I Want Candy

The Monkees, perhaps, are the best example - or worst, depending upon your point of view - of a manufactured pop group who scored significant chart success. But The Strangeloves aren't that far behind. The Strangeloves were 3 guys from New York who said they were former sheep farmers from Australia. Their story went that they got rich over a new form of sheep crossbreeding and used their millions to start a rock group. Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, at the time succesfull record producers, adopted the monikers Giles, Miles and Niles Strange and a musical conceit was hatched.

The fictitious brothers ran into a bit of a problem in 1965 with the success of I Want Candy. It ranked so high on the charts the demand to tour as live artists forced them to send out the session musicians who performed in the studio. But they could lip-sync, as this clip demonstrates... Hey, in 1965 what did I know. I was 13 and I thought they were kinda cool.