The Teen Dreams

Ask your music-loving friends about the first record they bought, chances are that everybody else bought something really sophisticated. They were eight and bought, depending on their age, Kind Of Blue, Sly Stone, the Buzzcocks, Jesus & the Mary Chain or Public Enemy. They may even tell the truth, so you feel like a bit of a chump if you first record was “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window”, "Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool" or “Ice Ice Baby”. I confess: for years I did not acknowledge that the first record I bought was a German Schlager hit by Roy Black teaming up with a nine-year-old called Anita (single, it must be said, which was aimed squarely at my demographic at the time, the five-year-old), and that my first English-language record was by the Bay City Rollers. And I feel no more embarrassment at that than if my first single had been an obscure Northern Soul classic.

While the late, occasionally bow-tied Roy Black may still lack cool, the passage of time has forgiven the Bay City Rollers for their droll tartan outfits and for being adored by barely pubescent girls. The Ramones admitted a long time ago that they took inspiration from the teen-orientated bubble-gum pop promulgated by BCR. The rest of us have taken a little longer to appreciate that BCR weren’t as crap as their trousers led us to believe. And so I’ll pronounce while flinching only slightly: I was a BCR fan, even though I was a boy. And I liked Woody best.

With all that in mind, here is my Teen Dreams mix: acts that featured on the postered walls of pre-and freshly-pubescent kids, and were marketed as such.

The phenomenon of teen idols precedes the advent of Rock & Roll. There was Bing Crosby, who charmed the girls and their Moms in the 1930s. Then came the Bobbysoxers who screamed for young Frank Sinatra from Hoboken, NJ. Then came rock. Elvis provided many a young girl with her first experience of celebrity-inspired wet knickers. But these were singularities, quite extraordinary performers. True, the combination of Rock ‘n Roll’s ascent and the Bobbysoxer legacy (among other social events) created a wave of singers marketed directly to the teen market: the likes of Troy Donahue in the US, Marty Wilde in Britain, or Peter Kraus in Germany.

But arguably the real teen revolution came with the ‘60s and Beatlemania, a whole new deal which inspired a new culture of teen idols; some accidental, some manufactured to cash in on the Beatles .

Early teen idol prodigies of the1960s included Billy J Kramer (whose “Bad To Me” was written by Lennon & McCartney) and Herman’s Hermits in Britain, and the Monkees in the US. Like the Backsteeet Boys or the Spice Girls and their ilk 30 years later, the Monkees were not an organically formed band, but an assembled group calculated to appeal to diverse constituencies within the projected fanbase. The Beatles provided the template: Paul, the cute happy one; John, the tough cynical one; George, the quiet serious one; Ringo, the pet. And the calculation obviously worked; the Monkees were huge, thanks to their image, and their records were great, thanks to brilliant song selection and seasoned session musicians.

In the early 1970s, the pretence of musical authenticity evaporated in the US. The Archies had a worldwide hit in 1969/70 with “Sugar Sugar”. Based on the comic, they weren’t even the group. Where the Monkees were a the literary equivalent of a photo novel, the Archies were actually a cartoon. The fiction wouldn’t stop there. The Partridge Family was a TV band (backed by the flair of excellent session musicians and the beauty of the talented David Cassidy). Things would become charmingly peculiar when the Brady Bunch, whose kids weren’t even musicians, started releasing records. At the same time, some groups didn’t bother with instruments, even if one or the other minor Jackson 5 did parade with a guitar occasionally, if that could be choreographed into the dance routine.

In Britain, the teen-oriented acts were more credible. T Rex, the Sweet or Slade played their own instruments and produced some fantastic pop whose appeal conquered the precincts of age. Other acts were clearly manipulated or manufactured for marketing purposes. Questions remain about how much Woody, Eric, Alan and Derek contributed to the Bay City Rollers on record (we do know that Leslie did sing). Based on the template of the early ‘70s, UK record label bosses tried to cash in on presenting acts like Hello and Slik (featuring future Ultravoxx frontman Midge Ure) as the teen dreams they did not aspire to be. The calculation bombed. Hello and Slik were one hit wonders, groups like the Dead End Kids and Buster never took off, BCR disintegrated slowly after Leslie McKeown left (to be replaced by Duncan Fauré of South African teeny giants Rabbit), Sweet grew beards and dabbled with prog rock, Dave Hill of Slade shaved his head, and punk happened. The teen dream was dead. Out of punk grew the New Romantic movement, and with it Smash Hits, giving rise to a new generation of organically grown teen idols: Duran Duran, Adam Ant and Spandau Ballet (perhaps a subject for a Teen Dreams Volume 2 mix).

In the US, the family idols gig – Jacksons, Osmonds, “Partridge” – slowly lost its lustre. As the late ‘70s neared, the pursuit was on for the next knicker-creaming pretty boy in the mould of David Cassidy. And so teens were introduced the charms of David’s half-brother Shaun (whose 1977 song provides the title for this mix), Leif Garrett (like David, a TV star), Andy Gibb and, of course, John Travolta (long before he became the insufferably smug Scientology git with mediocre thespian talent we know and loathe today). The time would come for the rise of the boy band, in the US and Britain, with the Monkees and the Bay City Rollers providing a template, but minus the pretense of members playing instruments in terms of personnel selection, and the Jackson 5 inspiring the idea of four or five chaps harmonising their choreography.

And so, in celebration of teen dreams, the Teen Dream mix (if your mother, sister, wife or girlfriend is between the ages of 45-50, she’ll probably love it) -- with funky homebaked front & back covers and single covers.

Tracklisting:
1. The Beatles - Do You Want To Know A Secret (1963)
2. Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas - Bad To Me (1963)
3. Herman's Hermits - No Milk Today (1966)
4. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Bend Me (1966)
5. The Monkees - Last Train To Clarksville (1966)
6. Tommy Roe - Dizzy (1969)
7. The Archies - Sugar Sugar (1969)
8. Jackson 5 - I'll Be There (1970)
9. Sweet - Co Co (1971)
10. Partridge Family - I Woke Up In Love This Morning (1971)
11. The Brady Bunch – It’s A Sunshine Day (1972)
12. David Cassidy - I Am A Clown (1972)
13. Barry Blue - Do You Wanna Dance (1973)
14. Bay City Rollers - Saturday Night (1973)
15. Gary Glitter - I Love You Love Me Love (1973)
16. The Osmonds - Love Me For A Reason (1974)
17. Kenny - The Bump (1974)
18. Hello - New York Groove (1975)
19. Slik - Forever And Ever (1975)
20. Leif Garrett - Surfin' USA (1977)
21. Shaun Cassidy - Teen Dream (1977)
22. Andy Gibb - (Love Is) Thicker Than Water (1977)
23. John Travolta – Sandy (1978)

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So, what was the first record you bought?