The Atrocious Music Collection: #16 in a series
Artist: The DeFranco Family, featuring Tony DeFranco (~1973-1977)
Song Title: Heartbeat, It’s a Lovebeat
Categories: Family Bands, Child Performers
Year: 1973
Cover art style: 70’s TV Show
Audio sample: Heartbeat, It's a Lovebeat
Acquisition: cassette recording made from radio
The Jackson 5 and The Osmonds gave rise to both the family-band and childhood stardom for their youngest members, namely Michael J. and Donny O. (Janet and Marie notwithstanding). If success breeds imitation (and it does), it stands to reason others would attempt the plow the same path. If there’s one lesson about trends, however, it is “You gotta get there early,” because all fads run their course, and usually run it quickly.
By the time of Heartbeat, It’s a Lovebeat, the one major hit for the DeFranco Family (Featuring Tony DeFranco!), the train-to-fame for family bands with a too-young lead singer had left the station. This was 1973, three years after it was a TV concept, with The Partridge Family, a sure sign the peak has come and gone.
As the Jackson’s were famously from almost-Chicago (Gary, IN) and the Osmonds from somewhere in Mormanland, the DeFranco’s came out of less definable Port Colborne, Ontario, not far from Niagara Falls, a town famously lacking a clear culture of any kind. This may have been the first issue, no offense to those from Port Colborne intended.
The typical five siblings-per-group rule-of-the-day holds true for the DeFranco family. Tony, the youngest at 13 when Heartbeat was recorded, was the lead singer and the group’s ready-made Tiger Beat heartthrob-in-waiting.
Let’s note Michael Jackson’s extraordinary feat of hitting it big with I Want You Back at 11; heck, by 13 he had a solo hit, so he was just totally ahead of the curve. We need to also note Donny was an ancient 15 when Puppy Love was released, but let’s also acknowledge the subject matter for that hit is specifically geared to a 15 year-old in a way Heartbeat isn’t - to wit:
I get a feelin' through and through,
Tellin' me that love is comin' on.
None of these acts were writing their own material, so Tony can be excused. If there is blame, it lies elsewhere.
It is easy to laugh at this barely-there, cotton-candy, melts-in-your-mouth pure-pop song. Let’s keep in mind, though, that it hit #3 and made some people a lot of money. There’s no indication the DeFranco kids were pushed into this, and they got their opportunity fair-and-square, even if it was all based on someone’s scheme to cash in on this whole "family quintet" thing before it ran its course.
Look, what I'm trying to say is that it’s not a bad song for what it is, but it was engineered to make money. It is both excessively catchy and immediately forgettable. I would say it was the MMMBop of the early 70’s, but the Hanson brothers wrote that one themselves. Listening to Heartbeat now, it reminds me most of something written for a fictional TV-show band... like, the Partridge Family. But for Cassidy & Company, this would have been a B-side at best.
P.S. Speaking of B-sides, the collection also includes Heartbeat's B-side Sweet, Sweet Loretta. Enjoy.
