Oh, the Shirelles. How far you've fallen. You'll recall that this is the very same group who brought us such great classics as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Tonight's the Night." Often cited as the first girl-group, they certainly were not the most prolific. Among their small handful of hits was this curious little number.
It's a little shocking, really, how poor of an effort this is, compared to the Shirelles' other material from around the same time. Musically it's trite, and lyrically it's hardly inspiring. Historically it makes sense, though, as the years 1961 and 1962 saw a dramatic escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and I suppose the sentiment of a woman waiting at home for her soldier was one that resonated with the public. When we think back on Vietnam-era popular music, we tend to remember the anti-war protest side of things, and it's easy to forget the more mainstream songs like this one. It's totally complacent with the war, even optimistic—a very real attitude that is underrepresented in most nostalgic views on this time period. You'll note that "Blowin' in the Wind" did not chart at all on the singles chart.
But oh boy, "Soldier Boy" just has not aged well at all. Even on the level of production values, it just sounds cheaper compared to the Shirelles' other major hits. There always is a certain random element that decides which songs become #1 and which ones don't. Maybe there wasn't much else out at the time to compete with this one? At any rate, the group's hits from the previous year were much stronger musically, my personal favorite being the wonderfully catching "Mama Said." And when I think of this group, that's the kind of song I'll think of, not this unfortunate disappointment.
Believe it or not, we are almost done with Elvis Presley on this blog, now that we're up to the sixth (of seven) songs on the list. It's funny because all the Elvis songs I've written about were more or less new to me at the time—funny because he has so many songs that are famous to the point of being cultural staples; but you must remember that the likes of "Jailhouse Rock" fell before the August 1958 start of our timeline. And although the start date of the Billboard chart is arbitrary, there is a certain stylistic change in Elvis's music that happens around this time. In the 50s, he did his share of crooning, but it was always offset by raucous, noisy rock and roll songs. As he got older (well, relatively—he's still only 27 at this point), he mellowed out significantly.
It's not a bad track—pretty good, really, and a welcome respite from the mediocrity of most of March and April of this year. But doesn't it seem like a bit of the fire has gone from Elvis's belly? This is about as upbeat as Elvis gets, this far into his career. Compare it to "Hound Dog" and it's like listening to two different performers.
But he's not exactly phoning it in, either. Hairstyles and controversial dance moves aside, the one thing that always set Elvis apart, and the reason he's still remembered so fondly today, is his voice. And what a voice he had—his control was flawless, and his stylish inflections inimitable. Sure, it's a silly little song, but it's not like he wasn't doing these in the 50s (how about "Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear"?). The song would be pap for most singers, but Elvis makes it his own.
How much of this style change was due to Elvis's own personal decisions, and how much to pressures from the industry to take his music in a more accessible direction? It's impossible to know, but I like to think that this kind of thing was part of a maturing process for him. He wasn't a kid swinging his hips anymore, and he took it gracefully. This more subdued, mature style is reflected in the other hits that followed this one. The other top-tens he released later in 1962 showed similar characteristics—both "She's Not You" and "Return to Sender" are good songs, but neither strays too far past a sort of mid-tempo shuffle.
However, this comfortable groove that Elvis seemed to have reached would be short-lived. The next year, 1963, produced another two top-tens, "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" and "Bossa Nova Baby", but this was apparently the beginning of the end—a sort of Vegas-rock style started to creep into his sound at this point, a marker of empty commercialism for many fans. The former song is still quite good (and was the earlier, and more successful of the two), but the latter hints strongly at the tired stagnation Elvis would display throughout the mid-60s.
After that, Elvis just sort of went away. He was getting older, his voice wasn't what it used to be, and his style was increasingly old-fashioned in the face of a rapidly changing 1960s zeitgeist. For five long years following the songs I just mentioned, the former juggernaut of hits didn't score a single top-ten. (Technically, you might note, there is an exception—the strongly personal, and overtly religious "Crying in the Chapel". It charted very well around Easter of 1965, but in fact was an archival recording, dating from 1960.)
However, the King did not fall quite yet. We will return to him later in this project, to deal with his late-60s comeback. Until then, let's move along.
How unfortunate that since my return to this project, several songs in a row have been so mediocre. It makes for a rather limp restart, but rules are rules, and I'm doing the songs in order. The next one is by Shelley Fabares (rhymes with "cabaret"), another lame one-hit wonder.
One interesting thing to note about these songs is the demographic groups that were responsible for pushing them to the top. Someone like Connie Francis probably appealed to younger people, but also had a strong popularity among the adult age groups—I think it was this breadth of target audience that allowed her to generate such a massive number of hits. Think of the most successful acts of the recording era, the likes of Elvis, the Beatles, Madonna, Michael Jackson. All of them had an appeal that attracted teenagers and adults alike. (Notably, the over-40 section of the population, although a huge demographic group, is largely not a concern of the artists that I am covering.)
Shelley Fabares, on the other hand, had a much more limited appeal—"Johnny Angel" is clearly designed for teenyboppers only. The song's lyrics express a sentiment that only a middle or high schooler could possibly sympathize with: "Johnny Angel, how I love him, he's got something that I can't resist / But he doesn't even know that I exist." Few mature people would identify with the idea of falling in love with someone you don't even know, but this is of course a huge phenomenon among the newly pubescent—who didn't have a crush or two in their younger years?
And indeed, the singer herself was only 18 when this song was popular. Probably a little past the age of most of her fans, but closer than most. But anyway, it's not like teenyboppers are some obscure, niche group. They were, and are, an enormous and influential section of the consumer base of popular music, for better or for worse. They were able to get Shelley Fabares to the top of the chart, but they couldn't keep her there. Of her few other attempts, the only one that even made a blip on the radar was a sequel to "Johnny Angel," released a few months later, called "Johnny Loves Me." Johnny may have finally loved her, but her fans gave her up.
And so at last we return to Connie Francis, the once-tremendous and now-mostly-forgotten star. This is her third (and last) number-one hit.
The song is carried by a similar method of Francis harmonizing with herself via double-tracking that we found with her previous entry, "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own." It's also characterized by a similar mid-paced, slightly shuffling, very white-bread sort of rhythm that hasn't aged well at all. She reminds me of Patsy Cline, only not as good. Cline was too country to ever make it to number one, but Francis had that magic formula of pop crossover that rocketed her to mega-stardom. But now who has the greater legacy? Sure, Francis had a pretty decent singing voice, but too much of her music starts to get tiresome. Go ahead, see how many Connie Francis songs you can make it through in a row:
The above is a chronological playlist of all of the singer's top-ten hits, an impressive 16 of them from 1957–1962. That's a huge number; I don't believe any artist I've covered yet has had that many, excepting Elvis. Perhaps I've given short shrift to her five years of massive success; but a short five years was all she had in her. Maybe it's because these songs are so damn dreary, one after the other. The exception that proves the rule is "Lipstick on Your Collar," which actually threatens to be danceable.
I feel like I should have more to say about someone who hit the number-one spot three times, but I just don't. This is not music that inspires me to great heights of writing. I am having trouble conveying the immensity of her popularity while not really being all that enthusiastic about her.
So if you only take one thing away from this, it should be the spot at 2:09 in the video: "Hhhhhhi don't know what I'd do..."
Dear reader, you may have noticed that it's been over a year since my last update. I never intended to abandon this completely, but between work and grad school, I have been just too busy to maintain a project like this. However, having recently completed my master's, I feel suddenly freed up, and I'd like to I get this thing going again.
There is also a good reason that this particular song by Bruce Channel (pronounced like "Chanel") was the one that acted as the catalyst for my extended hiatus. Well, listen for yourself:
What can I possibly say about this song? It's... okay. It's a pretty safe, easy rock and roll one-hit wonder from the early 60s. The most profound statement I can make about it is that it gives us a glimpse of a time when white people hadn't really gotten the hang of rock music yet.
You see? Such are the troubles I face. But there is a lot more interesting stuff coming up! I promise.
