The Greatest Band Of All Time.

Teen Girl Heart: The Shangri-Las

Mary Weiss’ forehead has never, ever seen the light of the sun. I imagine a tanline in the form of a right triangle skirting from her right eyebrow to her left temple in a perfect (if somewhat sloping) right angle, framed by impossibly straight, blonde—actual blonde—hair resting on her barely discernable breasts. And despite a somewhat interchangeable cast of characters calling themselves “The Shangri-Las” (including those apish bookends the Ganser twins, and Elizabeth, the elder Weiss sister), there is nothing but Mary. Sweeping, immobile bangs angling her doed eyes, face rounded in a palpable naïveté—Mary was calamity’s little girl.

You know who The Shangri-Las are, right? They’re one of those faceless girl groups that were so popular in the ‘60s. Yeah, what was their song again? “Be My Baby”? “My Boyfriend’s Back”? Oh, right: that abhorrable “Leader of the Pack” song that you’ve become so accustom to ignoring. You know them. But as happens to so many other brilliant, brilliant singles played in endless rotation on marginal oldies stations, you’ve been stripped of the capacity to actually hear the Shangri-las, without the burden of pitch-shifted chipmunks in animated malt shoppe montages, right? What?

Anyway, back to the point: The Shangri-Las. The Greatest Band of All Time.

BACKGROUND:

Just barely seventeen years old, Mary Weiss (and the others, I suppose) met by chance her life’s opportunity in the form of a man named “Shadow.” An acquaintance of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, the Brill Building’s Midas couple, George “Shadow” Morton had grown somewhat envious of the duo’s empire, candidly boasting that he could write and produce a song that would easily rival their own. An associate of Morton’s suggested he record a four-piece from Queens who had released a bland single of his the year prior. Morton commissioned the group, The Shangri-Las, to record his sprawling “masterpiece”—a seven-minute opus called “Remember.” With the help of Greenwich and Barry, the song was paired down to become what is indisputably one of the greatest singles of the 1960s, the slightly less sprawling opus “Remember (Walking in the Sand).” This began a consistently profitable relationship between the group and the visionary Morton.

But again, we’re swaying from our focus here—that the Shangri-Las are clearly the Greatest Band of All Time. And more specifically, Mary Weiss is the greatest performer that has ever lived. Ever.

Sullen, self-assured, and defeated—all in a single syllable. Little Mary Weiss’ voice bled itself over a handful of the most soul-crushingly dark 45s to ever grace the top 40. Blessed with the megalomaniacal production of Morton, the Shangri-Las formula was a simple one: melodrama in monologue, hushed whispers, minor chords, and most importantly, death. A formula begun with the biggest hit of their career (and, incidentally, a song worthy of a second chance), “Leader of the Pack”—and peaking with the darkest of death discs, the ridiculous(ly beautiful) I Can Never Go Home Anymore. Sullen, self-assured, and defeated. Weiss’ voice trembling atop throaty, nursery rhymed coos—an incomparable snapshot of pure, untarnished despair made only the more absurd by its melodramatic context. Teen girl heart.

Not just the Rolling Stones to the Ronettes’ Beatles, the Shangri-Las were more that street tough bubblegum. They were so much creepier than that—something that only sounds more sinister through the annuls of time. A creepiness paid tribute by much of New York’s punk scene—see: the New York Dolls (whose David Johansen, incidentally, seemed to use the Cro-Magnon Ganser sisters as personal style models), Blondie, Sonic Youth, etc.—who even saw fit to spark an early ‘80s reunion at CBGB’s.

The moral of this story, though somewhat poorly illustrated, is that The Shangri-Las made what was the greatest music of the 1960s, bar-none. Eff a bunch of Beatles. Eff a bunch of Rolling Stones. The Shangri-Las are the greatest band of all time.

For more evidence, see Past, Present, Future, Shangri-Las’ last great single.

Posted by zac at May 5, 2004 04:17 PM