Early 70's Bubblegum Music: the verdict

Went to check out the Bubblegum music book, latest review only gives it one star.I didn't realise they had such a passionate fan base.

It had one page for 1910 FRUITGUM COMPANY as a band. OH, they are mentioned on various pages, but as a band they have one page. It did tell me anything I did not already know, including the fact Mark Gutowski was hand picked to sing lead on SIMPLE SIMON. It more information on the Archie's, AND THEY WERE A CARTOON!

xp Jonathan King had a hand in at least 13 of these tracks, by the way....

I did wonder if he was involved in other tracks. I only recognised The Piglets and his own track of course. I'd put money on X-Certificate being one of his.

16. GAY GIRL – Jonathan King
17. DIRTY OLD MAN – Lieutenant Pigeon

X-Certificate is very JK-like, but not actually one of his. There was also another version by Katina, which I slightly prefer.

The JK-involved tracks which I recognise from memory: The Weathermen, Simon Turner, Hotlegs, St Cecilia*, The Piglets*, Tina Harvey, The Angelettes, Shag*, Bubblerock*, Ricky Wilde, Terry Dactyl, Sakkarin*. Asterisks denote pseudonyms for JK himself.

Ugh, bloody auto formatting...

Pseudonyms are: St Cecilia, Piglets, Shag, Bubblerock, Sakkarin.

I'm hypothesizing the huge disparity between British and American bubblegum hits may have something to do with the genre being something of a multimedia phenomenon, with visuals often an integral part of their appeal, in an era when it was impossible for Americans to watch British TV and vice versa and the internet/social media wasn't a thing yet.

There's a lot there that was previously called "novelty" in the UK and it is a feat if marketing to call it bubblegum now.

The Jonathan King stuff is largely terrible and has all been previously compiled repeatedly. No excuse for adding it here.

I misspelled the name of Tony Burrows twice on this thread, even though I had spelled it correctly on plenty of other threads before.