"Sugar, Sugar" came out of The Archie Show, a late sixties Saturday morning cartoon, the first of many (mostly dismal) attempts to adapt the popular comic book characters from Riverdale High to the small screen. Yet, when presented with having to do cover art for the single in various territories, as well as The Archies' debut album, their record label didn't go with an image from the series. Instead, they went with a drawing that could've come straight out of an issue of Laugh or Pep. It even appears to have been the work of the great Dan DeCarlo, one of two Archie artists who ought to be as renowned as Stan Lee, Steve Ditko or bloody Todd McFarlane (Samm Schwartz is the other). The bland, cheap-looking skethces used for the cartoon weren't going to shift as many units as one that youngsters would associate with the comics and rightfully so.
For my part, I find it difficult to extricate Archie from all those great magazines and digests of my youth. (My favouites were the aforementioned Laugh as well as the Jughead with Archie digest) While I tried to get into Marvel comics as a boy, I found it impossible to keep up with them. I could pick up an issue of, say, The Avengers, Fantastic Four or Alpha Flight — Canada, baby! — and either be totally engrossed in the story or utterly lost because I'd missed the previous months' volume. But the world of Archie had no semblance of canon. Those double digests that I'd often get for those long days on the road during camping trips would depict old Arch as a jock in one story and then have him as a dweeb in the next. Similarly, he could be besotted by Veronica in one story then smitten by Betty in another. Did it bother me if I missed an issue? No because it would eventually end up recycled in a digest.
A feature of The Archie Show was that Archie Andrews had a band alongside chums Betty Cooper, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge and Reggie Mantle and that they were named after himself. (And Reggie was the one with the ego!) Episodes would conclude with a number "performed" by The Archies. The comic books went along with it though, surprisingly, they never went with a series based on the band. Still, they'd pop up here and there, sometimes as a struggling, go nowhere high school group, other times as a genuine pop phenomenon. While Jughead's dog Hot Dog wasn't involved (as opposed to the cartoon in which he was the conductor), their setup was not unlike that on the cover of the single above: Archie and Reggie on guitars, Veronica on keyboards, Betty on tambourine and Jughead on drums — and, crucially, no microphones to be seen. While they did occasionally sing, more often than not it seemed like The Archies were an instrumental act.
This brings me to the biggest reason why I hate "Sugar, Sugar": Archie's voice. While seldom one of the more interesting characters in Riverdale, Arch could be relatable. He was a often a voice of reason when held up next to Reggie's narcissism, Jughead's gluttony and laziness, Veronica's vanity, Betty's inferiority and Big Moose's jealous fits of rage. I may have identified with Jug and secretly wished I could've been more like Reg but Archie was the everyman. His voice shatters this concept. He sounds slick and polished, not unlike a professional singer doing TV jingles. The fictional band had been the brainchild of Don Kirchner, the impresario who had previously been behind the early success of The Monkees. Having come off the mutiny engineered by the prefab four, Kirchner figured session musicians could handle everything without the fear of rebellion against the puppet masters. If this meant that they'd have to settle for the character-free singing of Ron Dante then so be it.
A good many pop connoisseurs regard "Sugar, Sugar" as a triumph of bubblegum but I think it's the last gasp of a subgenre that had worn out its welcome. The cutesy organ parts on The Monkees' "I'm a Believer" had by this point become tired, a bubblegum pop cliche. The generation of American acts who managed to carve out an uneasy balance between garage rock and bubblegum had begun to fade away and what remained was a soulless, corporate crapfest. But take much of my disdain for what it is: a man in his late forties whose youth was formed in part by Archie comics (as a ten year old my only other passions were Slurpees and wrestling) but who never warmed to the property in other forms of media. Beyond being a mostly instrumental act, I had no real idea of what The Archies would've sounded like but I wouldn't have imagined them sounding so lifeless.
In a memorable issue of the relaunched Jughead series from 1987, Archie's eccentric best friend becomes a fan of a jazz drummer called Crazy Willie Jim. They meet and Jug discovers that his idol is impoverished and living in a shelter. He invites him to an Archies' gig and Willie Jim is so impressed by them that he says "you cats can really cook!". (The drummer then sits in for Jughead and wows the audience with his playing) Was it "Sugar, Sugar" that made an old jazz vet sit up and take notice? Call me a music snob but I think not — and, again, there wasn't any singing involved anyway. Wait, was Archie's subpar vocals the reason they became an instrumental band? I think I've cracked it.
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Can Con aficionados might try to make a case for "Sugar, Sugar" as yet another number one hit from north of the forty-ninth parallel, thus making it four chart toppers on the bounce. Andy Kim, who we only just encountered with his very impressive version of The Ronettes' "Baby, I Love You", co-wrote The Archies' signature song which I guess could qualify it on a technicality. My standards aren't nearly as generous. I have already kept The Mamas and the Papas, the Lovin' Spoonful and Blood, Sweat and Tears from being included as Canadian number ones so there's not much hope for "Sugar, Sugar". Still, this does tell you what a force Kim was for a time even if it also suggests that his talents could be used for evil as well as good.
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