BRENDA & THE BEACH BALLS
A-side: Yummy-Ya!
If you read this blog regularly then you've probably realised by now that this was bought entirely for three reasons: I liked the sleeve, it was on a label I'd never heard of, and most importantly it was very cheap. I think that of those three above reasons the sleeve art was the most important in this case. The abstract nature of the picture is appealing to me, the blue, yellow and pink shout out, but in harmony, not discord - but most importantly there are ice-creams in the picture, and ice-cream is a wonderful thing. All of which pre-amble should leave to to conclude that my knowledge of Brenda and the Beach Balls extends no further than the contents of the aforementioned sleeve.
Yummy-Ya! is exactly what you would imagine a song called Yummy-Ya! It's a bright day-glo pop sound. It's made for dancing to and not much else. It's basically the sound of a tamed B-52's. There's a good groove, which is punctuated by a bit of nice saxophone, whilst a lass exhorts us to "do the yummy-ya!" over the top of it. It's no more or less than a piece of throwaway pop - and as such does the job it set out to do most admirably.
Dancing Thru' the Night is similar in vein. The drum machine is the most prominent sound on this track overlaid with some funky guitars, with the breathy female vocals building up through the song.It's okay I suppose - but really not my kind of thing. I suppose to connoisseurs of dance music it could well be a seminal gem, or equally it could be bag of old gravel. I can't tell it's not the kind of thing that I've ever really been into - if I'm honest I found it repetitive and boring, However I acknowledge it was probably never meant to be listened to by a middle-aged behind a computer keyboard. If I was 25 years younger and was hearing this in a club I might be moved to dance which is what it was designed to do.
Not my normal fare, for sure, and although the a-side has a certain charm it really doesn't live up to the slightly surreal and lairy cover. It's not really enough to tempt me to listen to similar stuff.
Next time one of the very finest songs ever recorded.
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