The RPM's ludicrous changeover of number one hits from week-to-week is something I have been going on about ever since the magazine took over from CHUM as Canada's national pop music charts — even if I will acknowledge that I think it largely tracks with the way fickle kids would shift from one favourite song to another — but at least we somehow managed to avoid the wretchedness of Barry Sadler's "The Ballad of the Green Berets". Down in the States, this tale of soldiers waging war in countries for no reason defending freedom had ruled the Hot 100 for what must have been a long, drawn out five weeks but north of the border it could do no better than a modest number twenty-six. (Still higher than it deserved but I'll take it)
Was this a case of early anti-Americanism in Canada? While I would like to think so, it seems doubtful - and not because I'm one of those sad, reactionary conservatives who seem startled by the seemingly unprecedented site of Canadians having had enough of crap from the United States. (Anti-American sentiments have existed in my homeland for at least as long as I can remember and probably well before I was ever relevant. They've recently come back with Trump's pathetic "51st State" talk as well as his stupid tariffs but I'm also old enough to remember post-9/11 fallout when George Bush expected Canada to join him on his immoral war on Iraq. I went through a much less noble bout of boredom with the US back in the nineties when freakshow TV news coverage was at its peak) Certainly a record about the American armed forces was going to be of more limited appeal to foreigners — yet it still managed to also make it to number one in South Africa and was a Top 10 hit in both West Germany and New Zealand — but the fact that it performed as well as it did tells you everything you need to know about the power of American media. And its crass jingoism isn't even the worst thing about it: it's also absolutely godawful. (Tom Breihan even considers it to be the worst number one in the history of the Hot 100 and he's not wrong)
Fortunately, there were others American acts around to make up for Sadler's appalling mess of a pop song. The Vogues had just been back at number one with the surprisingly wonderful "Magic Town" and they were followed by The Lovin' Spoonful with their first Canadian chart topper "Daydream". The group had been on an upward trajectory since the previous year with debut single "Do You Believe in Magic?" taking them to number three and "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" doing one better. Now, they had an RPM chart sweep of the bronze, silver and gold positions.
Led by the unconventionally charismatic John Sebastian (who, it's worth pointing out, was rocking a pair of granny glasses at least a year prior to John Lennon's adoption of the same specs which became his trademark) and a Canadian folk singer named Zal Yanovsky (this being a time in which American groups began to have at least one Canuck in their lineups: in addition to The Lovin' Spoonful, Yanovsky's chum Denny Doherty had become a member of The Mamas and the Papas, Steppenwolf had a pair of Canadian expats in their ranks and Neil Young had recently formed Buffalo Springfield; the practice had become so commonplace that many had wrongly believed Peter Tork of The Monkees to also have been from the Great White North), The Lovin' Spoonful had come out of the Greenwich Village coffeehouses but seemed to have no interest whatsoever in folk music. Rather, they operated as a kind of East Coast response to the groups coming out of California: The Byrds, Love, The Doors, The Jefferson Airplane. They didn't stick to a particular style, content with playing whatever they felt like. They could be happy-go-lucky or menacing — and they could even get by not really giving a shit.
I don't think I had heard "Daydream" since I was a teenager and had to sit through my Mum playing Calgary's longtime oldies station 66CFR on the car radio. (Hey, it beat the hell out of her listening to the folk station) I didn't object to it then and I still don't but I don't find it particularly enthralling either. I thought my much more mature ears would have picked up on something that my apathetic adolescent self couldn't have cared less about but, alas, it sounds more or less the same as it always had. While it sounds a tad naive, "Do You Believe in Magic?" has that optimistic, sunshine quality that makes it impossible to dislike; future hit "Summer in the City" (coming soon to a Canadian number ones blog near you!) is slightly sinister and uneasy and is the sort of thing that's well-worth returning to. But "Daydream"? It's just sort of there. Appropriately, a song about kicking back and relaxing doesn't draw a whole lot of attention to itself and is a huge success in that regard!
Nevertheless, the rise of bands like The Lovin' Spoonful indicates that there was a new-found individualism in American pop. Groups that weren't beholden to Phil Spector, the New York songwriting teams and/or the houseband studio groups that had been ruling over the industry. Though not everyone in the American music industry was learning the same lesson, people like John Sebastian seemed to be coming to the conclusion that the best way to respond to the challenge of Lennon and McCartney was to find creative paths of their own. Copying the Fab Four wasn't the way to go and neither was retreating to the cliches of older American rock 'n' roll. It was time for a musical explosion of their own.
Score: 6
No comments:
Post a Comment