{"id":27609,"date":"2024-06-04T05:30:32","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T09:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27609"},"modified":"2026-06-24T07:46:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:46:02","slug":"album-review-little-girls-valley-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/04\/album-review-little-girls-valley-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Little Girls — Valley Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Pop music never ceases to amaze. If one looks past the mega-hits \u2013 and then looks even farther afield beyond the commercial near-misses — there remains a cornucopia of overlooked music deserving of praise. So it is with Little Girls, a Los Angeles group of the late \u201870s and early 1980s. Fronted by sisters Caron and Michele Maso, the band synthesized everything from power pop to classic girl group pop to sneering punk. But Little Girls never broke through to the big (or even medium) time, and the band never even gigged beyond L.A. Worse yet, Little Girls (so named for their diminutive stature, not their age) would be and remain tagged with the epithet \u201cnovelty band.\u201d Even their brief Wikipedia entry opens with that assertion. They deserved better.<\/p>\n

Enter Playback Records. The UK-based label has seen fit to curate Valley Songs<\/i>, a 26-song compilation that brings together the band\u2019s EP, assorted demos and relevant latter-day recordings. Valley <\/i>Songs<\/i> is delightful, the sort of album that spurs listeners to wonder aloud, \u201cWhy wasn\u2019t this band a hit?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Little Girls story is one filled with near-misses: they got play on MTV, their signature tune (\u201cEarthquake Song\u201d) was picked up for use as a dance number on American Bandstand<\/i>, and they were championed by Rodney Bingenheimer. But none of that added up to a record deal, so the band \u2013 the Caro Sisters and an assortment of players including mainstay guitarist Kip Brown \u2013 never made the leap to the majors. (By the way, John Borack\u2019s superb and economical liner note essay distills their saga into a tidy yet thorough summation.)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a chirpy, only slightly sassy quality to Caron and Michele\u2019s twin\/lead\/harmony vocals. Comparisons to The Waitresses are inevitable on tracks like \u201cHow to Pick up Girls,\u201d but Little Girls had their own distinct identity. The band was taut, sharp and economical, providing a musical backing to the sisters\u2019 suburban-gal vocal mien.<\/p>\n

Their cover of the DC5\u2019s \u201cAny Way You Want It\u201d kicks off with an arrangement that suggest how Brill Building-era pop girl group might have tackled it (had it, y\u2019know, been written then), but then it kicks into gear and sounds more like The Go-Go\u2019s. Nicely done. The band originals are of-the-time yet sturdy pop tunes that showcase the Maso sisters\u2019 assets.<\/p>\n

Anyone attempting to lay hands on any of Little Girls\u2019 music in the years before 2008 would have faced a daunting challenge. Their 1983 Thank Heaven<\/i> EP (co-produced and arranged by the legendary Ed Stasium) was easily found, but the bounty of other material was nigh on impossible to locate. In the years since, the Maso sisters have put together and released a couple of compilations featuring \u201880s and later recordings. But this new set from Playback has been assembled with higher standards all around. Filled with color photos, Borack\u2019s liner notes and track-by-track details, the booklet is first rate. And the overall packaging has a level of polish and professionalism that befits the contents within.<\/p>\n

Anyone with an ear sympathetic to new wave-leaning \u201880s pop will delight in these songs. Take a trip back to the \u201880s with Little Girls. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pop music never ceases to amaze. If one looks past the mega-hits \u2013 and then looks even farther afield beyond the commercial near-misses — there remains a cornucopia of overlooked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,49,50,51,65],"tags":[5431],"class_list":["post-27609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-new-wave","category-pop","category-review","tag-little-girls","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-50-id","cat-51-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31744,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609\/revisions\/31744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}