Bubblegum stuck in your head?
By Larry Cabanero
Daily Kent Stater
Only the biggest party poopers can deny they enjoy a good pop song at least once in a while. They are the songs that just about everyone knows, and they're inescapable. Whether you're flipping radio stations or sitting in a bar, your ears are likely exposed to the music of Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys. Mindless pop music has become a major piece of our culture.
Pop has gone through many phases, ranging from early Beatles tunes to disco to new wave. But the most recent era of pop music has belonged to the kiddies.
Teeny bopper music, or bubblegum pop, first came and went in the late '80s. It surprisingly sprang up again about four or five years ago and is now stronger than ever. Fortunately, there have been a few tunes that have made listening to pop music a little more tolerable.
1. Hanson -- "MmmBop" (1997). Produced by the Dust Brothers, the people at least partly responsible for the genius of albums like the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique and Beck's Odelay, "MmmBop" marked the revival of the bubblegum boy band in the late '90s. The androgynous instrument-playing kids of Hanson put together one of the catchiest hooks in pop history and did it all with just a few syllables. Their debut single also strays from the standard sappy love theme. They cheerfully sing about how you shouldn't get mad when your friends or lovers dump you because they weren't gonna last forever anyway. The funny thing is that in an "MmmBop," Hanson will be gone forever, too.
2. Debbie Gibson -- "Only in My Dreams" (1987). At 17, Debbie Gibson started pumping out dance-pop hits like rising divas such as Madonna and Whitney Houston. However, "Only in My Dreams" is one of her only songs that has lasted well through time. While songs like "Electric Youth" and "Shake Your Love" have a distinct, cheese-filled '80s flavor, "Only in My Dreams" would surely make it on TRL if released today. Gibson recently attempted a comeback as a serious adult, but no one's going to look at her and forget the little pop teen queen inside her.
3. Backstreet Boys -- "I Want It That Way" (1999). Years from now we'll realize the release of the Backstreet Boys' record-breaking album Millennium probably marked the height of their careers. Black and Blue, the album they put out in stores last fall, was a relative flop. And so was their boring ballad "Shape of My Heart." But two years ago, the Backsteet Boys had a love song that couldn't be ignored. "I Want It That Way" and its hummable melody were everywhere. It was one of those tunes that buries itself in your head for a few weeks and stays there.
4. L.F.O. -- "Summer Girls" (1999). Proving that all a pop song needs is a chorus you can sing along to, L.F.O.'s "Summer Girls" hit it big with a simple beat and non-sensical lyrics. ("New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits / Chinese food makes me sick," they sing.) Hopefully, the guys in L.F.O. (Lyte Funky Ones) were aware the song was poking fun at themselves and other groups like them. Their other attempts at stardom featured similarly lame rap skills. Nonetheless, the song is hilarious. Who else would rhyme "speakin'" with "Alex P. Keaton"?
5. Christina Aguilera -- "What a Girl Wants" (1999). Before Christina Aguilera was convinced that she needed to hold out every note and swing it through the jungle gym in her vocal chords, she recorded "What a Girl Wants" for her self-titled debut album. The single was a sweet upbeat ballad about the simple things that women want from men, and it showed that Aguilera had a lot of potential as a singer. Unlike Britney Spears, Aguilera doesn't need a voice manipulator to be a pop star. And at least on this song, she proved she doesn't have to be slutty either.
6. New Kids on the Block -- "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" (1988). Bands like N*Sync and O-Town are dreading the day when teenagers decide to pull their boy band posters off their walls. It's likely these groups will end up just like the New Kids on the Block, falling out of the spotlight and falling hard. It's the inevitable curse of the pop superstar. But back in 1988, when little girls proudly wore their NKOTB slap bracelets and oversized buttons, Donnie, Danny, Jordan, Jon and Joey created the original boy band sound. Play the first few beats of "You Got It (The Right Stuff)," and you know it's the New Kids. That's hard to say about most of the boy bands around today.
7. Robyn -- "Do You Know What It Takes" (1997). While Americans were listening to alternative and rap in the '90s, corny pop ditties were still all over the charts in Europe. And Robyn was the one of the first artists to bring teen pop back to the United States. The Swedish vocalist wound up only having two hits on this side of the Atlantic. ("Show Me Love" was the other one.) But she helped open the door for both foreign artists and for solo females. Savage Garden and Mandy Moore have some thanking to do.
8. Tiffany -- "I Think We're Alone Now" (1987). Compared to Tiffany's musical lifespan, today's turn-of-the-century teen idols are lasting much longer than they are supposed to. Like one of her tattered denim jackets, Tiffany went out of style faster than you could say "mall hair." However, her remake of Tommy James and the Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now" brought bubblegum music to a whole new generation. Because of Tiffany, teenagers and cheesy pop songs will forever go hand-in-hand.
9. Soul Decision - "Faded" (2000). Most people wouldn't confess to being huge fans of Wham!. But the members of Soul Decision do. They actually consider Wham! to be a major influence of their music. Soul Decision's "Faded" doesn't have as much of a George Michael-esque feeling as some of the other tracks on their egotistically titled CD No One Does It Better, but the song is certainly as fun as "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." The group gets bonus points for playing their own instruments and for writing their own songs.
10. Spice Girls -- "Say You'll Be There" (1996). Although their debut single "Wannabe" is a campy guilty pleasure, it was their smooth, synthesized follow-up, "Say You'll Be There," that let us know that they were going to be floating at the top of the charts for a while. The single revealed that certain members of the group actually had fairly strong voices, particularly Melanie C. (Sporty Spice), who closes out the song with perfectly hit wails. For a moment, we were tricked into believing the Spice Girls weren't as annoying as we thought. But then there was SpiceWorld.
Honorable Mentions: Take That's "Back for Good," Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time," N*Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me," BBMak's "Back Here," and Jimmy Ray's "Are You Jimmy Ray."