 Various Artists I love bubblegum pop, but just like one-night stands, growing a moustache, or dining at Long John Silvers, it's almost always better played out in your head theoretically. Case in point would be the slightly baffling Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestra Circus album. Kasenetz & Katz were a 60s production duo who responsible for all sorts of disposable AM radio pop fluff, a la "Yummy Yummy Yummy." Some of it was magical, but very littlet of it provided the saccharine-sweet heights of "Sugar Sugar". Hell, 99% of all bubblegum rarely gets that good, no matter how much you want it to. The disc is presented as a supposed live album with all the interchangeable K-K groups (1910 Fruitgum Company, The Ohio Express, et al) playing a concert, but by the third song, the fake audience applause and claps have all but disappeared. Well, at least it kept the intial album concept going longer than Sgt. Pepper does. Lots of perfunctory covers follow, but things don't get interesting until "Count Dracula," wherein the delay-drench Count introduces his monster friends, then says they're taking the audience to a land of "peace, equality, and brotherhood of help," while Batman & Robin have been captured. (?) Lots of echo immediately takes us into a Beach Boys-via-The Archies romp of "Place In The Sun." By which non-existent band, I have no idea, 'cause the liner notes don't help at all. Looking at the album cover, I'm looking for the bubblegum band full of monsters, but there's no vampires to be found. For a genre with so much potential, there sure is a lot of shit strewn throughout the bubblegum landscape. While Kasenetz-Katz helped to build the foundation of the genre, they sure put in crappy plumbing.
Review by John Rivers |