Customer Reviews

Golden Classics

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This CD contains some of the best songs by the quintessential bubblegum group, The 1910 Fruitgum Company. The group had three big hits: "Simon Says", "1,2,3, Red Light" and "Indian Giver". As you can see from these song titles, most of the Fruitgums hits were based on children's games and sayings. Sure, this music may be juvenile, but it's a lot of fun. I would recommend this CD to fans of bubblegum music. I wanted to mention a couple of things here. The songs on the CD are in stereo, other than "Sticky, Sticky" and "Reflections From the Looking Glass", which are in mono. Also, the liner notes here claim that Joey Levine was the lead singer of the 1910 Fruitgum Company. This is simply not true. Mark Gutkowski sang lead on most of the Fruitgums hits. Joey Levine sang lead on most of the Ohio Express hits. Although Levine did sing lead on one song here, "Baby Bret", which was a b-side. "Baby Bret" also has one of the strangest endings of a pop song I ever heard. The song fades out, and then there is a brief comedy routine about Superman.

It is basically the vinyl "Juiciest Fruitgum" LP from the old Buddah label with some other "filler" tracks" added. I hadn't listened to them in years, I remember them as sounding better back then. I guess the ears of a fifteen year old are different than a fourty-five year old!

A musical cotton-candy delight. Still provides a welcome celebration of the lighter side of life for those of us who came to age during a turbulent era.

A few song-selection differences separates this collection from the similarly-packaged BMG "Best Of" (They both include the fabulous 'Indian Giver' picture, but this time it gets the cover). Whereas the BMG disc concentrates on the cute song titles (it seems to have been programmed for the titles alone), this one is more interested in the music. Where else can you get the b-side "Sticky, Sticky" except on an old 45? (this is a great song by the way, just a studio time-filler of course, but wonderfully monotonous and straight-faced silly). The history of the band is probably better chronicled in the other package, but they're both worth buying if bubblegum is your thing. B+

It's undeniable the Fruit Gum 1910, Ohio Express and Tommy Roe headed this genre best known as bubble gum music that literally invaded parties, summer happenings, emerging discotheques, and countless friendly meetings. Somehow, this genre followed the traces of Summer Groups as Beach Boys and The Mammas and the Papas. There were a considerable of bands that turned around with variants. We may remember Tommy James, The Rascals, The Foundations, Buchanan brothers or Canned heat among the most emblematic bands. Of course, it was easy listening music without major complications, and the fortunate blending with that stellar moment on stage respect the soul music ( The Four Tops, Diana ross and The Supremes, Temptations, Wilson Picket, Steve Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Jr. Walker and The All stars; Otis reading) constituted a true creative explosion in the most accurate sense of the word.

I was part of that generation and despite the fact this music may sound dated for the newcomer listeners, one senses a certain ingenuity so typical of that age. Nevertheless you should approach this ensemble so filled of joyful expression.

One more thing to make you reflect: in those times, you must win the race through auditory channels and not as the actual times, where you buy music through the visual channels.

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