Andy Kim Reviewed
Andy Kim
How’d We Ever Get This Way/Rainbow Ride
Baby I Love You/Andy Kim
(Collector’s Choice)
Like all too many characters in this theater we call rock, Andy Kim’s biggest commercial achievement (co-writing The Archies’ “Sugar Sugar”) failed to make him a household name. Though it’s not like he didn’t get to party.
Generously reissuing four of Kim’s five albums under his own name — he bizarrely resurfaced for two as Baron Longfellow in the ’80s — Collector’s Choice looks to restore one of the most powerful forces of Brill Building birth. His biggest hits (“How’d We Ever Get This Way,” “Baby I Love You,” “So Good Together”) are easily contained in this 45-song source, something that nestles comfortably alongside The Monkees, Neil Diamond, The Association, and Tommy Roe. Some of Kim’s super harmonies are deadringers for The Byrds, even if his subject matter — baby, I fuckin’ love you — never wavered.
How’d We Ever Get This Way/Rainbow Ride: 7
Baby I Love You/Andy Kim: 8
— Steve Forstneger
