Oh my gosh. The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"

Uh, wow. I don't know if I'd ever heard this song before, but hearing it this week, it struck something huge in me and I feel like I've grown up with it somehow. Apparently, the Youtube video can't be embedded in a webpage, so I'll put up the link, and I would really, really recommend watching it. Oh my gosh, the passion and just the way lead singer Veronica Bennett gets into it all is so awesome! I can totally relate to what I see in that video. It's interesting and cool, though, because I haven't really seen that kind of "spazzing" out by performers of pop music in the '60s. I am inspired. And I also now have a huge musician crush.

Apparently this song was "a worldwide hit, reaching #2 on the U.S. pop chart, #4 on the R&B chart, and #4 on the UK chart and sold over 2 million copies." Actually the whole wikipedia article on the Ronettes is really interesting when it talks about how the creators of the Ronettes used subtle details to cultivate the group's image (like small, yet leaping, deviations from the lyrical norm at the time - ie. addressing the listener directly with "I love you," instead of "I love him" for a more seductive or "bad girl" (direct?) image) and this "Wall of Sound" technique by Hal Blaine. Really, when you listen to this song with that in mind, it seems already like a modern, experimental take on U.S. '60s pop with its uncountable layers of percussion and melodies. Looks like the people who were making this music upped My Bloody Valentine and Deerhunter by a few decades. (You can also totally hear those kind of drums in "I Have A Boyfriend," by the Chiffons, too, which could also be described as a "wall of sound" - no mesmerizing castanets, though...:(). You can hear the intricacy of the song better on this studio version (and also look at some lovely lowrider art, hehe. Actually, I first found that video in a Youtube playlist of Chicano oldies someone had loaded up, so I actually probably have heard this, possibly numerous times, in my little years and just didn't remember it specifically.)

I don't think I've gotten this excited about a song or type of music in a long time! Those voices!