In his liner notes to this collection,
Poppees
guitarist
Arthur Alexander
(no relation to the great R&B singer) mentions he joined the band after answering an ad in the
Village Voice
that read in part, "Must be into the Beatles." Well, do tell -- if ever there was a group "into the Beatles," it was
the Poppees
, who seemingly absorbed every scrap of influence from the Fab Four's early period to the point that they could even play a convincing version of
"Love of the Loved,"
a
Lennon
/
McCartney
tune the Mop Tops gave away to their friend
Cilla Black
.
The Poppees
released two singles for
Bomp Records
during their 1973-1976 lifespan (one produced by
Cyril Jordan
of
the Flamin' Groovies
), and
Pop Goes the Anthology
features the four tunes from those 45s, along with one unreleased studio outtake and 13 demos and live recordings. Over the course of these 18 tracks, the band's single-minded obsession with
the Beatles
is inarguably impressive -- they practically transform their cover of
"Since I Fell for You"
into
"This Boy,"
"If She Cries"
suggests what would have happened if
"She Loves You"
had been written in a minor key, and
"Jealousy"
condenses the bulk of the
Please Please Me
album into a mere two minutes.
were very good at this stuff -- the original songs were wildly derivative but the hooks and melodies are genuinely tasty, and the band was tight and skillful with fine harmonies. But most of the time,
sounds like
the Rutles
without the punch lines, and 12 songs, in you may start to wonder why you're not listening to
With the Beatles
or
A Hard Day's Night
instead. Three tracks from a 1976 show at CBGB's find
kicking up a lot more dust and revealing a harder edge as punk began making a noise in New York. They suggest the band was starting to develop a personality of their own near the end of their run, which is a bit of a shame -- most of
is the work of a group with talent and potential but not much identity, and if they'd been willing to follow a path of their own a bit earlier, who knows what they might have accomplished. ~ Mark Deming