B-side "Melody Hill" Recorded 1969 | Format 7" Length 2:48 | |
 | ||
Released May 24, 1969 (Calendar label); Re-released July 1969 (Kirshner label) Label Calendar, Kirshner, RCA | ||
"Sugar, Sugar" is a song written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim. It was originally recorded by the Archies, a band formed by a group of fictional teenagers in the television cartoon series The Archie Show. It reached number one in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1969 and stayed there for four weeks. It was also number one on the UK Singles chart in that same year for eight weeks. The song became a hit again in 1970 when rhythm and blues and soul singer Wilson Pickett took it back onto the charts.
Contents
Background
"Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies was produced by Jeff Barry, and the song was originally released on the album Everything's Archie. The album is the product of a group of studio musicians managed by Don Kirshner. Ron Dante's lead vocals were accompanied by those of Toni Wine (who sang the line "I'm gonna make your life so sweet"), and Andy Kim. Together they provided the voices of the Archies using multitracking.
The song was initially released in late May 1969, on the Calendar label (the same label as the two previous Archies singles), achieving moderate chart success in the early summer in some radio markets, and was re-released mid-July 1969, on the Kirshner label, whereby it then attained massive success nationwide by late summer/early fall.
Upon its initial release, Kirshner had promotion men play it for radio station execs without telling them the name of the group (due to the disappointing chart performance of the Archies' previous single, "Feelin' So Good (S.k.o.o.b.y-D.o.o.)", which only went to number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts). Only after most of the DJs liked the song were they told that it was performed by a cartoon group. The Archies' hit wound up as one of the biggest (and most unexpected) number-one hits of the year, one of the biggest bubblegum hits of all time, in America thanks partly to association with the hit CBS-TV Saturday morning cartoon series.
"Sugar, Sugar" is also considered to be the most produced recording ever after the breakfast cereal company Post Cereal placed millions of the records on the back of their Super Sugar Crisp cereal boxes.
In 2014, "Sugar, Sugar" was used in the documentary Fed Up during a montage demonstrating the correlation between the large quantities of sugar in processed foods and obesity in the United States.
The song is said to have been earlier offered to The Monkees, although songwriter Jeff Barry denies this. Don Kirshner has said that Mike Nesmith put his fist through the wall of the Beverly Hills Hotel refusing to do "Sugar, Sugar". However, the fist incident took place in early 1967, whereas "Sugar, Sugar" was written in early 1969. Monkees archival expert Andrew Sandoval has suggested that the band may instead actually have been offered a tune called "Sugar Man", but with the passage of time the parties involved simply mis-remembered it as being "Sugar, Sugar", in large part because it made a better anecdote. Peter Tork claimed in an interview that the band was offered the song "Sugar, Sugar", despite Jeff Barry's denial of this.
Reception
The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" was the 1969 number-one single of the year. A week after topping the RPM 100 national singles chart in Canada on September 13, 1969 (where it spent three weeks), it went on to spend four weeks at the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 from September 20 and eight weeks at the top of the UK singles chart. In total, it spent 22 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100. The song lists at number 78 on Billboard's Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Singles. It also peaked at one in the South African Singles Chart. On February 5, 2006, "Sugar, Sugar" was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, as co-writer Andy Kim is originally from Montreal, Quebec.
In the United States, "Sugar, Sugar" was classified by the RIAA as a gold record in August 1969, meaning it sold 1 million units (the gold threshold was later lowered to 500,000). The single also topped the 1969 Billboard Year-End chart. "Sugar, Sugar" is listed as the 78th top hit of all-time in Billboards all-time singles chart.
Although official music recording sales certifications were not introduced in the United Kingdom until the British Phonographic Industry was formed in 1973, Disc introduced an initiative in 1959 to present a gold record to singles that sold over one million units. The awards relied on record companies correctly compiling and supplying sales information, and "Sugar, Sugar" was erroneously awarded a gold disc in January 1970 having sold approximately 945,000 copies; the RCA informed Disc that one million copies had been shipped, however not all were sold. Nevertheless, following the introduction of music downloads in 2004, "Sugar, Sugar" passed the one-million sales mark.
Personnel
The studio musicians on the Archies song are:
Background
In 1970, American singer Wilson Pickett recorded a cover version of "Sugar, Sugar" in his Criteria Studios sessions. Pickett's rendition of the song was produced by Dave Crawford, Jerry Wexler, Rick Hall, and Tom Dowd. The track was released by Atlantic Records as the second single from his tenth studio album Right On.
Reception
Wilson Pickett's cover of "Sugar, Sugar" peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also reached number 4 on the R&B chart. The parent album Right On reached number 197 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. The Wilson Pickett recording of "Sugar, Sugar" was later used in the 1997 film The Ice Storm.
Personnel
Other versions
Sampling
Other appearances
The song has frequently been used in films and other television shows including Highway 61, Heaven & Earth, Now and Then, Thieves, A Very Brady Sequel, Sorority Boys, The Magic Roundabout, Bee Movie, The Campaign, The Ghost Busters, Takin' Over the Asylum, Where The Heart Is, From the Earth to the Moon, Lukas, Keen Eddie, Cake Boss, Free Agents, Being Erica, Waterloo Road, Loose Women, and Orphan Black.