way to decide whether "musical work A"
(or "genre A") is inherently/musically "better" than "musical work/genre 
B?!"

Consider that "bubblegum" was intentionally "dumbed down" to fit its
target demographic...10-13 year-olds...meaning it had to have a VERY
simple tune, chord structure, usw.! Sadly, its "musicality" usually reflects
the lack of serious thought put into it (in an era when MANY pop tunes
were based on the three-chord "blues structure!").

I will agree that it MICHT have a nostalgia-based appeal...one of the
inevitables in music is that we humans will ALWAYS "nostalgize" the
tunes which we heard back in our younger, more agile and (for us
menses) more capable of "rising to the occasion"...days!

I suspect...that like most of us "shellacophiles"...I developed a taste
for music that was MUCH earlier than the "music of my childhood"
(probably due at least in part to the harsh fact that my "childhood"
happened to coincide with the NADIR of US-ian "pop music?!"
The dreaded "Doggie In the Window" was one of the BIG hits
of my childhood (in 1952, I turned TEN!); I do occasionally listen
to "rock'n'roll" out of nostalgia...but I was lucky enough to develop
a taste for blues (thanxes to WLAC) around 1959-60...my teen
years! Oddly enough my personal "nostalgic interest" centres on
"hillbilly" music...the country music of the fifties/early sixties! I grew
up in small-town Illinois, and the closest thing to a "local" radio
station was WHOW, in the county seat of Clinton...their "format"
was "hillbilly"...both recorded and live!

Where I developed my taste for vintage recordings I have NO idea;
I played my dad's 78's (which I eventually inherited) from about
age 4 onward...but they were mostly "Swing" (he DID have sides
by the Boswells, and "Good Bye Blues" by the Mills Brothers!)...
and my grandmother had an ancient 78 of "Show Me the Way To
Go Home" (and MANY Spike Jones discs!)!

But..."bubblegum" I can EASILY live without...!!

...stevenc