Search - Various Artists :: Dream Babes 3: Backcomb N Beat

Well-Rounded Collection of Rare Girl-Tune Gems

uthungus | San Francisco, CA | 05/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sometimes the best collectible songs are those intended to be serious (and full of "teenage angst" as in this collection) but are done lyrically so over-the-top that they become laughably campy classics by accident! I don't criticize someone's actual pains if that's what the intention was, but with wording like "We'd learn a lot...if trees could talk...!" (The latter being the theme of the up-tempo Samantha Juste tune) this is really a stretch not to laugh, honestly! Like how funny Lesley Gore's "Partridge-Family-Singer-backed" sounding "Magic Colors" contrasts among a collection of her "Sock hop" hits! Others not as extreme, but similar on this collection: "Lonely Room", "No One Needs My Love Today", "Someone Cares For Me" and "How Many Times" (especially the Shoo-langa Shoo-langa, Shoop! Shoop! within a "tell you off" tune)! Along with these, though are also some really great energetic high-beat tunes like "A Way Out", "Two by Two", "Sweet and Tender Man", "Gonna Get Burned", "You're Gonna Get Your Way" (a Glenda Collins fave of mine!) and "Go Ahead". Also some really good "wall of sound" tunes - some of which I had already become familiar with via the Mark Wirtz "Teenage Opera" collection ("Lying Awake", "Someone's Gonna be Sorry" and "Yours Sincerely"). Among others: "I'll forget you Tonight", "We Don't Belong" and Give Him My Love". IMO this collection deserves high marks for obscurity and well-blended female vocalists."