Welcome to the third entry in Golden Nuggets, a series in which I research, describe and review the #1 song on the Billboard charts from 50 years ago. I find it interesting to see where pop music was half a century ago. For this entry, we're taking a look at a song that for 4 weeks dominated the charts in the fall of 1969, 'Sugar, Sugar' by the Archies, arguably the first virtual band. Gorillaz fans, eat you hearts out.
The Archies were assembled to be a fictional band for The Archie Show, based on the characters from Archie comics. People from my generation and later may be familiar with these characters through their progressively more ridiculous CW show and through Sabrina the Teenage Witch and its reboot to some extent (Sabrina was in some of Archies content). I'm going to digress a bit to rag on the new CW show a bit. At first it was harmless enough, like a dumber CW Twin Peaks, but then much like that show it started going waaaay off the rails. During the third season, I feel like David Lynch himself would've tapped out due to excessive weirdness and lack of any sort of grounded reality or narrative structure. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the Archies.
The "band" consisted of mostly session musicians assembled by Monkees manager Don Kirshner, with Ron Dante and Toni Wine handling the majority of the male and female vocal duties, respectively. The group released singles and albums from 1968 to about 1973, with some moderate success outside of 'Sugar, Sugar'. Their follow up, 'Jingle Jangle', scraped into the top ten in the same year, and it makes me laugh, because if you've seen the new show, Jingle Jangle is the name the creators concocted for their universe's street drug. A nice call back.
Now that we've got the history out of the way, let's talk about the song. You can listen to the song here. I made sure to pick the animated video complete with intro, because it deserves to be seen in all its '60s cheese. 'Sugar, Sugar' is pretty much the perfect example of 1960's bubblegum pop. It definitely sounds like something the Monkees would have released, which is probably way there's a pretty persistent rumor that songwriters Jeff Barry and Andy Kim originally offered the song to them, though they deny this. It's pretty fun and bouncy, and harmless enough. It also has quite a lasting reputation. I remember it being used in a Simpsons episode, which has become a meme all its own called Sugarposting, as well as a sample in this monstrosity which my girlfriend introduced me to, which is simultaneously the best and worst thing ever. Needless to say, people remember the song.
So, what do I think of it? I like the song fine. I feel like I'd like it a lot more if I had more of a nostalgic connection to it, like early Beatles songs or the Monkees or something like that. It's definitely catchy as all hell, so sorry in advance if I ruined the next couple of days for you by getting it stuck in your head. I also find it interesting that with all the parallels between the late '60s and today politically, the listening public back then still had the stomach for something so sweet. Pop music is considered upbeat today if it doesn't have a reference to depression of substance abuse on it. It's really interesting to see how times have changed.
I'll be back soon with another entry of Golden Nuggets. Next time, I'll be covering 'I Can't Get Next to You' by the Temptations. In the meantime, I'm sending out an open call: I want to hear your music! I haven't really been keeping up to date on new music, so I thought I might try my hand at reviewing submissions. If you send me a link to your stuff to dedwax13@gmail.com I'll take a listen and give you some constructive feedback. Who am I to review your music? Just a music fan, nobody special, but hey, at least it'll get out to more ears. Until next time.
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