I probably listen to more of this stuff than a roomful of gay guys.
One Kiss Leads to Another is probably the ultimate multi-disc girl group statement.
For Britain, give Pye Girls are Go and Let's Go! Joe Meek's Girls a try, the latter featuring England's answer to Egyptian Shumba (posted on t'other forum), Dumb Head. Love that space bass. My favourite Limey Girl Group, though, are the utterly dreamy Caravelles. If you can find a version of the You Don't Have To Be a Baby to Cry comp with added tracks you'll see what I mean. Here's the title track.
Been getting into a couple of great Polish Girl Groups lately. If you can find anything by Alibabki and Filipinki, they add an ineffable Polish brassy folk quality to all the bubblegum.
Oh one really cool group who merged trad Girl Group sounds with a Renaissancey folk style were The Cake. One of their members had crippling epilepsy, so in the dance routines she'd just stand there all catatonic while the other two danced around her. Let me find one of those bizarre clips... You Can Have Him. I have their first two albums and just sequenced out the boring brassy rnb belters and kept in the baroque folk and pop trax.
There are those Girls With Guitars comps which are slightly more rockified.
A perfect LP is The Paris Sisters Sing Everything Under the Sun produced by Jack Nitzche (who hated them, I think. I remember reading a long story that involved something to do with a sticker put on his shiny new car). The best songs were the ones written by the Paris Sisters themselves.
Comps of the Shirelles, Marcie Blane, Ronettes, The Cookies, Chordettes etc. wouldn't hurt.
DEFINITELY get into Ye-Ye. It's one of my favourite things in the world. Can't get enough of it. The France Gall comp Poupee De Cire is bubblegummy perfection, but there were so many other catchy nymphs with psychedelic kazoo guitars, too. Christine Delaroche, Chantal Kelly, Adele, Sylvie Vartan, that girl who was in the Godard film, uh, Chantal Goya. Clothilde might be my favourite. She has about 8 or 9 perfect pop songs.
Um, there are a bunch of Thai Girl Group comps out there, particularly the Thai Pop Spectacular comps. Recently got an even bubblegummier Asian GG comp called Singapore a Go Go. Nippon Girls is a great one covering the Japanese scene. For Spain there's a bunch of good ones called things like Chicas Ye-Ye. I don't know, I might leave it there, as almost every country has a bubblegummy girl group comp or five to their name.
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