About this Playlist
Mod. Fun. Hedonistic. These are just a few of the words people use to describe the Swinging Sixties. They’re also words I’m keeping in mind while curating What the Frug!
To give fair warning, this is an atypical Swinging Sixties playlist. I won’t say it’s unconventional, though. Many of the tracks on this playlist fit perfectly into the Swinging London scene. However, I’m adding a greater international flavor and mixing in a big splash of modern bands and music genres, too.
This playlist is inspired, at least in part, by my formative years. While I wasn’t exactly born when London swung into 1965, I grew up on a steady diet of variety and sketch shows like “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in,” Beatles and Godzilla movie reruns on TV, and age-inappropriate cinema adventures like “Barbarella.” My mother swears they advertised it as a children’s film.
My other influence (my main inspiration) for this groovy playlist is the Messer Chups 2020 album, “Lost Tracks.” Even before listening to it, I enthusiastically laughed over brilliant track titles like “Catherine Deneuve Gets Pricked by an Umbrella” — a play on French New Wave director Jacques Demy ’s 1964 Palme d’Or-winning film “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”
This is a fun project for me, although I’m not sure how much of the hedonistic I’ll be able to add. Nevertheless, What the Frug! is a playlist full of colorful movie tracks, retro songs for modern tastes, a touch of yéyé and tropicália-inspired music and plenty of vintage tunes from Swinging London, Europe, the Americas, and beyond.
