Worlds by Jason Lee
Nothing says “it’s summer, dunderhead!” like an earworm-worthy bubblegum banger released in the midst of beach season (or even towards it’s end!) with “bubblegum pop” being a term first invented by the music industry as late 1960s slid into ‘70s with rock music becoming increasingly dour and self-serious (early prog and metal, rock operas, concept albums, etc.) and no wonder with all the war and crime and recession and assassinations not to mention Manson, Altamont, Stonewall, Kent State, and Nixon deputizing Elvis as a DEA agent…
…which is a big reason why a little record company called Buddha Records (best known at the time for releasing Captain Beefheart’s debut LP Safe As Milk) decided “there was a place for a new kind of music that would make people feel happy again” and dubbed the new genre “bubblegum” quoting directly from the liner notes of the l969 compilation LP Buddah’s 60 Degree Dial-A-Hit assembled by the label’s in-house producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz…
…which subsequently led to a string of Kasenetz-Katz hits like “Sugar, Sugar,” “Chewy Chewy,” “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” and “Goody Goody Gumdrops” (sensing a theme yet?) performed by bands like The Peppermint Rainbow, The Lemon Pipers, 1910 Fruitgum Co., and Ohio Express (which must’ve been some off-brand Midwestern candy) with the implication being that bubblegum was the sonic equivalent of cheap sweets for (pre)adolescents featuring simple, snappy tunes and nursery-rhyme catchphrases wrapped up in a candy-coated musical shell designed to produce a habit-forming endorphin rush and hey so what if it was “empty calories” cuz that only made you wanna consume more…
…and while some of the bands were genuine or at least started off that way the bubblegum-industrial complex was made up largely of songwriters and studio musicians who acted as hired guns recording under multiple monikers some of whom being “dirty hippies” prone to inserting more subversive musical and lyrical content into the mass-produced juicy fruit which is why so many seminal classics of the genre have a proto-punkish garage rock tinge to them or a drug-addled psychedelic vibe (easily mistaken for childlike whimsy) and speaking of “seminal” the genre quickly became notorious for being rife with sexual double-entendres…
…like the Lemon Pipers’ “Jelly Jungle of Orange Marmalade” with it’s entreaty to “take a trip on my pogo stick / bounce up and down, do a trick / I’ll play a beat on your pumpkin drum / and we’ll have fun in the sun” (creative!) or in case you ever wondered how to get “love in [your] tummy” Ohio Express’s “Yummy Yummy Yummy” helpfully explains “love is like peaches and cream” and “you’re a good enough to eat thing” which ok I think we get it and then there’s the #1 smash “Sugar, Sugar” where Riverdale’s hunkiest ginger suggests to Veronica and/or Betty and/or Reggie that they “pour [their] sweetness” over him “like the summer sunshine” so I dunno maybe he’s talking about golden showers (we refuse to imagine Jughead in such a scenario tho’ at least his hat would come in handy) followed by similarly vague come-ons like “pour a little sugar on it, baby” with “it” remaining unspecified but clearly Def Leppard were listening…
…so anyway you get the idea: sex + candy + summer + oral fixation equals bubblegum and then came all the knockoffs in the early-to-mid ’70s ranging from bubblegum-inflected glam (T.Rex, The Sweet) to metal (The Runaways, Alice Cooper) to proto-boy-bands (Bay City Rollers, the Osmonds) to the point where any lyrical mention of “lollipop” was almost guaranteed to to be prurient and clearly Lil Wayne was listening and likewise for chewing bubblegum viewed through a Freudian lens but hey we oughta stop talking about bubblegum in the past tense cuz obviously the bubblegum sound and sensibility lives on and thrives in the current day tho’ crossed with hip hop, country, or EDM far more often than rock ’n’ roll…
…with so-called “bubblegrunge” being a possible exception except it’s debatable whether that’s a “real” genre outside of Spot-i-fried Wrapped year-end rankings (#2 for yours truly two years running) which makes it all the more exciting to see a local rock ‘n’ roller seize the bubblegum mantle seemingly out of nowhere cuz seriously f*ck the tyranny of so-called authenticity with its walled-off divisions between musical styles and audiences to which our featured artist Not the Birthday Girl a.k.a. Eva (lead singer from the band Birthday Girl) clearly says nyya-nyya-nyya having just released a song that’s not only bubblegum but it’s called “Bubblegum” and if that’s a little on the nose well so is bubblegum when you blow a big bubble and it pops right in your face…
…and whereas Birthday Girl was described recently by our very own intrepid musical correspondent Willa a.k.a. November Girl as a band that creates its own holistic sound world that’s “very dream-like and surreal…like a whimsical children’s show but flipped on its head and laden with something a little psycho-sexual and sinister” whose kaleidoscopic sonics are perfectly matched by Eva’s vocals which alternately shudder, purr, murmur, heave and scream…
…all of which is very NOT bubblegum thus making Not The Birthday Girl a refreshingly transparent moniker for Eva’s indie-pop project with “Bubblegum” likewise fitting the bill as an earworm-worthy bubblegum banger and good timing too what with the PTSD still lingering from COVID and an endless array of socio-political shocks like it’s the late ’60s/early ’70s all over again one of which being the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade which lending additional resonance to NTBG’s celebration of “single hot girl summer” and pleasure-seeking for its own sake (“if you’re not getting what you want / someone can give it to you“) but always on Not The Birthday Girl’s terms of course…
Wanna get you all your favorite things
Yeah you want it
You should have it
If it’s shiny you can take it ah hey…
…cuz just as Megan Thee Stallion declared there “ain’t no taming me, I love my n***as equally” on 2019’s “Hot Girl Summer”, “Bubblegum” sees NTBG informing potential suitors that it’s a “no you can’t just get my number kind of day” and that “I want some money on that body” to which we reply *snap girl* all of which delivered with a laid-back sense of command whilst riding a sultry chilled-out groove into the ocean sunset something like Frank Ocean meets Oceana Grande (pull quote!) to the point where no matter where you listen to it “Bubblegum” it’ll make you feel like you’re sitting poolside or better yet oceanside with it’s fluid, watery groove that screams “we’re Audi 5000 baby, take it sleazy”…
…and finally when it comes to the titular “bubblegum” of the song’s title Not The Birthday Girl preserves the genre’s long, storied history of double-entendres versus the blunter single entendres dominating most contemporary pop and in repeating the line “do you do you do you wanna be my bubble gum baby?” the meaning seems to shifts with every iteration with bubblegum linked to sweetness or being chewed up and spit out or maybe something a little more Freudian but hey why overthink it when the song itself advises:“if it’s too hot for you / then get into the pool”…
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“Bubblegum” written by CJ Eiriksson, LY Vodoan and NOT THE BIRTHDAY GIRL. Produced by CJ Eiriksson and LY Vodoan. Mixed by CJ Eiriksson. Mastered by Charlie Park. Cover art by NOT THE BIRTHDAY GIRL.