ARCHIE'S ALBUM COVER GALLERY: The BUENA VISTA Era, Part ONE
ARCHIE'S ALBUM
COVER GALLERY
THE BUENA VISTA ERA
ARCHIE'S CHRISTMAS ALBUM (reissue)
ARCHIE FOREVER! STONE ARCHIE
SO MUCH LOVE! THE ARCHIES SING GOFFIN + KING
BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY: THE SAVAGE YOUNG ARCHIES
(reissue)
If you're familiar with the "Pop Archie Bundle", the alternate cartoon universe we've created here @ Pop Culture Cantina, you know all about Archie Records. In the year 2000, this (totally!! imaginary!!!) indie label was founded by Archie Andrews, his wife Veronica and their business partner, Alan Mayberry. After it became one of the most successful indies ever, they sold the label to media mogul Jason Blossom. His Republic conglomerate will control the Archie Records catalog until 2059, when an India-based firm called Vox Sound + Image buys up Republic and discontinues its imprint.
Ten years later, Vox will launch a reissue campaign that confirms the undiminished commerciality of Archies music: "Archiemania" (popularly known as "Archie-f*cking-Mania"!) will last into the early 2080s and place the band among the world's top-selling catalog artists. One of the most successful Vox compilations will be an Australian two-record set called Soul Deep. Released in 2091, it tops Billboard's catalog albums chart over a decade after Archiemania has supposedly died down! Those impressive sales figures attract the attention of the mighty Walt Disney Company.
VOX SOUND + IMAGE
ORIGINAL ARCHIE RECORDS MASTERS
SOUL DEEP
The Archies
2091
Disney becomes the distributor for Vox in 2110. Four years later, it begins manufacturing Vox product, too. That same year, 2114, Vox belatedly markets an ABBA tribute album that The Archies recorded in Germany a century earlier. When ABBA-Normality becomes a posthumous blockbuster, the writing's on the wall: It's just a matter of time until Disney moves to acquire full control of Vox. Due to federal anti-trust concerns, it will take another decade to finalize the sale; but in 2124, The Archies' catalog officially becomes Disney property! In time, the conglomerate will reissue most of Vox's Archie titles under its own imprint, Buena Vista Media. Those reissues will include both the ABBA-Normality album and the Soul Deep compilation; but first, BVM will market several new Archie Records compilations of its own.
Pop Culture Cantina's 2020 graphic novel "God Bless Rock 'n' Roll" told of how The Archies will disband after their final world tour in the year 2033. After disbanding, they'll establish a firm called Archies Incorporated to control the marketing of Archies images and music. It will be their golden legacy, growing into a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Vox Sound + Image will have coordinated all of its releases with "Archie Ink" but initially, Disney will choose to not seek the firm's input. This inevitably leads to conflict down the road!
The Disney reissue of Archie's Christmas Album includes that remix as a bonus track. Also included are "Archie, Baby, Please Come Home" and "The Coldest Night Of The Year", both sides of a 2007 single issued on the Archie Fan Club label. Because of these additions, Disney will briefly consider calling the package Archie's Greatest Christmas Hits. Naturally, it will be pressed on green vinyl and mastered in the new quadrophonic stereo; but what distinguishes this version of the album most is new cover art. The handsome trio portrait of Archie, Veronica and Betty was taken when The Archies guest-starred on "Christmas Cocktails", a 2011 cable TV special.
BUENA VISTA MEDIA
AN ORIGINAL ARCHIE RECORDS MASTER
ARCHIE'S CHRISTMAS ALBUM
featuring BETTY and VERONICA
The Archies
2125
Buena Vista Media's second Archies release will be Archie Forever! This is a handsomely-packaged, quad-stereo-remastered, ultra-long-playing double vinyl set, bulging with 50 selections from the Archie Records catalog. It falls short of being hailed the ultimate Archies compilation only because it omits the original "Sugar, Sugar" and hit singles marketed by Republic USA and Vox Sound + Image.
BUENA VISTA MEDIA
ORIGINAL ARCHIE RECORDS MASTERS
ARCHIE FOREVER!
The Archies
2125
Disney won't immediately address the dearth of early Archies material. Instead, the company fills a gap in the band's catalog that has existed since the 2090s. Vox will have reissued every studio album except for Archies Get Stoned, their controversial 2003 tribute to The Rolling Stones. That's because in 2091, the album master is deliberately destroyed by a crazed Stones fan working as a tape librarian! No session tapes exist (rarely did The Archies keep any) so the only option for reissue is dubbing new masters from second generation sources. Archies, Incorporated will have aggressively discouraged that course of action, so this rarest of rarities stays off the market for a long time.
However, the same year Disney buys Vox, song demos for the album are found among the effects of the late Alan Mayberry, sound engineer for The Archies as well as co-owner of the Archie label. Rock historians are ecstatic to learn that these demos were produced by none other than Mick Jagger! After Disney buys them up and compiles them into another deluxe vinyl set, Stone Archie becomes the biggest-selling catalog release of 2126! The collection includes seven songs that The Archies never released in any form.
ARCHIE RECORDS/BUENA VISTA MEDIA
STONE ARCHIE:
THE MICK JAGGER SESSIONS
The Archies
Music Directed by
MICK JAGGER
2126
After releasing what will be the most talked-about catalog album of the 2120s, Disney hopes to score another coup . . . or two! Since the mid-2010s, a bootleg Archies album will have been in circulation; it dates back to 2001, when the no-longer teenage band was preparing to launch its comeback. Archie and Veronica hired singer/songwriter Carole King to produce an album full of songs drawn from her Sixties catalogue (all co-written with her former husband, lyricist Gerry Goffin). The project fell through, but not before King had cut two-dozen demos with various Archies (including honorary member Kevin Keller) on lead vocals. BTW, it was Carole King who first recognized that the group had five lead singers!
One of the King demos, "You're A Sweet Sweetheart", got overdubbed in 2002. The plan was to release the song on an EP, but it later turned up as the flipside of "Soul Deep Ska", a big hit for the adult Archies. The other demos gathered dust in Archie Records' tape vault until 2015, when Jason Blossom entered the picture. His purchase of the indie label led to a legal standoff with The Archies: They refused to cut new masters for him. Out of sheer spite, the vindictive tycoon secretly bootlegged their Carole King sessions!
By the year 2030, Jason Blossom will have suffered an untimely demise, clearing the way for Alexandra Cabot to take control of his business interests. Alan Mayberry (who happens to be Cabot's ex-husband) convinces her to market the demos of Goffin-King songs in a vinyl two-record set. Unfortunately by then they'll be lost, so the compilation is created from copies that Alan M made for his personal archives; despite his superior mixing skills, there's a noticeable decrease in sound fidelity. To everyone's disappointment, The Goffin-King Demos fails to chart! Archies fans seem to prefer the bootleg, which of course Jason mastered from original source material.
Fast forward to the year 2127, when Buena Vista Media decides to give the aborted Carole King project a proper album release. From Vox they acquire Alan M's legal dub master but are surprised to find a second tape along with it. In a box labeled "SO MUCH LOVE" and dated January 2030, Disney archivists will discover a previously-unknown overdub master. The mixes are radically different, and the sound quality is stunning; nobody can figure out why Vox never released it!
Only later in the decade, when they begin collaborating with Archie's youngest son Elijah, will the archivists acquire enough information to piece together a backstory. "When Archie and Veronica signed off on a legitimate release of what was then called The Archies + Kevin Keller Sing Carole King," he tells them, "they decided to overdub the master and produce a legitimate album for the very first time. This happened at the same Republic-funded sessions that yielded the chart-topping Archies cover of 'San Francisco (Flowers In Your Hair)'." For some reason, those dates weren't logged at the time; Elijah got the details from Betty Cooper's diary, pages of which her son Montana Jones allowed him to read.
Alexandra Cabot ultimately decided to release Alan M's underdub instead, arguing that it had more historical and commercial value. This decision angered The Archies, and factored into why they cut their farewell album for Discos Fuentes instead of Republic! Xandie shelved the Goffin-King album master, but promised to release it later; however, when she stepped down as CEO in the year 2034, it ceased to be a priority and fell through the cracks. Vox acquired Republic in the year 2059 and finally got around to reissuing the collection in 2096. Their catalog A & R staff used the underdub and apparently didn't bother to examine what remained in the tape file. It was left for Disney to give So Much Love a proper fanfare-laden release, nearly six decades later! They got a critically-acclaimed best-seller for their diligence.
BUENA VISTA MEDIA
SO MUCH LOVE!
THE ARCHIES SING GOFFIN + KING
2127
The belated album will prove to be a stellar showcase for the talents of former spouses Jughead and Betty! Eight of their vocal tracks are new; while the original takes were exceptional, the retakes are superb! Juggy's interpretive skills will have sharpened with age: His flawless phrasing pours over the title track, the hard-rocking "What You Got" and the Gospel-drenched "I Can't Make It Alone" like fine wine. Betty's blueswoman stylings never fail to dazzle, especially on "I Can't Hear You No More," "I Was Only Kidding", "Don't Forget About Me" and the ballad that will win the most album airplay, "No Easy Way Down."
On both demos and overdubs, Kevin Keller mostly stays in the background but singing in tandem with Juggy, his strong harmonies always stand out! Reggie Mantle will choose not to take part in the overdub sessions, but his original renditions of "One Fine Day" and "Stage Door" leave no doubt about his tremendous potential as a singer, yet to be realized back in 2001. Archie and Veronica anchor the album with typically surefooted performances; two of Roni's songs are retakes. Carole King's great-grandchildren will single out her supple soprano vocals for effusive praise!
Inexplicably, Disney's marketing department chooses to promote So Much Love as if it were the still-popular pirate version, originally released in 2025! Even the production credits make this false claim, although anybody who'd listened to that bootleg can easily tell it isn't the same recording. As you'd imagine, Elijah Baumgartner Andrews will be none too happy with this promotional fabrication! Such chicanery will end when he takes a more active role in how Disney markets his father's musical legacy.
Believe What You Say will be scheduled as a follow-up to So Much Love. This is a repackaging of The Savage Young Archies, a limited-edition Archies Fan Club LP that featured early live recordings of the band. At the time (1988), they were still a trio of college boys consisting of Archie Andrews, Juggy Jones and Reginald "Gino" Mantle. The exciting live selections range from Rockabilly to Punk to Reggae and R + B. Though much anticipated by collectors, the reissue will be put on hold because of a misplaced master tape! That master will be located in 2147, and Believe What You Say will hit the market later that year.
LIVE RECORDINGS
BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY:
THE SAVAGE YOUNG ARCHIES
Music Directed by
DILTON DOILEY BRISEÑO
2147
A MARVELOUS LIE PRODUCTION
Text by HAMPTON JACOBS
Art by STUFFED ANIMAL
A homeless artist born 24 June 1960
Styling by LIZ TINSLEY
Fashion by JULIE FAZIO, DONATELLA GRANITO and
TANYA HYDE for HENRIETTA la del BARRIO
