Gosh, it's as if the bubblegum groups didn't get the memo. Then again, neither did the youngsters who kept buying up all this crap. "Sugar, Sugar" ought to have been bubblegum pop's final bit of glory before it got swept away by late sixties' stadium rock and the singer-songwriter boom but there were still enough teenagers who weren't sufficiently tired of it by this point.
Nevertheless, bubblegum was clearly on the way out. If anything, it's a wonder it lasted as long as it did. Just one lame 1910 Fruitgum Company chart topper ought to have been enough for most people but they somehow managed a trio of RPM number ones. If we go by Wikipedia's claim of the dire "Simon Says" (along with the Ohio Express' "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy") as being the sub-genre's jumping off point, "Tracy" is just the seventh bubblegum single to reach the top of Canada's pop charts, with apparently just one more to go. Actually, I say it was clearly on the way out but was that really the case in the late stages of 1969? All I know is that I have had enough it and I just assume everyone was feeling the same way.
Still, there's reason to be not quite as down on The Cuff Links since "Tracy" isn't quite as grim as many of its contemporaries. It's passable. There's oodles of energy in this single, a quality that fellow bubblegum pop records are surprisingly short on. They have a forced jovial air about them which only makes them even more irritating. On the other hand, The Cuff Links are enjoying themselves even if the lyrics are as banal as ever.
I've now rolled my eyes at the likes of the Fruitgums and Tommy Roe and The Archies but I haven't done so in the direction of The Cuffs. This not a resounding recommendation but I might as well try grading bubblegum on a curve. It's simple but that's not always a bad thing. It's moronic but pure pop is often at its best when brain cells aren't quite firing. It's repetitive but the running time is short so there's little chance of boredom entering the picture. It's a perfectly serviceable pop song in a style that struggled to be mediocre. While all the other bubblegum groups had a taste that wore out awfully fast, The Cuff Links almost make you want to keep on chewing.
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Finally, a comment on the title which seems rather out of place for its era. Our family friends the Cunninghams have a daughter called Tracy. There was also a Tracy — possibly with an 'e' since she was from Essex — in my class in Billericay during the year I lived in England. A friend of mine in high school had a girlfriend (and, not long after, wife) called Tracy. I can't think of anyone else I've ever known with that name. Not many though I am aware that it is a fairly common name. (I teach in Korea where English names used to be commonplace but I've never once met a Tracy here either) But were there a lot of Tracies back in the sixties? I could be wrong but it strikes me as the sort of name babyboomers gave to their daughters but weren't bestowed upon many of them. Is this what songwriters Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance as well as singer Ron Dante (who, incidentally, is said to have handled all the layers of vocals here) found intriguing about our Trace? With something of an unusual name, perhaps she stood out as a free spirit befitting the wild child sixties. Even the bubblegum popsters couldn't resist these sorts of chicks and who could blame them?
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