A Brief History of The Quick
Power pop fans sometimes try to swell the ranks of their chosen obsession by widening their nets to include within it acts that are not necessarily deserving of the label. Take for example, The Quick.
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Reparata and the Delrons
Reparata and the Delrons were a girl group that spent a career plumbing the lower echelons of the pop charts. Their early repertoire was heavy on teenage melodrama and heartbreak.
Read moreFrancoise Hardy: Midnight Blues
Francoise Hardy may have been the most stereotypically French of the Yē-Yē girls: Aloof, sophisticated and beautifully melancholy. Nevertheless, her sound was one that was largely made in England.
Read moreHoney Ltd.: The Complete LHI Recordings
Honey Ltd. got their start at Detroit’s Wayne State University. With a gift for seamless four part harmony, the group’s sound was essentially a timely update of the classic girl group sound of the early 60s
Read moreClothilde: Queen of the French Swinging Mademoiselle
At the height of the Yeh Yeh Girl craze, here were many girls compelled by external forces to seek fame. Yet, as the brief and quite odd career of Clothilde demonstrates, the results were not always bad.
Read moreMade In France: France Gall’s Baby Pop
France Gall might not have had the sophisticated mystique of Francoise Hardy, the it girl “oomph” of Sylvie Vartan, or the continental sensuality of Bardot, but she was nonetheless an integral part of the Yeh Yeh Girl pantheon.
Read moreFunky Frauleins, Volume 2: Female Beat, Groove, Funk In Germany
Aside from providing grist for adventurists in the pop music realm, Funky Frauleins also has something to offer fans of Euro cinema, as a number of its featured players led a double life in the world of film.
Read moreJoe Meek: Portrait of a Genius
I went through a pretty intense Joe Meek fixation a few years back, with the result that I now own over a dozen CD compilations of Meek rarities which, with a few notable exceptions, are mostly unlistenable. Being a completist in your approach to this eccentric, wildly uneven, and very prolific British pop producer’s work may be as self-punishing an
Read moreNippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat &Bossa Nova 1966-70
Needless to say, if you want to reenact the dance contest scene from >Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966-70 is the ideal soundtrack. Or perhaps it’s the swinging, strobe-lit nightclub from your favorite Pinky Violence film you want to recreate — you know, the type where Miki Sugimoto or Reiko Oshida might
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