I've always been a sucker for a good girl-group song.
Luckily for me, after the recent rise of Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Vivian Girls/Frankie Rose, etc etc, it seems like everyone's talking about them again. While this round of girls' wall of sound is a thick coat of Mary-Chain fuzz, the irrepressibly catchy pop underneath the grime still shines through bright and clear. This new-found influence has dovetailed nicely with the genre's critical re-evaluation as well, most notably in Rhino's fantastic four-disc box, One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found, from which several songs on my mix were selected from.
On the whole, this box does little to dispel the conventional wisdom that the girl groups of yesteryear were pristine, innocent, largely interchangeable creations of Berry Gordy, Phil Spector, or similar other masterminds, paragons of uptown sophistication (e.g., the Supremes) or girlish adolescence (e.g., the Ronettes). However, I've always found the weirder offshoots of this sound far more interesting, and perhaps more relevant to the class of 2009-10.
So I present: Sick! Sick! Sick! Crazy Sexy Cool Girls, 1958-1968.
The purpose of this compilation is not to be deliberately obscure; some of these songs are very well-known, some are not. I'm also not limiting myself to the classic American girl-group sound; I've included the quirky rockabilly of Betty McQuade and Terry Corin, ye-ye (France Gall and Brigitte Bardot), and quasi-exotica (Diane Maxwell's "Love Charms" is every bit as sexy as its spiritual cousin, Peggy Lee's "Fever").
In addition to Ms. Bardot's viciously playful "Moi Je Joue," I've included some largely overlooked singles from other sex symbols. The mix opens with June Wilkinson and Mamie van Doren duetting on the raucously sexy "Bikini with no Top on the Top." And while considering her a "sex symbol" would probably get me arrested, Sue Lyon's "Turn Off the Moon" (the b-side of her "Lolita Ya-Ya" single) has all the coquettish seductiveness of the jailbait-tease archetype she brought to the screen.
Some are more mainstream, but still distinctive: the Whyte Boots' "Nightmare" takes the "Leader of the Pack" template and ratchets up the melodramatic intensity. Tracey Day's reading of the genre standard "Gonna Get Along without You Now" has a particular bite absent from most versions, and the tough rhythm on Lulu's "I'll Come Running" rocks as hard as any contemporary Merseybeat combo. "Dumb Head" would be forgettable if not for the involvement of the singular Joe Meek (who deserves an entire post of his own). The mix ends with the rare so-clean-it's-practically-sinister ballad, "Oom Dooby Doom," from little-known teen idol type Alicia Adams.
Enjoy.
The tracklist:
01. June Wilkinson & Mamie van Doren- Bikini with No Top on the Top (1964)
02. Sue Lyon- Turn Off the Moon (1962)
03. Brigitte Bardot- Moi Je Joue (1964)
04. Tracey Day- Gonna Get Along without You Now (1964)
05. Gunilla Thorn- Go On Then (1963)
06. Lulu- I'll Come Running (1964)
07. Betty McQuade- Tongue Tied (1961)
08. Terry Corin & Her Boyfriends- Sick! Sick! Sick! (1959?)
09. The Tammys- Egyptian Shumba (1963)
10. The Sharades- Dumb Head (1964)
11. The What Four- I'm Gonna Destroy That Boy (1966)
12. France Gall- Laisse Tomber les Filles (1964)
13. Diane Maxwell- Love Charms (1958)
14. The Jaynettes- Sally Go Round the Roses (1963)
15. Reparata & The Delrons- Saturday Night Didn't Happen (1968)
16. The Whyte Boots- Nightmare (1967)
17. The Shangri-Las- Out in the Streets (1965)
18. Alicia Adams- Oom Dooby Doom (1961)
Download the .zip here:
