Listening to Now: The Archies - "Sugar, Sugar"

By Richard K. Barry

As I say in the subtitle of my music blog (Listening to Now), it's about music: the good, the bad, the ugly. I could just post good music (whatever that means), but I'm at least partly interested in any song or style that becomes popular, good or not.

Let's face it, bubblegum pop is always going to be with us and the cool kids are always going to scratch their heads about it. One of the signature tunes in the genre has to be The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar."

It was written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim and performed by a group of fictional teenagers in the television cartoon series The Archie Show. Most incredible is that it reached No. 1 in the U.S. and stayed there for four weeks in 1969. It was, in fact, the number-one single of the year.

Want to know what other songs in 1969 were not the number-one single? That would be "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," "Every Day People," "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In," "Get Back," "Honky Tonk Woman," and "Come Together." You get my point.

Ron Dante sang lead vocals for "Sugar, Sugar" and was accompanied by Toni Wine (who sang the line "I'm gonna make your life so sweet"), and Andy Kim. Together they were the voices of The Archies.

This is Dante singing without the benefit of animation. And below is Archie and the gang. Sorry if this weirds you out. 

And, by the way, why was the song so popular? It's all in the beat, not to mention that it was written by two guys who knew how to get it done. 

(Cross-posted at Listening to Now.)