Warner Bros / Wea
1997
Feelin' Groovy: The Best Of Harpers Bizarre Featuring The 59th Street Bridge Song
About This Album
Harpers Bizarre, the sunshine pop quintet led by future superstar producer Ted Templeman, has always been dismissed by the uninformed. Based on the fact that Harpers Bizarre's only really big hit was a choral version of Paul Simon's "The 59th Street Bridge Song," which producer/mastermind Lenny Waronker buffed to a lollipop shine, generations of critics have either mocked or (much more often) ignored the group. This is a shame, because Harpers Bizarre was clearly one of the most dryly witty and subtly subversive groups of the late '60s. Cynicism and sarcasm drip from all of Harpers Bizarre's records. Templeman and singing partner Dick Scoppettone were hip enough to undercut their choirboy harmonies with a brattiness that they termed -- three full decades before this became a teen buzzword -- "whatever." This is particularly evident on the several songs penned by Waronker's childhood pal Randy Newman; these are the definitive versions of "Happyland," "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear," "The Debutantes Ball," and especially the virginity-loss fantasy "The Biggest Night of Her Life," due to the keen double meanings implicit in the drop-dead vocal readings.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,6 and 12)

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