bubblegum pop

Origins

Essentially, bubblegum pop evolved from the other popular American musical forms that preceded and accompanied it, such as rhythm and blues and doo-wop. Bubblegum pop is also reminiscent of pre-rock novelty songs such as the WWII era "Abba Dabba Honeymoon" and "The Hut Sut Song," which hit the charts in 1951, as well as hipster music like Slim Gaillard's "Cement Mixer (Puti Puti)".

Seminal rock and roll numbers, such as Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" with its nonsense rhyming couplets (replacing the original vulgar lyrics), also influenced what would come later. This hybrid of R&B, garage rock, novelty songs, and nursery rhymes later surfaced in songs like "Wooly Bully" (by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, 1965), which emphasized a hard-driving Tex-Mex beat and absurd lyrics.

Critics of bubblegum pop maintain that the music is devoid of artistic merit and that the performers are "groomed" by record labels to depend on physical appearance as opposed to musical or artistic talent. In these cases, terms such as cheesy pop or simply cheese are often used to refer to this music pejoratively. Some critics also maintain that bubblegum pop is not created out of a desire to be artistically creative, but simply to produce something that sells - a process that results in what has become termed manufactured pop, also used in the pejorative.

Nonetheless, it has proven a viable commercial enterprise, with record sales continuing to thrive. Individual singles, however, often only remain on music charts for a brief period of time - thus is the transient nature of bubblegum pop.

Marketing Exploitation

Many of the acts related to this music genre are characterized by the heavy commercial usage of their image. Products bearing the artist's logo or picture, ranging from food to clothes, are released to the public. In the late 90s, acts such as Britney Spears and the Spice Girls served as a demonstration of this and released full-length movies, posters and other products that took advantage of their popularity. This trend is especially noticeable in the Latin markets.

1960s and 1970s

The first wave of "pure" bubblegum came with Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz - music producers who formed Super K Productions and gave the world "A Little Bit of Soul" by Music Explosion in 1967. However, the song was closer to R&B garage band music, and missing the element of nursery rhyme/nonsense lyrics that would be introduced by staff songwriters Joey Levine and Elliot Chiprut. About a year later, they released "Yummy Yummy Yummy" a #4 hit in June 1968 for The Ohio Express. Although The Ohio Express was a real, touring garage band in the Midwest, under contract to Kasenetz and Katz, their hit singles were recorded by session musicians fronted by singer-songwriter Joey Levine. The band members were handicapped attempting to reproduce Levine's distinctive nasal whine for their live performances.

Other hits from Kasenetz and Katz followed, including "Indian Giver" and "Simon Says" by the 1910 Fruitgum Company, "Green Tambourine" by The Lemon Pipers and one-offs such as "Quick Joey Small" by The Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, another front for the same batch of Levine-fronted studio players.

Others joined in, notably music publisher Don Kirshner and writer/producer Jeff Barry with The Archies, whose "Sugar Sugar" (written by Barry with Andy Kim), perhaps the purest distillation of bubblegum ever, was the best-selling single of 1969, and was voiced by Ron Dante and Toni Wine. Many critics describe The Monkees, with their light and cheerful rock and roll, as bubblegum, due to their producer-driven career and reliance on outside songwriters and session players. Others claim The Monkees were not pure bubblegum until 1970's "Half-Monkees" LP Changes, produced by Barry. Cartoon producers Hanna-Barbera created The Banana Splits, costumed actors miming to pre-recorded tracks for a Saturday morning cartoon show. Other animated acts included Josie and The Pussycats, The Hardy Boys (produced by Filmation), The Groovy Ghoulies and The Sugar Bears, and (in the UK) The Wombles.

The initial era of bubblegum carried on for a few more years, as evidenced by some of the singles from David Cassidy, The Jackson 5, The Osmonds, Leif Garrett, The DeFranco Family and many others.

Many British acts of the first glam rock era (approximately 1971-1975) had bubblegum influences. These included Gary Glitter, Alvin Stardust, T. Rex, and such Nicky Chinn/Michael Chapman-produced acts as Sweet, Mud, and Suzi Quatro. These British acts had great success in the UK, Asia, and Europe, charting many singles. They were less successful in the US, however, due to the competition from other foreign acts such as ABBA and Olivia Newton-John, who provided a more "serious" approach to music. The last big act of the 1970s which featured obvious bubblegum elements was the Bay City Rollers, charting hits through the end of the decade.

Punk rock trailblazers The Ramones did not produce bubblegum music, but their punk rock songs were highly influenced by bubblegum pop's upbeat tempos, simple chord structures and nonsense lyrics. Joey Ramone (born Jeffrey Hyman) named himself after bubblegum kingpin Joey Levine. Ramone once described his group as a "nouveau bubblegum band with teeth," and they recorded the 1910 Fruitgum Company's "Indian Giver."

1980s

The 1980s saw few bubblegum-esque acts in the US and UK. In the late 1980s, British charts were dominated by Stock Aitken Waterman-produced acts such as Bananarama, Dead or Alive and Kylie Minogue, whose sound was somewhere between synthesized dance music and bubblegum pop. In the U.S., the birth of the boy band came about with the successes of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. The two reigning teen queens of the decade were undoubtedly Tiffany, who saw her popularity skyrocket as a direct result of The Beautiful You: Celebrating the Good Life Shopping Mall Tour '87 (shopping malls being a prime outlet for her teenaged audience), and Debbie Gibson, who toured the dance clubs the same audience frequented on the weekends during the Dream Tour '87. In Latin America, bubblegum acts such as Timbiriche, Menudo, Los Chicos, Las Cheris, and Los Chamos were hugely popular. In 1985, Magneto, a group that would later gain fame in the 1990s, was formed in Mexico.

Also, some bands not known for bubblegum pop nevertheless released singles that arguably fit the genre, some becoming chart-topping hits. For example, the 1980 single "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" introduced The Police to an international audience; the single "Jump" from Van Halen's "1984" became a standard for televised sporting events; and in 1988 lead singer Joe Elliott proclaimed "I'm hot, sticky sweet/from my head to my feet, yeah" in Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me", a pop-metal hit with obvious influence from "Sugar Sugar." While these artists generally share little in common with the bubblegum pop of the 1960s, the lasting impact of that genre can perhaps be seen in the structure of these songs, if not the sound.

1990s

In the early 1990s, bubblegum remained scarce, as first grunge music and adult contemporary, and then gangsta rap and dance music dominated the pop charts. In the late 1990s, bubblegum was forced back into the spotlight through the sensationalism and mass hysteria brought about by the popularity of English girl group, The Spice Girls, who shared with the bubblegum pop acts of old the production of catchy, simple, up-tempo pop tracks aimed at younger music buyers, a line-up assembled by producer-svengalis, and a glut of merchandising aimed at that same young audience.

The Spice Girls hit the world in the form of chocolate bars, dolls, magazines, a feature length movie and even personal deodorizing spray. This mass fusion of consumerism and popular music transformed the ideology of bubblegum pop as a business, rather than simply selling records.

As well as the Spice Girls, a series of boy bands such as the Backstreet Boys, N'SYNC, 98 Degrees, Boyzone, Westlife, Take That, and O-Town made their way onto the walls of teenagers around the world. Soon after the boy bands came a new era of the pop princess, lead by forerunner Britney Spears and "rivals" including Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, and Jessica Simpson who revolutionized the genre, and opened the way for many more pop princesses to follow. The Scandinavian group Aqua also had massive "bubblegum" hits in Europe, but today are mostly remembered in the U.S. as a one-hit wonder for their controversial[1] song "Barbie Girl".

During this decade, the prime Latin bubblegum pop singer was Mexican teen idol Fey, who released three albums, sold over 4 million albums (rare accomplishment in the Latin world) and had number one hits across Latin America. Many similar acts soon followed, including Kabah, Iran Castillo, and Belinda.

2000s

Bubblegum pop then appeared to be declining at the turn of the early millennium, as audiences grew tired of the many boy bands and princesses, and the popularity of Hip hop music would emerge. But a new rebirth began as network executives at Disney molded their female stars such as Hilary Duff, Hayden Panettiere, Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan into pop princesses. Disney made them into pop princesses after these artists made a movie, made-for-TV movie or TV show with them. Lindsay Lohan has her own music under a different genre dance/pop/rock and solo albums with Casablanca/Universal Records. Hilary Duff has mostly moved away from her pop princess songs from Disney with her solo albums. The Backstreet Boys have dramatically switched to a style similar to Hilary Duff, prompting protest from fans of their older sound. Miley Cyrus, the current Disney princess, is the star of the hit Disney Channel original series Hannah Montana, and the show's soundtrack is number 1 in the nation with catchy "girl power" lyrics and melodies. But on the other hand, artists such as the Cheetah Girls would like to bring back the classic Max Martin-esque sound that was popular around the year 2000 with their music.

Pop-punkers then entered the scene, with the hardcore punk sound softened for the benefit of the teenage crowd. Acts such as Simple Plan, New Found Glory, All-American Rejects, Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, Bowling for Soup, Hawthorne Heights, Good Charlotte,Hawk Nelson, and Stellar Kart became heartthrobs to teenage girls, but they faced stiff competition from singers such as Ryan Cabrera, Aaron Carter, and Jesse McCartney. Along with the pop-punk scene, some urban music started to have a bubblegum pop feel to it. In late 2004, 2005, and some parts of 2006, artists such as Frankie J, Chris Brown and Omarion started to become increasingly popular, matching even the popularity of the "Disney" artists who were prominent at that time.

Bubblegum pop artists such as the dance-troupe-turned-girl-group The Pussycat Dolls, and Rihanna appeared on the charts in 2005. In 2006, several new bubblegum pop artists started to enter the charts. Hope Partlow, and Aly & AJ on the other hand, decided to go toward the singer-songwriter genre, but their fanbase continues to center around teens.

Most of the songs from the Disney Channel original movie High School Musical soundtrack mix elements of traditional musical numbers with bubblegum pop elements. The soundtrack to the movie was the number one selling compact disk in the United States in 2006 with heaviest support among preteen girls [2] [3]. It is believed that bubblegum pop re-emerged from the dead from High School Musical.The soundtrack to the Broadway version of Legally Blonde written by Nell Benjamin and Laurence O'Keefe was described as having a "solid Broadway-bubblegum sound"

In late 2006 the popular but critically reviewed single Wind It Up by Gwen Stefani was described as bubblegum [4],[5] along with the song "Shortie Like Mine" by Bow Wow featuring Chris Brown.

As of early 2007, bubblegum pop in North America is trying hard to become mainstream again for most of contemporary pop music and many new artists such as Paula DeAnda could be considered part of this genre. However, bubblegum pop has to compete with hip hop music, which has become a form of staple music, and alternative rock music which itself is gaining sizable popularity among listeners by 2007.

Notably, while bubblegum pop is struggling to mainstream status in the United States, in the United Kingdom, it is still very popular, with groups such as Girls Aloud and the Sugababes dominating the charts.

The new millenium also brought renovated bubblegum pop to the Latin market. In 2003, Belinda started the new wave of teen pop in Mexico and soon after other acts, including RBD, were released. This last group brought an intesified demonstration of the marketing exploitation possible in this genre. A telenovela, magazines, candy, clothing line, movie and variety show were all created and bore the "REBELDE" logo.

Further reading

• Kim Cooper and David Smay (eds), Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears.', Feral House 2001 ISBN 0-922915-69-5

External links

• Bubblegum University, subtitled "your sticky pink think tank," is a group blog dedicated to bubblegum scholarship. It is online at Bubblegum-Music.com

• The Classic Bubblegum Music Page
• Bubblegum Dancer - fansite for the similar genre of dance music, Bubblegum dance.