VA - Honey Honey: The Sound of Bubblegum Pop [3CD Box Set] (2012)

Sony Music TV UK's 2012 compilation Honey Honey: The Sound of Bubblegum Pop is an excellent budget-price collection of fizzy pop hits from the late '60s and early '70s. Most of these are what's conventionally known as bubblegum -- the bright soundtrack of AM radio, often sung by Tony Burrows -- but the comp expands just a bit so it encompasses early harbingers of bubblegum like the Monkees and the Four Seasons, girl group superstars the Ronettes and the Supremes, international superstars like ABBA, and glam stompers from T. Rex and Sweet. This wide net means Honey Honey winds up sounding more like the radio of the '70s than most of these comps: it's got one-hit wonders next to the titans, a bunch of classics surrounded by glorious trash, and it's a lot of fun because of that.