|
Page 58 :
In a 2009 interview, family and band member Bob Cowsill complained about the Cowsills being "unfairly grouped over in the bubble gum side" of the late-1960s pop-music spectrum (Fink 2009). Certainly, the group's first hit record "The Rain, the Park & Other Things," contains elements of psychedelia in the lyrics and some of the instrumental tone colors are reminiscent of those on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, a product of the early part of the psychedelic era. However, the entire way in which the group was packaged, including the fact that they were a family act and the boys' relatively (for the era) short hair and clean-cut image all make "The Rain, the Park & Other Things" more of a bubblegum version of Summer of Love music than something that feels like the genuine counterculture article. It is also interesting to note that the instrumental tracks on this Cowsills hit recording were performed by studio musicians, even though the band performed live extensively and could play their instruments very well indeed. In fact, drummer John Cowsill later became a member of the Beach Boys touring band.
The Cowsills' 1969 recording of "Hair," the title song from the counterculture musical of the same name, also reached No. 2 on the singles charts. Again, although Bob Cowsill later complained about the perception of the group, at least one television appearance of the Cowsills lip-synching to the song makes their interpretation of "Hair" appear to be more an innocent lighthearted parody than an authentic expression of the importance of long hair as a late-1960s counterculture statement of resistance to conventional society's norms.
Even as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, bubblegum pop continued but in different guises. One could argue that the Bay City Rollers, a real-life Scottish band whose teenage fans were a fair number of years younger than the band members themselves, represented an extension of bubblegum pop, as did the later teen stars who came out of the Disney franchise, such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and others and other young family-based artists that followed the Cowsills, such as the Jackson 5, the Osmond Brothers and Hanson.
|
