# Favorite Early "Bubble-Gum Pop" Album by The Beatles



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mine are Hard Day's Night & Help! Every song on it does it for me, and the energy is fantastic!


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

As one old enough to have been there at the beginning, I can say with honesty that had the Fab Four never gone beyond the album _With the Beatles_, I would still consider them one of my favorite rock groups of all time.

The Lennon/McCartney songs on that disc remain stunning, from the opening "It Won't Be Long" through gems like "All I've Got To Do", "All My Loving", "Hold Me Tight", to "Not a Second Time". And then there is the Harrison piece, "Don't Bother Me," also a gem. Even the covers are splendid. Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" never quite tore me out of the arms of the Master himself, but the Beatles' remake provided a stronger shiver of that same consideration.

Listening to that album now (on the Parlophone mono pressing included in the white Mono box set) reaffirms for me that these guys were extraordinary songsmiths, ranking at the top with the best.

It's almost frightening thinking back to the days when these songs were new and so many other great and even greater Beatles songs were in the future air of the unimaginable. But that's when my appreciation of the Beatles was spawned, and it has never waned, only grown stronger. I don't recall having an interest in playing guitar before hearing these songs, and I know, too, that when I turned more strongly towards classical and jazz music in my late teens, the Beatles were the one group I refused to let go of. Those early songs sealed the deal, and what a deal it was.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

_Help!_ for me was somewhat transitional - on the surface it contained all the moptop zestiness of previous albums but tellingly it said farewell to their rock 'n' roll roots with _Dizzy Miss Lizzy_ (their final cover version, if memory serves) while other songs ushered in the sophisticated art-pop era of _Rubber Soul_ and _Revolver_.


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

A Hard Day's Night. Addictive. Makes me wanna dance, and I cannot dance! It's actually one of my favorite albums from the Fab 4.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

If the Beatles ever did "Bubble-Gum Pop," I'm not sure what to call some of the stuff you can hear today.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

amfortas said:


> If the Beatles ever did "Bubble-Gum Pop," I'm not sure what to call some of the stuff you can hear today.


Great to see the enthusiasm for early Beatles music on this thread! However, in nearly 60 years I've never heard early Beatles music described as bubble-gum. (Bubble-gum music, usually a condescending term, is for me songs like 'Sugar, Sugar' by the Archies.) The Beatles' musical roots included rock' 'n roll, skiffle, and English music hall. They went to the school of hard knocks, both musically and personally, working at a Hamburg club whose clientele was anything but teeny-boppers! They developed terrific, tight ensemble vocally and instrumentally, and perfected their original material. In the 1960's social classification of Mods and Rockers, the Beatles were the tougher Rockers, the Dave Clark Five were the Mods. _Hard Day's Night_ and _Help!_ were movies not just for a "bubble-gum" audience and neither was the music. There are sexual innuendos in some of the early songs.

Listening to those songs I agree entirely that they're great dance songs. Living in a city where there are a lot of immigrants, I've noticed among some their enjoyment of early Beatles music. It's occurred to me that the simple lyrics may have been intended to widen the Beatles' market among people for whom English is a second language (as with the ABBA strategy). I don't know that, but I can see why the songs might sound bubble-gum at first hearing.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> _Help!_ for me was somewhat transitional - on the surface it contained all the moptop zestiness of previous albums but tellingly it said farewell to their rock 'n' roll roots with _Dizzy Miss Lizzy_ (their final cover version, if memory serves) while other songs ushered in the sophisticated art-pop era of _Rubber Soul_ and _Revolver_.


It's hard now to imagine what a huge phenomenon the release of a new Beatles album was then -- which singles would be on it, in what order, who among your friends liked what. Of course the Beatles' touring days were over because no one could hear them above the screaming.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

When I think of Bubble-Gum Pop I don't think of the Beatles. I think of "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies, and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" by the Ohio Express - and similar songs.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I Want To Hold Your Hand is the only song I don't care for. It's kinda bubble gum-ish. But A Hard Day's Night, and Help are in a different league. Great stuff! Rubber Soul is pure gold!


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegum_music

Many musicians who grew up with the genre later incorporated bubblegum influences in their work. Although it is rarely acknowledged by music critics, who typically dismissed the genre, bubblegum's simple song structures, upbeat tempos, and catchy hooks were carried into punk rock.

The Ramones were the most prominent of the bubblegum-influenced punk bands, adopting cartoon personas and later covering two bubblegum standards "Little Bit O' Soul" and "Indian Giver". Music historian Bill Pitzonka stated of bubblegum's legacy:

Bubblegum really did lay a deeper foundation than anybody's willing to give it credit for. Yes, it is responsible for Take That and New Kids On The Block, but it's also responsible for The Ramones. A lot of the melodic metal comes out of that too. Bubblegum was based in melody; it was all about the song. It was all about getting the message across in two and a half minutes. [...] And it was the perfect antidote to everything that was going on [in the late 1960s]

Music critic Lester Bangs described the style as "the basic sound of rock 'n' roll - minus the rage, fear, violence and anomie".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramones

The Ramones' loud, fast, straightforward musical style was influenced by pop music that the band members grew up listening to in the 1950s and 1960s, including classic rock groups such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Beach Boys, the Who, the Beatles, the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Doors and Creedence Clearwater Revival; bubblegum acts like the 1910 Fruitgum Company and Ohio Express; and girl groups such as the Ronettes and the Shangri-Las. They also drew on the harder rock sound of the MC5, Black Sabbath, the Stooges and the New York Dolls, now known as seminal protopunk bands.

The Ramones' style was in part a reaction against the heavily produced, often bombastic music that dominated the pop charts in the 1970s. "We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard," Joey once explained. "In 1974 everything was tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced, or just junk. Everything was long jams, long guitar solos ... . We missed music like it used to be." Ira Robbins and Scott Isler of Trouser Press describe the result:

"With just four chords and one manic tempo, New York's Ramones blasted open the clogged arteries of mid-'70s rock, reanimating the music. Their genius was to recapture the short/simple aesthetic from which pop had strayed, adding a caustic sense of trash-culture humor and minimalist rhythm guitar sound."

The Ramones - "Little Bit O'Soul" 

The Ramones "Indian Giver"


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## Jay (Jul 21, 2014)

_Meet The Beatles_



Roger Knox said:


> I've never heard early Beatles music described as bubble-gum. (Bubble-gum music, usually a condescending term.


I've never heard them described as "bubble-gum" either, a pejorative, as is "boy band," as I've heard them described in recent years.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Well, it's certainly more accessible than say Magical Mystery Tour or even The White Album. Comparing the Beatles to themselves, they were certainly poppier in their early days, but not in a bad way.

I definitely didn't mean it as a strike against the band!


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

starthrower said:


> I Want To Hold Your Hand is the only song I don't care for. It's kinda bubble gum-ish. But A Hard Day's Night, and Help are in a different league. Great stuff! Rubber Soul is pure gold!


You should hear the songs they gave away.

They wrote so many songs, and could pick and choose which suited them. They gave away a good many "bubble gum" songs to other artists, many of which became hits for them.


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