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Ryan Paris

THE HIT HAMMER: Tommy Roe's "Dizzy"
















(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)


Tommy Roe - "Dizzy"

Hit Number 1: March 15, 1969

Stay at Number 1: 4 Weeks











Bubblegum music is one of those genres where you either like it or you hate it. There's no in between. Interestingly enough, bubblegum music became really popular in the 1969-1970 range, and once people were sobering up from their psychedelic haze in 1967-1968, they apparently went out and bought a bunch of silly, cutesy music that sounds like the stuff boy bands of today would record. One guy who is always closely linked to the bubblegum genre is Tommy Roe. If that name sounds familiar to you, and you're not exactly sure why, that's because all the way back in 1962, Roe had his first #1 hit in the Buddy Holly knock off "Sheila". That song isn't exactly bubblegum to me, it's more of a hat tip to the old days of rock and roll in the 1950's. "Dizzy", however, holds more bubblegum than a pouch of Big League Chew. I can totally picture some band like One Direction recording it and making a hit out of it.


What's really funny about this particular scenario is that Roe is among just a handful of artists who can say they were successful before and after the British Invasion. I've said before that when the Beatles crossed the Atlantic and into America, they ruined a lot of musical careers, and really limited the success of others. Somehow an obscure artist like Roe survived it, and he got back to #1 with a silly, over-the-top song about a girl making him dizzy. The song is shameless, and very ridiculous. It's hard for me to even imagine Roe keeping a straight face while performing it, but maybe that was part of the appeal of it. Maybe Roe knew just how stupid a song like "Dizzy" was, but he knew that he was going to get away with something.


As I said, "Dizzy" is nothing short of a bubble gummy goof. Roe sings in a high pitched squeak, sort of like what you would hear from a teen idol, or some guy from a boy band. There's some glistening strings, which make up the majority of the instrumentation of the song. The bass line isn't that strong, and the percussion only gets a little bit of a solo before it's drowned out again by Roe and the strings. Quite frankly, "Dizzy" should not be a song I like all that much. It's pretty excessive in its bubblegum attire, and I can see the song driving its fair share of listeners crazy. Especially when it has lyrics like "I finally got to talk to you and I told you just exactly how I felt/Then I held you close to me and kissed you and my heart began to melt". However, I'm just not one of those people.


I can't explain why all that well, but "Dizzy", to me, is just a harmless, innocent song about young love. It doesn't hold back in what it's trying to do, which is to be a cutesy lovable song, and for me, that helps it. I guess if you're going to create a bubble gummy tune, you might as well go all in. "Dizzy" goes all in, and is one of those songs that will lodge itself in your brain and stay there for an extended period of time, I kind of like the random pitch changes the song has too, which helps it from being boring. Again, I can understand anyone who is bothered by it. From my perspective though, it's lighthearted, it's catchy, and it even shows us a sneak peak on what we'll hear later on from artists like the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds. So try to get too dizzy over this sudden wave of bubblegum.


GRADE: 7/10


JUST MISSED:

Classics IV (sometimes with the feat. Dennis Yost title) almost scored a #1 hit with "Traces", a silent shrug of a song, but still decent nonetheless. However, it couldn't dethrone "Dizzy", peaking at #2 behind it.. It's a 6.




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