So why didn't they make it? Even in the 60s, the pop charts were hardly a meritocracy. As the calendar slipped through the Summer of Love and the Days of Rage, songs about flying kites and chewing gum and playing with Ouija boards just didn't resonate with the revolutionaries and their many wannabes. But that may be the very thing which makes them so appealing today--they were celebrating the inner child long before anybody had heard of John Bradshaw; likewise, with their period-piece album cover graphics and occasionally hippy-dippy lyrics, the group now has appeal to the "too cool for you" crowd as well.
(But to appreciate them ironically is to miss the point. While it's a gas, in 2004, to laugh at a song about a young couple who run away from adult supervision just to fly a kite (cue hipsters: "How effed-up is that?"), what makes it any different from any random emo song? And how many of today's "music keeps me from hurting people" songwriters are just redoing what Chris Dedrick did in 1972 with "Felt So Good:" The world in pain is more than I can deal with/but people one by one is a different thing/Songs are all I have to try to heal with/Thoughts of peace and love I’ll truly sing.)
The group's music has been anthologized twice, on Kites Are Fun: The Best of The Free Design and The Best of The Free Design, and either is a good place to begin if you're a fan of happy 60s pop or great harmony singing. Radical completists, though, will want all the original albums, which can still be found in used-record stores (if you're lucky) or on CD, either imported from Japan, or from the Light In The Attic label.
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