A Few Hours with the Girls

During my most stressed times on the job, I would often tune into the Spectropop GirlPop Live365 station and feel much better. The station plays girl groups and solo female singers from the '60s, often venturing into obscure gems. Sometimes it doesn't occur to me how varied and interesting a musical genre is until I've experienced a ton of it. Girl groups have an image of weepy teen heartbreak ballads and cutesy dance music, but some of this stuff truly rocks. Surprisingly, although that sound's popularity peaked around 1963, the genre hung in there and produced some mighty strange singles when it mashed with psychedelic/sunshine pop in the late '60s. It must have been easy to co-op the Girl Group sound for Hairspray (the musical), since much of the source material has a brassy, theatrical flair in the first place. Among my current faves on the webcast are "I Can't Stay Mad at You" performed by a winsome Skeeter Davis, an unidentified Four Seasons ripoff called "Little Girl Tears," and the Tammys' wild "Egyptian Shumba" - as unhinged and just plain weird as anything this side of "Rock Lobster".

For more info, try the knowledgeable Girl Group Chronicles site. BTW, the image above was taken off Peggy March's No Foolin' album. I have no idea what the music on this particular platter is like, but just look at the gorgeous cover. Yowza.
Posted by mhinrichs at November 5, 2003 01:13 PM