Sparkling Sounds: Various Artists - Music For Pleasure 1974

"Sparkling sounds, just the way you want to hear them"? Well I'll be the judge of that thank you very much, but before we actually get to those 'sparkling sounds' I should report that, try as I might, I've not been able to find any information about the Babycham tie-in to this. On the face of it, the whole album looks geared toward advertising the stuff, but I don't know if this was a promotional record that you had to send off for after collecting so many bottle tops or if you could walk into a shop and buy it off the shelf. The alcohol link makes the latter unlikely, but this came out in 1974 and I was buying sweets in the form of cigarettes back then so who knows? 

One thing I do know is that, on playing this for the first time, I was surprised to find that the tracks are all vocal versions. From the soft focus cover shot and back cover blurb, I was expecting some swishy string instrumentals tailor made to soundtrack some 'Abigail's Party' type of tacky, middle class gathering of aspiration, but not a bit of it; these are all 'proper' vocal versions. But whilst these are straight covers and as competent as they need to be (with nobody really trying to mimic the original artists), rather than the promised  'sparkling' sounds, the end results here are as flat and lifeless as if they'd been recorded underwater. Nobody is giving it too much welly or enthusiasm anyway, and as a case in point, rather than sashaying from the speakers like the urtext of 'Dancing Queen' the original was, 'Rock Your Baby' here has the stiffness of a week old corpse. 

That's ok I suppose, as long as nobody is singing for their supper then we probably shouldn't expect all that much from what might be a 'free' album anyway, but that track list is a rhyme and reason free mix of number one singles and more obscure songs (for example, 'Beautiful Sunday' was a number 27 'hit' for Daniel Boone in 1972) trawled up across a six year time frame from UK singles charts. Which leads me to think that these are perhaps random offcuts from different projects that were swept up and pressed into service for the Babycham cause rather than a fresh set of tracks recorded to order.
 
Maybe. It scarcely matters though; best to let 'Sparkling Sounds' keep it's element of mystery, it's about the only thing it's got going for it after all and I doubt getting the Scooby gang to clear it up would make it any more interesting. It's fair to say it's a pretty pointless and insipid release all round really, and far from 'basic ingredients for every good party', drinking Babycham while this burbles away in the background would be more like visiting a circle of hell straight from Dante. One of the lower ones.