This week we’re gabbing about the 1961 classic, “There’s No Other Like My Baby.” The original version by the Crystals is the first on our dance card (@1:22), so do like us & let Barbara Alston and those other Brooklyn gals in prom dresses lead you into the ballroom of great 1960s music, with soaring singing and Phil Spector’s swelling strings starting things off soft & somber (& keep your ears pricked for a particularly hot take around 33 minutes in!). Four years later, we go to a Beach Boys party to hear their hootenanny-ish take, and while it’s stripped down, they still hit the heights with those jim-dandy harmonies (53:04). No one would expect a cult folk-psych band to chime in, but that’s exactly what Pearls Before Swine did at a live show in 1971 (1:27:26). We dig their cocktail party version and discuss the line between sincerity and sacrilege, and conclude that no one can put a dent in the song’s essential gravitas. Finally, no one wants the party to end, so Pastronauts get a gratuity with the Velvet Pond’s version, which includes some fabulous flugelhorn (1:55:14).
