The Best 50 Powerpop Albums according to RYM

Voted "Bellybutton". Pity about a lot of stuff that shouldn't really have been here at all.

a couple of very odd definitions of powerpop here. copper blue?

"Copper Blue" I can understand, as it has those very catchy tunes that are typical of the powerpop genres (although it is obviously primarily indie rock/pop).
But "Pinkerton" I find has little to do with powerpop at all. Same about "Third", which is probably only in the list because the first two Big Star albums were undeniably powerpop.

Went "Jesus of Cool", just because.

fronsting on the beater by several zillion miles

no Field Day? :^(

no fountains of wayne either

Not sure whether I'm supposed to vote for my favorite album on here ("I'm The Man") or my favorite that I would loosely consider powerpop ("Mass Romantic") or my favorite that's definitely powerpop ("Marshall Crenshaw" or maybe "Girlfriend").

nobody really cares, if that makes it any easier.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the first Cheap Trick is the best but my favourite is Runt

"Pity the first four on the list (and, in fact, most of the top 10) aren't really powerpop,"

Oh Geir.

Power pop's always been a weird, fucked-up pseudo genre. It's all the stuff that's too rockin' to just be pop, and too pop to just be rock.

Anyway, not sure what I'll vote for. Big Star, probably, though only one of their albums is really power pop. Or maybe that first Joe Jackson album. Or maybe I'll go for the Exploding Hearts, since they're probably not going to get a lot of other votes… Hmm. I could just listen to Cheap Trick's "Southern Girls" over and over forever…

"nobody really cares, if that makes it any easier."

almost

I'm going to vote for the Raspberries 1974 Starting Over. Oh wait. It's not on here. Screw this poll.

^^^seriously wtf

these RYM lists are terrible sorry Herman

oh wait Geir started this. I am not sorry!

dont bring me into it!

voted Posies narrowly over Jellyfish, Big Star, Squeeze, Brendan Benson, etc.

The Bongos - Drums Along the Hudson

No Superdrag, no credibility.

but seriously, the first Weezer album

Some strange choices here (how is Tim power pop?). Went with Jesus of Cool. Seeing Nick next week in fact!

Then tell him to hurry and reissue "Labour Of Lust". The quicker the better!

stumbled upon a few completely classic real powerpop records this year if you like Big Star you have to check out Meet the Scruffs and The Toms-s/t. and the best dB's record is Like This, fwiw. who cares

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

haha too many voted for "1 album i want to get a vote for" and another one runs away with it.

noone voted big star thinking everyone else would.
i voted for the posies. yay me.

jesus pee smelling christ

hahaha this is a joke right

i dunno, i remember being surprised at husker du's dominance in a couple polls in the past, maybe there's a silent majority of mould superfans on ILM

with a few exceptions that list looks like a list of Records Ian Is Least Likely To Listen To.

but yeah, copper blue is probably the best thing there.

The winner is an OK indie pop album, but pretty far from powerpop IMO. :)

stumbled upon a few completely classic real powerpop records this year if you like Big Star you have to check out Meet the Scruffs and The Toms-s/t. and the best dB's record is Like This, fwiw. who cares

― outdoor_miner, Friday, October 9, 2009 12:16 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not sure why/how I've been sleeping on the Toms. Good stuff!

Missed this...Would have voted for Black Vinyl Shoes by a mile, followed by Something/Anything? or Marshall Crenshaw (even though Field Day's better). And the Only Ones' "Another Girl, Another Planet" is my single favourite song on the list.

I just took a look at this for kicks. Let me just say:

SUGAR ? !? !?

Sorry, but that freekin FLOORED me! Above Jesus of Cool?!!? Above Black Vinyl Shoes?!!? Above ANY of the Big Star records?!!? Jellyfish? The Records, Dwight Twilley, The Who Sell Out(?!!?)...?

But Nooooo!!! It Sugar by a landslide... No disrespect to Sugar; they're a fine band and all. But... DAMN...

The Sugar album shouldn't have been in the list at all, blame the RYM users for defining it as powerpop (and ILM's non-powerpop loving members voting for it in this poll)

Sugar: Copper Blue 18
Big Star: Radio City 4

O_O

the Toms are one of my favourite power pop bands. I always liked their songs better than all the others on those yellow pills comps.

Would've voted for Heaven Tonight or Cheap Trick, and after that Look Sharp, though I never would have thought to call that one a powerpop LP -- even though it has way more power in its pop than most anything else on the list. (In fact, there are lots of albums here that I don't understand why they're here, and I can name scores of powerpop albums that should be here -- like, where the heck is Get The Knack? And if Joe Jackson counts, why not This Year's Model?) After Joe Jackson, I'd probably go for Jesus Of Cool even though I still think of it by its proper American title.

Runnersup: Beat, second Weezer, second Joe Jackson, Exploding Hearts, in some order or other. (Don't technically know those particular Badfinger or Only Ones or Flamin Groovies albums, though I bet they'd be in the running, too. Don't get why Sugar is on the list over say New Day Rising, and why earlier Replacements LPs aren't up there.)

Hell, really, they should've included Rick Springfield and 38 Special and Bryan Adams and Babys albums. (But it's not surprising they didn't.)

Don't get why Sugar is on the list over say New Day Rising

xhuxk OTM, as usual.

Yep - the 1st 3 Cheap Tricks, the Flamin Groovies Sire Recs releases, 20/20... I cry ballot box stuffing! LOL

Hell, really, they should've included Rick Springfield and 38 Special and Bryan Adams and Babys albums. (But it's not surprising they didn't.)

Agree about Rick Springfield, but not Bryan Adams. He is mainstream heartland rock, not powerpop.

Btw. Rick Springfield is defined as powerpop at RYM: http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/rick_springfield

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ok i just don't even understand what's going on hear wrt poll results

and i really really like Copper Blue

I think Rick Springfield may have left out the power.

hear here

xp Nope. For one thing, from the wimpy looks of that list, they were mostly trying to avoid powerpop with much power in it. Only bands up there that I'd say come closer than Springfield to, say, powerchorded Who-style hard rock would be Cheap Trick, the Groovies (though maybe not that album) and possibly Badfinger. (And his music has actually maybe even gained power as he's gotten older; witness his '00s albums, which have been discussed quite a bit on the Rolling Hard Rock threads.)

"They" meaning Rate Your Music raters, I guess; the list wasn't compiled by a committee, obviously.

Powerpop rarely contains power chords. Power chords = rock whereas powerpop is first and foremost a pop genre. The three big influences on the powerpop genre were Beatles, Beach Boys and Byrds, none of which "rocked" particularly much.

So, well, another genre who should have had another name, as the "power" is just as misleading as the "progressive" in "progressive rock".

I've got to basically agree with this, that "powerpop" is a misnomer. I don't see the Beach Boys as much of an influence, but the Beatles and Byrds are the beginning, definitely--and, to a certain extent, Buddy Holly and the Everlys. It's more of a feeling...which is hard to describe; it's kind of a shimmery, gossamer thing.

I've always heard the Who's "Substitute" as Ground Zero, but then my definition of the genre was shaped by bands that were being called powerpop in 1979 -- the Knack, the Records, Bram Tchaikovsky, the Pop, the Beat, Nick Lowe, 20/20, etc. And of course, like any genre, there's no right answer, and we've discussed the question many times before:

Powerpop: what is it, c or d, etc.

Bands in the "powerpop" chapter of the 1980 new wave guide I just bought for http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=46289 off a seemingly homeless guy set up on the sidewalk of St Marks

And as I probably say on those threads, I'll never understand how, say, Big Star (much less Jellyfish, ick) count but the Raspberries and Sweet and Bay City Rollers don't. Guess it depends when you learned the word.

Not to mention early Tom Petty, Dwight Twilley, all sorts of other folks. (Maybe the Cars, though I can see how they might be too techno.)

Can someone detail the differences between Pop and Powerpop and Rock please.

"Subsitute" makes for a perfect ground zero; I think it appeared at more or less the same time as the Beatles' "Eight Days a Week" (or "I Need You") and the Byrds' "She Don't Care About Time." Personally, I consider Big Star overrated, but when they got it right--"September Gurls," "The India Song," "Thirteen"--they were pretty awesome. I count the Sweet's "Fox on the Run" as first-tier powerpop, and "Rock and Roll Love Letter" as really good but a half-step down; I'm not as big on the Raspberries, but "Go All the Way" and "Overnight Sensation" are good singles. Where Xhuxk and I part company are a lot of the late-'70s bands, most of which just sound generic to me.

And where we really part company, if I'm remembering clemenza's tastes correctly, are a lot of the later (late '80s through '00s) college radio bands, most of which just sound like dead air to me. (Btw, I agree that some of those '79 new wave bands are generic -- not so much the Knack, but definitely say the Beat --but the best of them managed an energy and oomph that made like them regardless -- and that later people like Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet and New Pornographers and Sugar never touched, in songs I heard at least.)

Gotta correct myself on something I was way off on: "Eight Days a Week" was Dec. '64, "Substitute" March '66. So there's quite a gap between the two--15 months in the mid-'60s is like a lifetime. ("She Don't Care About Time" was Oct. '65.)

out of this list? I would've totally voted for Third. There's a lot of great albums on this list, whether or not they belong here...

I'll never understand how, say, Big Star (much less Jellyfish, ick) count but the Raspberries and Sweet and Bay City Rollers don't.

The thing with Sweet and Bay City Rollers may be that they were kind of corporate, i.e. not writing their own material. Plus Sweet are obviously glamrock while Bay City Rollers were just as obviously a boy band.

That said, the material Sweet did with Mack as a producer was often very powerpop-like.

@ brotherlovesdub: I'll try...

Pop: Catchy, hummable, danceable often lighthearted or gooey sentimental fare with hooks that grab ya. Doesn't generally "swing" too much. Frequently kinda lame, really. SHort for "popular."

Rock: That, you know, Loud stuff that tends to emphasize 2 & 4 in 4/4 time.

Powerpop: A subset of both Rock & Pop that is melodic and all that, but avoids straying into the realm of ersatz schmaltzy pop like, say, Englebert Humperdink or Anne Murray. Generally has a strong electric guitar foundation rather than whiny strings or orchestrations. Also, generally used to suggest a 'sound' rather than as short for "Popular" since many of its practitioners tend to lurk a bit more underground. This has been particularly true since groops like Badfinger fell off the charts. Tends to avoid Hallmark sentimentality, get more "real."

So, can I vague that up any more for ya? :-)

I dunno, I hear plenty of sentimentality and syrup in music that people (including me) call powerpop. And tons of pop music on the charts (good and bad) swings more. (In fact, I get the idea that, for some people, not concentrating too much on rhythm is almost a powerpop requirement.)

What I'm more curious about is how people distinguish "powerpop" from "hard pop" or "pop-rock" (if people even use those terms anymore.)

IMO, if the syrupy goo is there you've pretty much sucked out the Power aspect - but there are exceptions to ALL of the above of course ("Girl of My Dreams" by Bram Tchaikovsky for example). And this is not a judgemental thing. Occasionally nothing satisfies quite like a good tearjerker. Heck, I've been known to weep over "Strawberry Wine"!

Thanks for the attempt. Maybe an exercise where you say Song A = Pop, Song B = Rock, Song C = Powerpop would be more illuminating. That way we/I can listen to the 3 songs and make the distinction sonically.

My own definition of a perfect powerpop song would be Fudge's "Girlwish" from 1991. I heard it for the first time about a year or so ago, when I downloaded it from a site called I Wish I Was a Flexidisc. Give it a listen. If you love it as much as I do, our definitions are probably pretty close; if you consider it short on power, even "wimpy"--for me, boys getting all wistful and starry-eyed over girls is a template for power-pop, and if you want to call that wimpy, so be it--then your definition is different than mine. Or to put it another way: "Substitute" and "I Can't Reach You" and "Circles" by the Who are all sublime power-pop; the more they start upping the power-chord quotient, they move closer and closer to bare-chested Daltrey and the early-to-mid-70s Who.

(In fact, I get the idea that, for some people, not concentrating too much on rhythm is almost a powerpop requirement.)

Concentrating a lot on melody and harmony is definitely a powerpop requirement. If that, by your definition, means "not concentrating too much on rhythm", then you are perfectly right.

And btw. I am not able to distinguish much between powerpop and pop/rock. Unless AOR is also counted in the latter category.

A few extremely archetypical powerpop songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3t66Nrqteo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAH1ioLiaHw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7tkDZ58DEw

That is, jangly guitars with not too much fuzz/overdrive, a very "classic" melody built upon verse-bridge-chorus with lots of hooks. A bouncy singalong chorus and a lot of vocal harmonies.

I like all of those, btw, and agree that they're all undeniably powerpop. (In fact, "Starry Eyes," which I love, was the first archetype that came to mind for me.) Just don't think they're the only kind of powerpop; for a somewhat tougher variety, maybe listen to Cheap Trick's "Surrender" or the Knack's "My Sharona" or the Sweet's "Blockbuster" or the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night" or Urge Overkill's "Sister Havana" or 38 Special's "Caught Up In You." (Haven't listened to the song clemenza recommended yet, though I will try to.)

I always include Urge Overkill's beautiful "Back on Me" (same album) on power-pop CDs I make for friends.

And that's probably the most pressing issue of all: is it powerpop or power-pop?

Rick Springfield's "Love is Alright Tonight" (hell most of Working Class Dog) is a perfect example of "power-pop."

So where do "Orgasm Addict" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" fit in?

I like all of those, btw, and agree that they're all undeniably powerpop. (In fact, "Starry Eyes," which I love, was the first archetype that came to mind for me.) Just don't think they're the only kind of powerpop; for a somewhat tougher variety, maybe listen to Cheap Trick's "Surrender" or the Knack's "My Sharona" or the Sweet's "Blockbuster" or the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night" or Urge Overkill's "Sister Havana" or 38 Special's "Caught Up In You." (Haven't listened to the song clemenza recommended yet, though I will try to.)

On the other hand, I would say Jellyfish and Crowded House, and possibly even ELO (lots of powerpop fans absolutely love ELO) represent a less tough variety that is also undeniably powerpop.

Rick Springfield's "Love is Alright Tonight" (hell most of Working Class Dog) is a perfect example of "power-pop."

All of his 80s albums are great powerpop albums. I guess he was wrongfully seen as some kind of teenybopper because of his 70s material.

Yeah, see, stuff like Jellyfish and Crowded House is where I start not hearing at all what's so powerpop about it. Seems to me more like....art-pop. Or soft rock. Or indie rock. Or something.

CH and Split Enz are definitely neither "power-pop" nor powerpop: too many spongy keyboards and sludgy tempos.

Yeah, see, stuff like Jellyfish and Crowded House is where I start not hearing at all what's so powerpop about it. Seems to me more like....art-pop. Or soft rock. Or indie rock. Or something.

it's called crap

Well, it's at least called adult contemporary (or adult alternative?), maybe. And I say that as somebody who has come to not-hate "Don't Dream It's Over" over the years, btw. But if that counts as powerpop, then why not, I dunno, Heart's or Chicago's or Air Supply's or Phil Collins's '80s ballad hits? (So yeah, I deifnitely need to hear some power in there, somewhere.)

"Orgasm Addict" is just punk to me; it doesn't fit in with my conception of power-pop at all. Ditto "Smells Like Teen Spirit," even though I realize it borrows its key chord progression from "More Than a Feeling," which definitely is power-pop at the edge of...I don't know, something--it's power-pop, but it's more high-tech than most of my favourites. (It's a great song, I'm not taking anything away from it.) I've coined a different word for "Smells Like Teen Spirit": I call it "grunge." Rick Springfield's stuff I don't know at all, but I will say that "Jessie's Girl" in Boogie Nights might be the most self-reflexively great use of a pop song in any film ever.

Crowded House--ugh.

Well, what makes "Orgasm Addict" (or at least, say, "What Do I Get?" or "Why Can't I Touch It?" or "Homicide" by 999 or the first Generation X album or whatever) not just punk and "Teen Spirit" (or Local H's "Bound To The Floor," or maybe Stone Temple Pilots' "Big Bang Baby") not just grunge is how sweet and bouncy their melodies are. I mean, I'd say early Green Day were just as much powerpop as punk, too. And even though I mostly hate it, emo probably has a lot of powerpop in it, too. Songs are allowed to be in two genres at one time.

I'd say lots of teen-pop (by Avril or whoever) overlaps with powerpop by now, too. And even some Tom Petty/Bryan Adams/Springfield-influenced Nashville country (from Brad Paisley, Jack Ingram, Keith Urban, etc.)

Actually, Skye Sweetnam's debut LP from a couple years ago was totally a powerpop album, as much as Exploding Hearts' (which I also like a lot) was. (So's some hair metal: early Poison, for instance.)

Green Day is powerpop to the bone

I love Crowded House but it doesn't belong in this category.

Most of that punk and grunge stuff, I just don't hear it as power-pop. (I guess I could stretch my definition to possibly include something like "Walking Contradiction.") It's more of an intuitive feeling with me, which admittedly does not provide for a very cogent definition. (It's like that old I-know-pornography-when-I-see-it evasion.) But to start admitting anything and everything just by virtue of it having guitars and a melody--and I'll agree that most everything you mention is melodic--widens the net way too much. Recent teen-pop and '80s hair-metal, maybe...somewhat. Most of what I know, I just think it's kind of generic. Country I draw a blank.

I remember talking about this on another thread years ago. The chord progressions in "More Than a Feeling" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are actually different. The Boston one is all diatonic chords, but the Nirvana one has a bIII and a bVI. The bIII in particular is more of a blues chord.

So, it brings up the whole issue of the extent to which "power pop" is associated with diatonicism to the exclusion, really, of pentatonicism.

xp But you're not saying "generic" precludes it being "powerpop," are you? (I don't see how most teen-pop or most hair-metal {or most skinny-tie 1979 new wave, as you suggested upthread} are more generic than "most" of any other genre -- things are by definition generic to their own genre, after all, some some of every genre is generic -- but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there.) Anyway, there's lots of generic powerpop that I have no use for, sure. But that doesn't mean it's not still powerpop. (Uh, maybe I missed your point. And I'm also hardly saying everything with guitars and a melody is powerpop, either. Depends on the melody. And the guitars! And probably other stuff.)

I know for a fact that the Rubinoos were dangerously preoccupied with that very issue.

The chord progressions in "More Than a Feeling" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are actually different. T

yeah was gonna bring this up but so tired of pointing this out

You're right, Xhuxk, to be generic by definition locates you within that genre. (Duh.) I guess I meant that I focus on what I love when trying to define a genre, and that personally I don't pay much mind to what I don't.

And I say that as somebody who has come to not-hate "Don't Dream It's Over" over the years, btw. But if that counts as powerpop, then why not, I dunno, Heart's or Chicago's or Air Supply's or Phil Collins's '80s ballad hits?

Because Crowded House - like Paul McCartney before them - made highly sophisticated quality pop. Neil Finn usually uses more different chords in one song than David Foster has done in his entire career.

And it's not about anything having guitars and a melody. The melody has to be McCartneyesque, it has to have more than just the standard MOR corporate pop song.

xp For instance, the Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin and Yes and U2 and Radiohead and Counting Crows and Alice In Chains and R.E.M. definitely had guitars and melodies; few would argue otherwise. And I'd never claim they were remotely powerpop, I don't think. (Since they didn't have -- what? Guitars and melodies that seem to be in the tradition of Badfinger and the Raspberries and Rubinoos and Knack and Pezband and Blue Ash and "Substitute"? Yeah, something like that.)

is John Waite powerpop? I'd say so.

X-Post: I would say in the tradition of Beatles, Beach Boys and Byrds. Those three are the essence of all things powerpop.

And I know some people like Marshall Crenshaw have been very fixated on Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly too, but I would say that is a sidetrack. Sort of the influences of powerpop's influences.

the Beach Boys don't have anything to do with power pop really (they never had any power lol)

why do you have to ruin every thread

Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.

I'm sure this won't go over well, but, for me, John and George's best '65/'66 songs are much closer to my ideal of power-pop than Paul's.

Which is why I dislike the term. It should have been called Beatly-pop or something. "Powerpop" was just something Pete Townshend came up with to describe The Who. It fitted The Who, but never fitted what was to be named powerpop.

Alfred, I mentioned the Babys (who were definitely a powerpop band) upthread. I'd say Waite's solo career is more a mixed bag ("Missing You" maybe, "Change" definitely.) Bad English? Probably not. (Though not, uh, because they didn't make "highly sophisticated quality pop." Pretty sure they didn't, though.)

Oh, and poprock is actually a much better term. Except it isn't really rock either.

"Beatly-pop": let's all take a blood oath to never utter that word again.

Alfred, I mentioned the Babys (who were definitely a powerpop band) upthread. I'd say Waite's solo career is more a mixed bag ("Missing You" maybe, "Change" definitely.) Bad English? Probably not. (Though not, uh, because they didn't make "highly sophisticated quality pop." Pretty sure they didn't, though.)

What you are talking about is AOR. Which is an entirely different genre (more corporate, and also more rock oriented)

yes tell us all how corporations sound

Corporate=music that is constructed for the hitlists rather than coming from the heart of the songwriter. Usually written by professional songwriters and performed by acts unable to compose their own songs.

I'm guessing any one of us could dismantle that, but let's step aside and make way for Xhuxk!

that was not a serious request btw

xp

Oh for god's sake. Who cares?

Well, first of all, it's pointless discussing powerpop without making a distinction between powerpop and AOR. Because it may sound the same for people who are not into either. But it's two mutually exlusive genres containing absolutely none of the same acts (except for Cheap Trick who started out as powerpop and later became AOR)

how many times can I sb you

let's find out!

Uh, he didn't even answer the question. (And I'm into both.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWfYLrN5a08

A quick list of some of my favorite power-pop songs, as I understand the term--where I'm coming from, as Stevie Wonder might say:

1. "Girlwish," Fudge (1991)
2. "Not Me," Shoes (1977)
3. "Another Girl, Another Planet," Only Ones (1978)
4. "Mannequin," Wire (1978)
5. "Any Other Way," Posies (1990)
6. "Consider Me Gone," Jellystone Park (1991)
7. "Big Blue Bus," Stupid Cupids (1987)
8. "I'll Be There," Windbreakers (1985)
9. "Shake Some Action," Flamin' Groovies (1976)
10. "Southern Girls," Cheap Trick (1977)
11. "Oh, Grateful," James Dean Driving Experience (1987)
12. "Completely," Seaside (1991)

I've bypassed the '60s, because there's too much thinking involved if I don't.

Btw, realize I'm trying to reason with an nitwit (and in the words of one of these guys, the point is probably moot), but John Waite, Rick Springfield, Bryan Adams, and 38 Special did all regularly compose their own songs.

And--even though there's probably a touch too much (very fine) soloing--a big Spinal Tap shout-out to the most perversely unlikely great power-pop song I know: Wishbone Ash's "Blowin' Free" from '72.

5. "Any Other Way," Posies (1990)

this may be my 5th favorite song period

It's an amazing song. 1990 is the one year out of the last 40 I didn't pay much attention to music--I was at teacher's college--but if I had been, and if I'd somehow stumbled over it (unlikely--didn't catch up to it till five or so years ago), it would have topped my list for the year easy.

This a singles genre...but that said, aside from the Big Star albums, which are kind of in a universe by themselves, the best start-to-finish classic power pop album I can think of is Rockpile's Seconds of Pleasure. Phil Seymour's self-titled would be it were it not for the last two tracks. The '90s and '00s are another can of worms.

The whole premise of a really specific '60s foundation for power pop doesn't settle well with me. I was just looking at the Wikipedia article on power pop. Interestingly, there is no mention of the Byrds whatsoever. I kind of get the idea of forming a genre around Monkees/Beau Brummels/Knickerbockers/Easybeats/Outsiders. I'm just not sure 1) how relatively powerful these bands were, and 2) how relevant this lineage is to the development of power pop in the '70s. It's like these bands are being identified specifically because they were maybe somewhat innocuous and that's seen as a general power pop trait.

The thing is, the Raspberries were a powerful band. I think the term "power pop" is meaningful and see the Raspberries as a bigger genre archetype than Badfinger.

Do some people actually care about the Outsiders, uh, outside of "Time Won't Let Me"? I had no idea. Just finally got rid of the LP with that song on it a few days ago, becuase the rest seemed completely, well, generic -- some okay covers, some forgettable originals, nothing else that much ever grabbed me at all. (Just checked Whitburn; surprised to learn they actually had four Top 40 singles, all in 1966.)

I can definitely see the Monkees as frequently proto-powerpop, though, now that you've mentioned them. (And "Friday On My Mind," too.)

Beau Brummels ("Don't Talk to Strangers" and "When It Comes to Your Love") and the Monkees ("A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," "Take a Giant Step," and at least a couple others) fit into my definition, for sure. My head's starting to spin...with Beau Brummels we're at the intersection of power-pop and jangly, early psychedelia. "Jangle-pop" might in fact be a better description of at least half of what I listed above, except jangle-pop also leads you to a lot of mopey Smiths-like British stuff I don't care for. (I burned and filed an Outsiders singles compilation recently; outside of "Time Won't Let Me," nothing caught my ear at all.)

I think there's something extra-musical involved in the definition of power pop. Ironic distance? Low self-esteem? There's a beautiful loser aspect to it. Great power pop albums wind up in the cutout bin, where they develop cult reputations. That's why people are on the fence about Cheap Trick, John Waite, 38 Special, etc. Power pop wants to sound like it should have been a hit. Once it actually becomes a hit, it's something else. (Exceptions abound, of course -- "Go All the Way" etc.)

I'd never thought of that before...excellent. Maybe that help explains, in part, my attachment to the Shoes; they were a case study in shoulda-been, with lots of sad, lingering evidence in Goodwill dollar-bins everywhere. (I mean, not that much evidence--no one bought their albums!)

And by now there are definitely a heck of a lot more 38 Special and Rick Springfield LPs in Goodwill dollar bins than Shoes LPs!

Surprised to hear somebody pick that Rockpile LP as the great powerpop album over, say, the two Nick Lowe solo ones that preceded it. I used to have a copy; thought "Teacher Teacher" was passable, I guess. And now that I look at the track list, I guess I remember "If Sugar Was As Sweet As You." But that stuff always struck me as pretty compromised and just plain phoned-in compared to Labour Of Lust, Pure Pop, and a bunch of '70s Edmunds LPs. Maybe I'll revisit it sometime.

Btw, can I mention how great the first Cretones albums is? Okay, just did. Been talking about them a lot this year over at Rolling Hard Rock.

And speaking of current country powerpop, I thought "Truck Stop In The Sky" on the debut album by Flynville Train a couple years ago sounded a lot like Rockpile. (Listening to it now, I'm also thinking NRBQ is a reference point. They covered the Beatles' "Baby's In Black," too.)

"I'll tell ya right now -- it's gonna be bigger than the Paisley Pop Pop-A-Thon last year in Des Moines. And it's definitely gonna make January's Popadelphia Pop Nation fest look like Poptopia 2002. What a disaster that was, huh?"

There's a beautiful loser aspect to it.

Actually, I had thought of that...Here's something from my rejected 33-1/3 proposal for Black Vinyl Shoes five years ago:

"A story of prophets without honour. This is where Lost Highway comes in--much as Guralnick caught Charlie Rich still pursuing some semblance of a career years after his one brief flirtation with success, three-quarters of the group that made Black Vinyl Shoes was still at it in the early '90s, putting out new material on their own record label and reconfiguring older albums for CD release. Why? For whom? Pop music had passed them by a few dozen times in the intervening years, but they hadn't changed a bit."

Yeah, but all musical genres have their beautiful loser lifers who never stop plugging away, because they love it and they don't know anything else. Powerpop (and the Shoes) are hardly alone in that boat.

So Clemenza, what's your appraisal of Un Dans Versailles, the Shoes album before Black Vinyl Shoes? Or was that just a myth?

I own a rip of Un Dans Versailles, and it's really ahead of so many curves -- but still not overwhelming on first listen.

I just think there's something that especially resonates about a failed power-pop band, for the reason Thus Sang Freud pointed out: "Power pop wants to sound like it should have been a hit." I'm not sure that a band like the Shoes were quite so fatalistic about what they did, but I do think that a lot of the best power-pop was made by people who were pursuing what they thought was the perfect pop song, perhaps tracing back to their earliest memories of the Beatles or whatever, even though some part of themselves was resigned to the fact that it wasn't going to be received by AM radio and the rest of the world that way, for whatever reason. I don't think a failed metal band, or a failed indie band, would resonate in the same way. I admit to a pronounced bias.

I don't have Un Dans Versailles...I've read of it; not sure if it's out there or not. I do have Bazooka, demos (I think) that preceded Black Vinyl Shoes by a year--maybe they're one and the same. There are three songs on it I love, but knowing your general indifference towards the Shoes, I can't see that you'd find it any more rewarding than Black Vinyl Shoes.

Re: Rockpile sounding phoned in...I can hear that, there's something about the Edmunds and Lowe sound that just works for me. Jesus of Cool and Labour of Lust are accomplished albums but tracks like "They Called It Rock" are just as phoned-in as anything on Seconds of Pleasure and I can't get into the country songs on Labour.

As many of you have noted, the power pop archetype is the sad, lonely guy making really pretty music. (And maybe this is going too far, but the archetypal power pop FAN is a lonely guy who escapes into pretty music.) The fact that the power popper doesn't hit it big despite making something beautiful feeds into the loneliness and powerlessness and gives the music added punch. When the artist DOES hit it big, he turns into just another pop star and his likely one chart song into just another cheesy hit that people who don't understand sing along to. Listening to "Stacy's Mom" would be a far different experience if the video hadn't told the story for us and your fellow audience were limited to the people who have every Jason Falkner album.

And like clemenza says, there's a certain timelessness to it all. It's not easy defining power pop or pinpointing its exact origins, but there's an emotional and aesthetic link between Chris Bell, Shoes, the Raspberries, Tommy Keene, Marshall Crenshaw, Teenage Fanclub, Game Theory, Jellyfish, the Grays, Fountains of Wayne, the Wondermints, Matthew Sweet, and God knows how many other artists. Perhaps it's as simple as everything going back to Big Star jangle and Raspberries power-schmaltz.

I didn't mean to bump a general discussion of pwer pop per se, but since I did, a long time fave:

(1975) The Rubinoos - Gorilla

(And maybe this is going too far, but the archetypal power pop FAN is a lonely guy who escapes into pretty music.)

Ouch--too close to home. Unfortunately, there's much truth there.

And, yeah, to be super-pedantic, I've divided my power pop collection into these categories:

1.) Early Beatles Influenced
Badfinger, Raspberries, Todd Rundgren, Wings, Blue Ash, Artful Dodger, etc.

2.) Flamin Groovies & Big Star Related
including: Prix, Bell & Chilton solo, etc.

3.) New Wave Power Pop
Shoes, The Dwight Twilley Band, The Pop, The Quick...everything through Tommy Tutone, The Plimsouls, The Cars

3a.) Not Quite New Wave
A hodgepodge where I throw the debut Tom Petty, pseudo-Rockabilly revival like Robert Gordon and Moon Martin, Billy Joel's Glass Houses, and, hell, even BoC's Buck Dharma's 1982 solo (he did write "I'm Burnin' For You"!)

4.) 80s College Rock and Jangle
Begining with the early Chris Stamey projects (Sneakers 1976 ep), through all the Squeeze/XTC/Game Theory/etc., and way too much Richard X. Heyman and Spongetones for most people's comfort.

4a.) Paisley Undereground
Kinda self explanatory here.

Wings = Beatles-influenced...great!

Where would pub rock power pop like Bram Tchaikovsky, Brinsley Schwarz, and the Motors go? Rockpile, Edmunds, and Lowe would probably be in the same slot whatever it is.

Categories 3 and 3a are clearly my favorities. Very little use for categories 4 and 4a, though I'm a very big fan of Cool For Cats.

In what way are Big Star and Flamin Groovies alike? (Not being snotty; I just mainly love the Groovies for their earlier, hard rocking stuff, circa Teenage Head and Flamingo; maybe the reason that their later powerpop stuff never hit me is the same reason that I've never really gotten what was supposed to be so great about Big Star.)

Anyway, PappaWheelie's post reminds me that there's also been plenty of discussion of Artful Dodger, Moon Martin, and the Pop* on the Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock Threads the last two years. Feel free to search:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

* The Motors too, I think.

I just didn't want to have searate slots for inidvidualk bands, so groovies and big star kinda got lumped.

I have most of my (limited amount of) Pub Rock in 3a

Blue Ash and Artful Dodger (along with the Tom Evans post-Badfinger band "Dogers") have all gotten plenty of play from me.

So where does that leave all the '90s-00s power-pop like Bandwagonesque, Utopia Parkway, and the first two Weezer albums? Or would those be more "pop punk" than anything?

I (lazily) have left it all with '90s indie, but being I'm a massive fan of 3 Sloan albums (that I can't seem to ever stop playing), I've been tempted to create a separate folder (especiallky since Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend has become a fave again).

Friends, dig my list of a baker's dozen uncelebrated, yet rocking power pop tour de forces. If you like good music, you would be wise to pick up what I'm laying down for you.

Perfect Youth - The Pointed Sticks (1980)
I Can Walk Alone - The Human Switchboard (1981)
History Never Repeats - Split Enz (1981)
The Trains - The Nashville Ramblers (1986)
Dear Friend - Flying Color (1987)
Lady In The Front Row - Redd Kross (1993)
To Fulle Menn - Jokke (1995)
Sittin' Pretty - Brendan Benson (1996)
Good Day To The Night - Myracle Brah (1998)
Vertigogo - Frisbie (2000)
Swim - The Glands (2000)
Don't Call Me Dear - The Fairways (2004)
Blankest Year - Nada Surf (2005)

There's a load of great powerpop being made at the moment, which sells in bulk, but I suspect lots of powerpop adherents wouldn't accept it as such (because it's not made by 30something men with a firm grasp of rock history), and the people buying that music wouldn't even recognise the concept of powerpop. It's the stuff being put out by Hollywood Records - Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez et al (large chunks of the Gomez album are written by Gina Schock). It's powerpop of the new wave variety rather than the 60s variety, but indisputably powerpop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQnSOZBe-yg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5ceIIjlzP8

4.) 80s College Rock and Jangle
Begining with the early Chris Stamey projects (Sneakers 1976 ep), through all the Squeeze/XTC/Game Theory/etc., and way too much Richard X. Heyman and Spongetones for most people's comfort.

I know this is usually counted as powerpop by powerpop fans, but it really doesn't ring with me. I think, partly because the sound aesthetic of guitar based music of that late 80s era (lots of reverb, vocals mixed very low in the sound) just doesn't fit into what powerpop has otherwise been about. I also know many powerpop fans reckon that the 80s were generally an era that didn't really have powerpop around, and that powerpop didn't really come back until the likes of Jellyfish, Posies, Matthew Sweet and The Lemonheads revitalized the genre in the early 90s. (And Teenage Fanclub although arguably they weren't really powerpop until the "Thirteen" album, before that they were a somewhat more melody oriented shoegazer band)

Oh, and the likes of Miley Cyrus (not to mention Avril Lavigne) are obviously powerpop influenced, but. well.... the music is actually written by 30-somethings, but not performed by them. Powerpop songs are supposed to be performed by the people who wrote them.

So when powerpop bands do cover versions, they cease to be powerpop bands? Wow. That's one strict genre. No wonder only 14 people worldwide give a shit.

I've never really gotten what was supposed to be so great about Big Star.

What's not to like? They just had such an enormous musical palette, such a rich, baroque, sophisticated way of stringing chords together and fitting melodies over them, making them rock. So evocative too, like, you share their mindset as they were making those records. Beatlesque, in those respects, but also sui generis. It doesn't sound like the Beatles or Groovies or anyone else. Most power poppers fling major and minor chords together in some semi-random pattern, sing perkily and hope for the best. Sometimes they get lucky, but they rarely get that lucky. You can really go to school on Big Star; those records keep on giving. I think.

So when powerpop bands do cover versions, they cease to be powerpop bands?

There is a difference between the odd cover version, done out of respect for the original singer/songwriter act, and basing your career upon manufactured hits manufactured by professional songwriters who care more about $$$ that art.
That said, I still think Rubinoos did a misstep by making a cover version their first single, when their debut album was crowded with great original songs.

I take it the Kasenatz Katz stable does not fit in here?

That is Bubblegum. I sincerely hope that Geir does not now tell us what Bubblegum is and what it isn't and orders orders which must be obeyed at all times

So, Geir, what about Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs making those interminable albums of covers. Does that count as faithful homage, and therefore acceptable as powerpop, even though they are deathly records? While the Miley and Selena records, which are 30 times better, performed with absolute zip and commitment, are not powerpop.

Most of the acts you lionise on the boards ... they went into music to make $$$. Renounce the heretics!

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/7155925/2/istockphoto_7155925-talking-to-a-brick-wall-diamondlypse-seattle.jpg

Well, I got a "Various Artists" album recently, and it's more like ? and the Mysterians, for the most part...

Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.
Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop.

― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro)

Geir will be along any minute to define what the Various in Various Artists actually means

What's not to like? They just had such an enormous musical palette, such a rich, baroque, sophisticated way of stringing chords together and fitting melodies over them, making them rock. So evocative too

Well, they've never rocked me. At all. Or evoked much anything, either. They mostly just hit me as restrained, I guess. And I can think of scores of '70s rock bands who -- to my ears anyway -- incorporated a wider scope of music. I think they're fine -- got a reissue CD of the first two albums last year, first time I'd listened to them in a long while, and they're still pleasant. "September Girls" is world-class pretty; I always thought that. But the albums have never "given" much to me. And fair or not, I guess I hold their status as Point A of powerpop-without-power (and their inflated reputation, compared to tons of '70s band who hit me as catchier and more deserving) against them.

Actually, I mentioned above that nobody would ever consider R.E.M. a powerpop band (despite playing melodic guitar music), but now I'm wondering whether there were, in fact, Big Star comparisons early on, when they released their first single and EP (which I like btw) -- They were Southerners, after all, playing an artsy, sort of introverted kind of pop. Doesn't sound powerpop to me, but I'm not everybody.

Powerpop songs are supposed to be performed by the people who wrote them.

Can you please link to the rulebook where you dig up these idiotic regulations? I'd love to see it sometime. Anyway, agree about Selena Gomez's album and some Miley counting as powerpop. Demi Lovato, too.

the power pop archetype is the sad, lonely guy making really pretty music. (And maybe this is going too far, but the archetypal power pop FAN is a lonely guy who escapes into pretty music.)

See also: What I said upthread about lots of emo being powerpop.

And oh yeah, I wanna second the nomination for Pointed Sticks, who were great. (A couple other Vancouver bands from the same time -- for sure the Modernettes, maybe the Young Canadians -- might also fit here.)

Interesting. I was watching a video of one of the Nickelodeon Youth recently & I had a strange thought: If this song had come out c. 1980 and they spent hours making their hair look like they never touch it except perhaps with a weedeater, this could be a cult powerpop item, not unlike Holly & the Italians.

Btw, just posted elsewhere this morning about a very catchy early Bryan Adams LP; interesting, in light of this thread, that the Rolling Stone Record Guide compared his sound then to the Byrds. (Tom Petty got that comparison a lot, too, obviously, and later so did R.E.M.! Also worth mentioning that Adams had a few years before been in the glam pop-rock band Sweeney Todd, with fellow Vancouverite Nick Gilder.) A permalink:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

"Jangle-pop" might in fact be a better description of at least half of what I listed

Yeah, that's how I'd probably classify a lot of music mentioned on this thread in general. (R.E.M. included.) Guess it comes down to whether you prefer your powerpop jangly or crunchy. Nine times out of ten, I'll take the latter.

Crunchy sorta boogie rock was performed on occasion by Badfinger, Big Star, the Raspberries AND the Beatles!

Having a crunchy rock number or two up yer sleeve was virtually de rigueur for your 70s power poppers

This has been a really interesting thread for me. I spend a great deal of time collecting, listening to, and, yes, thinking about power-pop. Probably everyone who writes about music figures he or she has at least one great book that's just waiting for them to write it; for at least the last decade, I've been thinking that mine would be on power-pop.

I've concluded from this thread that there are clearly at least two strains of power-pop (probably many more, akin to PapaWheelie's groupings, but two for sure): the jangly, wistful, achin'-to-be stuff I love, and the crunchy, more power-chorded stuff Xhuxk prefers. They're both key. And both Xhuxk and I probably have to accept that Big Star (for Xhuxk) and the Knack (for me) are just as valid as the half we love.

The Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus tracks posted above are both quite good. But I just don't connect to them emotionally like the songs I listed. I'm sure there are lots of what ThusSangFreud called extra-musical biases at work there--maybe I can only make that connection if it's sad, beautiful-loser types (often, though not by any means always, closer to my own age)doing the singing. I don't know. But I don't get much more than detached appreciation of how good they are from either.

Do it, clemenza! I would buy a copy. If you happen to have yellow pills vol 4, i'd be curious to know whether track #10 falls into the "wistful" or "crunchy" camp.

One other thought I meant to add. Geir says a lot of stuff that's...outlandish. And he sets himself up as an easy target. But a few times on this thread, I found myself in 75% agreement with something he'd say. The problem is, he frequently says things in such absolute, sweeping terms, when a little tempering would sound so much more reasonable. Example: "Power doesn't have anything to do with power pop." I think I know what he's trying to say, and if I'm right then I agree with him, but here's a better way to say it: power is not a pre-condition of power-pop. To me, that statement is much easier to defend.

A lot of '90s and '00s bands have blurred the lines between the two strains, DM3 probably to the greatest extent.

I see where the Selena Gomez/Miley Cyrus poster is coming from and am having trouble coming up with a snappy "X Y and Z are why that's not power pop" rebuttal. That's going to take a little thinking.

I know what you mean...I was trying to think my way through a reasoned rebuttal, and I got tired and gave up!

I can see Selena Gomez, Victoria Justice, Drake Bell, etc. getting a Powerpop classification. Bell in particular shows a healthy Mod punch at times. Some of it might fall in the Bubblegum subgroup, but I generally think of Bubblegum as lacking the 'power' component - so...

I've had a thought. Maybe you cannot really define powerpop.

...but its fun to try.

TSF: the Pop Files' "Carolina"--don't know it. I'll search it out tonight and report back. Your query makes me think it might split the difference.

Thanks! haha, pop flies, actually. an ancient typo that has promulgated through time...

Geir says a lot of stuff that's...outlandish. And he sets himself up as an easy target. But a few times on this thread, I found myself in 75% agreement with something he'd say.

It happens to the best of us.

Pop Flies???? No way!

Pop Flies???? No way!

catchy, geddit? i'm dyin' here.

Now I'm wondering what other mis-labeled music has been in my collection for years.

I understand the Pop Flies' version of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is Da Bomb.

Some of it might fall in the Bubblegum subgroup, but I generally think of Bubblegum as lacking the 'power' component - so...

Christgau actually invented a perfect genre name for power-packed bubblegum, in a review of the first Sweet album in 1973: "Is heavy bubblegum bazooka-rock?" I've borrowed it a few times since, but I don't know if anybody else noticed. Maybe that's what Selena Gomez is.

So, Geir, what about Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs making those interminable albums of covers. Does that count as faithful homage, and therefore acceptable as powerpop, even though they are deathly records?

I surely see that as a homeage. The covers album is generally a paying tribute to your influences kind of thing.

The most important thing is to keep those pro writers out of it. In a better, less ageist and sexist, world, those 30-40-something pro songwriters would have been huge stars singing and playing their own material, written for themselves, rather than letting some good-looking 20 year-old chick with more looks and "X-Factor" than talent perform it instead.

The Rainy Day project that Susanna Hoffs was involved in once upon a time is a phenomenal covers/tribute disc. I'd put the version of "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong" up against the original as a matter of fact. I haven't heard the one she did with Mr. Sweet yet.

Wait, so are the early Bangles officially considered powerpop? (I can hear "Going Down To Liverpool" -- a cover version! -- at least.) What about the Go-Gos? (In fact, a bigger question, which touches both on the all-one-gender list at the top of this thread and things a couple people have said here about lonely 30-year-old male singers -- Can powerpop be sung by women at all? I'm starting to think people define it, consciously or unconsciously, it as an extremely male genre -- something else it would have in common with emo, hmmm...)

I don't really subscribe to the male-only idea. I'd consider the Bangs/Bangles records to be powerpop. Also Nikki & the Corvettes and Holly & the Italians, I reckon.

Joan Jett seems pretty power-poppy to me

Can powerpop be sung by women at all?

I guess Bangles are an obvious example, also Holly & The Italians. And, yes, I hear a lot of powerpop elements in The Go-Go's. Generally 80s girl groups who wrote their own material and didn't use a lot of synths have a lot of powerpop in them.

But more than 90s per cent of powerpop singers are males. Which may also have to do with the fact that 100 per cent of powerpop's most important influences had male singers.

sometimes I wonder if you're getting stupider but then I realize no, you were always this stupid

A woman friend of mine during college years, a real power pop aficionado who I think went on to become a music reporter, would disregard out-of-hand any pop band that had a woman in it. Joan Jett was the only exception.

xp So is some of the Donnas' poppier stuff, and Benatar's "Heartbreaker" and "Hig Me With Your Best Shot", and Scandal's "Goodbye To You" and "The Warrior". But for some reason nobody ever mentions people like that when discussing this stuff.

Some good (non-female) '00s indie-label bands I'd definitely consider powerpop, btw (especially if the Exploding Hearts are): FM Knives, Clorox Girls, Briefs, maybe the Hatepinks.

And in reference to nothing in particular, I can't believe nobody (including me) has mentioned the Romantics til now.

Also, fwiw, I think early '60s girl groups have definitely had an influence on some powerpop.

ooh Benatar yeah that's a good one. she could get a little arty/proggy sometimes but those pop singles have a lot of power behind them

xp "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," obviously.

Also powerpop: Tiffany's cover of "I Saw (Him) Standing There." (Though not her cover of "I Think We're Alone Now," probably, even though the Rubinoos also did it. Tommy James maybe a seminal influence in general.)

Disagree with Geir -- I think many power pop singers would have loved to sound like Ronnie Spector.

(wow -- i tried to post this but xhuxk got there first.)

xp And Josie Cotton, "Johnny Are You Queer?" (In fact probably both her LPs. And lots of other cutesy-poo early '80s L.A. girl new-wave stuff.)

Katrina. Marti Jones' 1st.

God I love FM Knives

A few months ago, I made a two-CD compilation of (more or less) power-pop for the husband of a co-worker. I included a number of songs with female voices: Ladybug's "Go," Love Positions' "Twenty-Five More," Fuzzy's "Flashlight," Scrawl's "See," the Primitives' "Stop Killing Me," She Mob's "Your Therapy," the Shop Assistants' "Safety Net," and Velocity Girl's "I Don't Care if You Go." I could just as easily have added Bikini Kill's "False Start," Bratmobile's "Richard," the Vivian Girls' "I Believe in Nothing," or a few others. I don't think any of them would be normally be considered power-pop; my female definition spills over into punk, and often features small, flat vocals. I have no idea what that says about me.

Band that I'm most surprised no one has yet mentioned: the power-pop meets art-rock Electric Light Orchestra. They were pretty great.

uhm ELO has been mentioned

And even if they may not sound the same, I bet virtually every male-fronted power-pop band from 1970 forward has had a fair amount of reverence for the Shangri-Las, the Spector girl-groups, and the Dionne Warwick/Jackie DeShannon (who wrote "Needles and Pins"...) wing of Bacharach/David pop...oops; I tried to search ELO, but maybe I didn't have the whole thread open.

Don't ditch the "here's a tasty coconut" handle--that's like my favourite ever!

listening to some rhino 3-cd cars comp right now that someone brought into the store and man people better never forget how much power they put into their pop. wotta band. reminds me of when i got that 3cd live tom petty thing this winter. that thing just gives and gives and gives for hours. so, i vote cars and tom petty. yes i know what power pop purists call power pop. i've got all those albums too but rilly for all the "in a perfect world jellyfish would have been HUGE" nerd debates all the best power pop bands on earth WERE HUGE a la cars petty abba badfinger elo cheap trick etc. not that i don't dig obscurantism. i am made of it.

Ha ha, I've coined a different word for Scrawl, the Primitives, She Mob, the Shop Assistants, Velocity Girl, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and the Vivian Girls -- I call it "indie rock." (Just kidding, sort of. I actually like some She Mob and Scrawl I've heard a lot -- even wrote about Scrawl for a forgotten bands of the past 20 years Spin issue last year -- and I love the Primitives' "Crash", which is powerpoppy for sure. Not a fan of small introverted vocals, in general, though, which usually tend to hit me as either inept or an infantile affectation -- and that goes equal for male and female ones, I think.)

(Haven't heard most of those other bands Clemenza named in that post.)

That's the thing: when females sing punk, it can sometimes end up sounding very sad and wistful in a way that it rarely (if ever) does when sung by males. Maybe it's a weird variation on the lonely 30-year-old guy trying to write the perfect pop song while being resigned to the fact it will never be heard; the 20-year-old girl trying to write a great punk song while being resigned to the fact that she'll never be taken seriously as a punk by a lot of very shortsighted guys. I'm not in any way saying that applies to all female punks; Poly Styrene, for example, didn't sound like she was worried about not being taken seriously. But I do hear something like that in some of the female songs I listed, and it ends up sounding sort of...power-poppy.

Thus Sang Freud: Infield Fly Rule's "Carolina"--nice! Much more on the jangly side, I'd say. Late '70s? Onto the permanent hard-drive it goes.

wow thanks, clemenza. The single came out in '86, but the project was an attempt to document the sound of my late 70s band that combusted before we could record anything. So...good guess!

Also, fwiw, I think early '60s girl groups have definitely had an influence on some powerpop.

Most pre-hippie age 60s pop (as opposed to obvious, blues influenced, rock) does.

Disagree with Geir -- I think many power pop singers would have loved to sound like Ronnie Spector.

Actually one of the most typical style features of powerpop is these really sugar sweet and clean voices that do vocals for even the hardest of powerpop acts. Which means Ronnie Spector's R&B style of singing really doesn't fit into the thing here. That doesn't mean they don't respect her, or a guy like Steve Marriott for that matter, but it's not powerpop's archetypical vocal style.
I know there are exceptions though, particularly from early powerpop history, when acts such as Badfinger, Raspberries and Blue Ash would often have somewhat "screaming" singers.

TSF, the Pop Flies is you? Very cool. I would have guessed a little later, like 1989 or 1990.

Alright! Now I know three rock stars: Thus Sang Freud, Metal Mike Saunders, and of course I regularly have sex with Beyonce.

you think that's good, my buddy brought me home a piece of cake from eric bloom's wedding.

yeah, that was my little vanity project. sent it out to some folks, sunk w/o a trace, but it got a kind of 2nd life on the cd. which sunk w/o a trace. power pop glory!

Te salut--I won't even try to top that...Not this coming Sunday, but the one after that I'll be doing my power-poppy college radio show in Toronto. If you tune in (online) around 8:00 a.m., I will definitely play "Carolina." After that, I've got two words for you: easy street.

i've got you on a yellow post-it. i can already hear my ship coming in!

Re: female-fronted power pop, Letters to Cleo might be worth a mention here.

The point about powerpoppers in the lineage of Shangri-Las and the 60s girl groups has direct relevance to the are-Miley-and-Selena-powerpop? question. The 60s girl groups were exact predecessors of these acts: people with talent in their own right, who had songs and productions given to them by men. It's a source of fascination that the manufactured nature of 60s girl groups is overlooked by the white male rock history camp, because the men who manufactured the 60s records are revered, but the people behind Hollywood Records are seen as claculting money makers. Like Shadow Morton wasn't.

It's a source of fascination that the manufactured nature of 60s girl groups is overlooked by the white male rock history camp, because the men who manufactured the 60s records are revered, but the people behind Hollywood Records are seen as claculting money makers. Like Shadow Morton wasn't.

can't see this as a source of fascination. "commercial" pop music has long been looked at askance in its era by certain critics, only to be rehabilitated later by others. this process is an industry in itself.

Rejecting 60s girl bands would also mean rejecting virtually all of pre-"What's Going On" black music history, with the exception of Little Richard, Chuck Berry and a few others. But there is a pre-Beatles and post-Beatles here, and other values count in the post-Beatles age than in the pre-Beatles age (for black music, that would be pre-"What's Going On" and post-"What's Going On")

Rejecting 60s girl bands would also mean rejecting virtually all of pre-"What's Going On" black music history...

ummm, no. not that you're inclined to view music in terms of race in the first place...

Wait, does that make sense though? If we say that the Ronettes influenced power pop, but were not themselves power pop, does that necessarily make their present-day equivalent power pop? I'm not saying yes or no, I have no real horse in that race. But the logic doesn't really follow. I mean, the Hollywood Records svengalis could be goffin/king-level geniuses for all I know but that wouldn't make their music power pop. Injecting loud guitars into the mix doesn't necessarily turn one genre into another. Modern country has loud guitars too. And yeah, emo.

I still think that Powerpop was first and foremost influenced by Beatles, Byrds and Beach Boys. But that doesn't make them powerpop either, even though some Beatles songs ("I Feel Fine", "And Your Bird Can Sing") were at least proto powerpop in a way. A genre is also defined by chronology, and powerpop is, by its very definition, a conservative - possibly even reactionary - genre. It was started as protest against the more experimental and freaked out hippie music of the late 60s and has later on been a protest any new style of music that has occured ever since.

And you know what else? I'll go out on a limb here and say that Hollywood Records is not the modern day equivalent of Brill Building girl group pop. Hollywood Records targets, you know, eight-year-olds. That affects the emotional parameters of their songs.

xp

I mean, power pop could get emotionally infantile too, but at least the dates we couldn't get were real dates, not play dates.

And you know what else? I'll go out on a limb here and say that Hollywood Records is not the modern day equivalent of Brill Building girl group pop. Hollywood Records targets, you know, eight-year-olds. That affects the emotional parameters of their songs.

They also target young teenage girls.

Yet, the difference is, girl groups and other mass produced late 50s/early 60s records also targeted teenage males, but it is completely unlikely today that teenage boys will ever fall for something as mass produced and manufactured. Even if it's actually good like those girl group records were.

But, anyway, regarding girl groups, I think it is obvious that girl groups influenced that wave of 80s girl bands who were also powerpop influenced. But that doesn't mean that girl groups are an influence on powerpop in general. The most "classic" powerpop was from the 70s, and all male.

No, not saying the Ronettes were powerpop. Just saying they and their ilk are allowed their own place in music, assessed as artists in their own right, which the Geir argument denies to the Hollywood Records lot.

I agree Hollywood is not the equivalent of Brill Building. But go to a gig by one of those acts. There are quite as many teens as there are little kids. 40 years ago it would have been all teens, cos little kids just weren't taken to shows in the same way.

The argument that girl groups count because boys like them is a load of crap. Because a) it presupposes that for a group to have validity they must have male fans. And b) because you can't prove the records were aimed at boys as well as girls. Are you really telling me Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? was aimed at both sexes? Cos I listen to the words and I hear a song that teenage girls are meant to empathise with. I think its retrospective critical appreciation that won these records male fanbases.

But Brill Building pop was what was around in the early 60s. There was nothing else, thus boys also went for Brill Building (except those of them who - before Beatles - went for R&B, but they were a very select few, other than among African American audiences. A lot of those white kids who did ended up going out and starting a band though)

Folk, blues, country

Folk, blues and country sold even less in 1962-63 than soul music did. You mean the majority of record buyers then - as opposed to now - were females?

You did say there was "nothing else", which is palpably untrue

Oh, and country artists didn't sell in 1962-63? Must be the only year since the early 50s till 2010 when country music didn't sell.

But Brill Building pop was what was around in the early 60s... thus boys also went for Brill Building (except those of them who - before Beatles - went for R&B,

The Beatles went for Brill and for R&B.

Some albums that hit #1 in the US, 1962-63:

Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country And Western Music
Peter Paul & Mary - Peter Paul & Mary
Allan Sherman - My Son The Folk Singer
Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba
Stevie Wonder - Little Stevie Wonder/The 12 Year Old Genius
Peter Paul & Mary - In The Wind
The Singing Nun - The Singing Nun

Some singles that hit #1 in the US, 1962-63

Chubby Checker - The Twist
Joey Dee & the Starlighters - Peppermint Twist
Gene Chandler - Duke Of Earl
Elvis Presley - Good Luck Charm
Ray Charles - I Can't Stop Loving You
4 Seasons - Sherry
Bobby 'Boris' Pickett - Monster Mash
4 Seasons - Big Girls Don't Cry
Tornadoes - Telstar
Rooftop Singers - Walk Right In
4 Seasons - Walk Like A Man
Jimmy Soul - If You Wanna Be Happy
Kyu Sakamoto - Sukiyaki
The Essex - Easier Said Than Done
Jan & Dean - Surf City
The Tymes - So Much In Love
Stevie Wonder - Fingertips, Pts 2
Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs - Sugar Shack
The Singing Nun - Dominique

So yeah, Geir's full of baloney, as usual.

Not saying all of those count as soul, folk, or country (no idea where you'd slot Kyu Sakomoto or the Singing Nun for instance), but most of them don't count as Brill Building/girl group. (A few girl group singles -- plus ladies like Connie Francis and Little Peggy March -- did hit #1 on the singles chart in those years, though the closest thing to a girl group album to go #1 was, uh, West Side Story I guess. And I'm guessing it was mostly teenage boys who gave the 4 Seasons all their #1, and even more so "Surf City" and "Monster Mash" and "Duke Of Earl." Bet lots of them bought "Peppermint Twist," too.)

Oh yeah, bet the boys went for "Telstar," too. Surf was total boy rock, even when it comes from England and blasts off like Russian satellite.

Heartless inhuman cyborgs went for "Telstar" too, it was Margaret Thatcher's favourite record of all time

xp And actually, Alan Sherman had three #1 albums in those two years -- all starting with the words My Son (none with My Daughter!); third one, My Son the Nut, #1 for eight weeks, had "Hello Mudduh Hello Faddah!," which sure seems like boy music to me.

Also, Geir, Brill Building is not synonymous with girl group.

A genre is also defined by chronology, and powerpop is, by its very definition, a conservative - possibly even reactionary - genre. It was started as protest against the more experimental and freaked out hippie music of the late 60s and has later on been a protest against any new style of music that has occured ever since.

As per usual, I think this is probably mostly true, but stated far too categorically. With genres like garage and rockabilly, yeah, a lot of bands seem to start with the premise that the world stopped when the Standells or Gene Vincent walked the earth, and there's a snobbishness and/or obliviousness towards everything that's come along since. And--even though it's harder to trace back to a specific moment--I'm sure there are numerous power-pop bands guilty of the same thing. But I'm also sure there are many others who play power-pop just because it happens to be their favourite kind of music, and it's relatively simple to play, and even though they love lots of other stuff, they realize they'd look faintly ridiculous trying to do a Lady Gaga or Jay Z song. When my own piddly little group played at a couple of school assemblies, we stuck to punk-indie-poppy stuff like "Now I Wanna Be a Good Boy" and "Take the Skinheads Bowling"; we love that stuff, but above and beyond that, we're all in our 30s and 40s and it's very easy to play. But we're not reactionary at all; we even managed to work the chorus from Miley Cyrus's "Hoedown Throwdown" into "Now I Wanna Be a Good Boy"'s bridge.

But I'm also sure there are many others who play power-pop just because it happens to be their favourite kind of music, and it's relatively simple to play

Country is simpler.
(But then, many country musicians have developed into doing powerpop instead)

Country is simpler.

eh?!? (i'm not even a fan of country music, but this is so clearly wrong.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXkwthWiMFk

Country is simpler.

LOL

(But then, many country musicians have developed into doing powerpop instead)

I think he's finally flipped

it's kind of fun to see how far geir can go w/ his faulty premises.

This a singles genre...but that said, aside from the Big Star albums, which are kind of in a universe by themselves, the best start-to-finish classic power pop album I can think of is Rockpile's Seconds of Pleasure

I take this back on a few levels. Just in the last few days I have listened to... '70s - The Knack, Get the Knack, '80s - Game Theory, Lolita Nation, '90s - The Grays, Ro Sham Bo, all of which are great from beginning to end. Not that Seconds of Pleasure isn't good but it's not the only complete power pop album and I'd probably take any of those other three over it.

godDAMN Bill Monroe's boys are fucking shit up in that clip - thx Pappa!!

Happy to Geirbait.

I think 20/20's and Phil Symour's debut albums are great listens from beginning to end.
And if you consider Marshall Crenshaw powerpop...

it's funny how much Geir hates country, given how white and eurocentric it is

Too rhythmic, maybe.

not enough slow and silent ballads

does Geir basically hate all music pre-1963...? folk, jazz, country - it's all crap to him. I guess he likes Beethoven...

1949
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV_nJ30XDlI

does Geir basically hate all music pre-1963...?

He's said as much, yes.

And if you consider Marshall Crenshaw powerpop...

I do, I do. Field Day's got the same cathedral-like hugeness of the early Byrds, and there are great songs scattered throughout his '80s albums ("Cynical Girl" being the best not on Field Day).

Thus Sang Freud: Our online feed was down for a few days, but I did play your song this morning.

And in the same set as Canadian giants Goddo and Fludd no less! I am not worthy! (Seriously -- thanks.)

This is the second power pop thread I have seen before that there isn't a single mention of The Smithereens, which seems kind of odd as I think their sound is pretty much 60s pop run through loud Marshall amps and they actually had a couple of hits unlike most of those late 70s/early 80s groups.

"country not being hard"

Not when it comes to playing guitar, those guys are freaks. Unlike a whole lot of rock, you can't really BS that flat picking or crazy bends stuff.

This is the second power pop thread I have seen before that there isn't a single mention of The Smithereens, which seems kind of odd as I think their sound is pretty much 60s pop run through loud Marshall amps and they actually had a couple of hits unlike most of those late 70s/early 80s groups.

IMO Powerpop didn't really exist in the 80s at all, save for maybe the first few years of the decade (Romantics, Spongetones etc.). Smithereens were an archetypical jangle pop band, and one of the typical genre specifics of 80s guitar based music was a production dominated by lots of reverb and the vocals way back in the production, whereas powerpop is a melody-oriented genre where the vocals will usually be way out in the front of the production. Sure, I agree the jangle pop bands are related to powerpop, with their retro orientation, going back to "classic" guitar pop etc. But I have a hard time defining them as powerpop. They are probably more related to the Paisley Underground bands, only more classically melodic.

does Geir basically hate all music pre-1963...?

I don't like "rock" music from before 1963. Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building did definitely provide som good pop music, particularly the former.

Oh, and I also like Buddy Holly, largely because he incorporated a lot of Brill Building pop elements into his rock music, and thus extended rock's harmonic and melodic palette. I'm not too big on his straigther 12 bar rock'n'roll numbers such as "That'll Be The Day" though.

"I'm looking for someone to love" is awesome.

Of course the Smithereens are powerpop. Nothing to do with Paisley Underground - it's hard pop, with very little interest in psychedelia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNZbP3ZVem4

Rare namecheck for Bill Wyman there.

Yep, a fixture of a mixtape back in the day, but never needed owt else from them.

God, I just looked a recent clip of the Smithereens. Pat Di Nizio must be 300lb now.

This is a pretty nifty comp for a powerpop primer, different from the usual ones from the DIY series:>> http://www.amazon.com/Roots-Powerpop-Various-Artists/dp/B000003JGK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1276190233&sr=1-1<;<

Nashville Ramblers' Trains is an awesome track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_VPuby8CQw

This might be sped up a bit but you get the idea.

It just occured to me: Nobody has mentioned The Scruffs. At least I don;t think so. Very good p'pop, not too twee.

This is a pretty nifty comp for a powerpop primer, different from the usual ones from the DIY series:>> http://www.amazon.com/Roots-Powerpop-Various-Artists/dp/B000003JGK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1276190233&sr=1-1<;;<

Looks like a different but good representation, but The Roots of Powerpop? Looks more like the golden age to me. The roots of powerpop would rather be the likes of Beatles, Beach Boys, Byrds, The Who, Small Faces and maybe the occasional Buddy Holly or Everly Brothers.

Green?

Anyone "wanna meet the scuffs?"

I mean Scruffs...been listening to it lately. Still sounds cool

I've had a vinyl copy of Wanna Meet the Scruffs? for a number of years. I like it, but don't think it lives up to Christgau's blurb in the '70s book. Sometimes I'd include "My Mind" on mix-tapes for people.

Yep - Wanna Meet the Scruffs is a fine p'pop disc.

I also agree re. the title of the Roots of... comp. Not exactly the roots. In fact I think it may have been Pete Townshend who coined the term. It would certainly be a perfect description for "So Sad ABout Us" & "The Kids Are Alright," among others.

Green?

― kumar the bavarian, Saturday, June 12, 2010 12:50 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Their debut is one of the greatest albums ever. Completely untouchable, an overwhelming power-pop masterpiece on a par with Radio City...or Face To Face.

Do you good people think Green Pajamas would fit in the p'pop world, or do they transcend it, or what...?

If the Smithereens can't get filed under Power Pop, then the genre doesn't even exist. They pretty much were doing pre-psychedelia 60s pop running through big loud Marshall amps and did a whole lot of 60s name checking and various things. Criminy they got The Honeys back together to sing backup vocals on their biggest hit, which was on an album whose artwork is nicked from Oceans 11, a decade before that movie was remade.

another vouch for the Scruffs, who are wonderful. their sophomore record, teenage gurls, isn't quite as good as meet the, but is well worth checking.
also, the toms - s/t, who were just one guy outta Memphis (i believe), has given me as much enjoyment as the scruffs

Anyone heard the new album?
http://www.notlame.com/THE_SCRUFFS/Page_1/CDSCRUFFS8.html

If the Smithereens can't get filed under Power Pop, then the genre doesn't even exist.

They were a great band, and I can understand why they are being seen as powerpop. But there are some things about them that don't really fit with the class of the 70s: Big reverb, vocals mixed low and not a lot of vocal harmonies. Note that for largely the same reasons I am not really sure if I would count the dB's as powerpop either. They sound too much like typical 80s guitar bands, with the same production aesthetic as U2, The Dream Syndicate, Big Country etc.

Stands for Decibels is the acclaimed 1981 debut album by The dB's. It was initially commercially unsuccessful but has since become recognized as a crucial album in the power pop canon

Some recs from a lastfm friend I'm currently checking out:

The Someloves - Something Or Other
Any Trouble - Where Are All the Nice Girls?
Sam Phillips - The Indescribable Wow
Dancing Hoods - 12 Jealous Roses
The Windbreakers - Disciples of Agriculture
The Cavedogs - Joyrides For Shut-Ins
Myracle Brah - Life On Planet Eartsnop
The Wind - Wind-Jammer

Any thoughts?

don't know any of them, i remember sam philips but never heard her

i might go see Paul Collins Beat they are coming to mpls!

btw hi pappa good to see you round :)

Also, from the same friend:

The Grip Weeds - House of Vibes
The Hummingbirds - Lovebuz
Cheap Star - Speaking Like An Elephant
Mark & The Spies - Give Me a Look (like a new, foreign Spongetones)
The Orgone Box (which led me to Orange's "Judy Over The Rainbow")

x-post, and HI!

...and The Wind's "Guest of the Staphs" ep.

I'd be curious to see how Paul Collins' Beat pull it off these days!

Myrakle Blah a classic powerpop band, in that they're great fun for the first song - is it Super Tuesday? - and duller and duller thereafter. The Hummingbirds' album is pretty solid, though.

xpost: friends of mine went to the beat in chicago last year and said great things

A lot of that stuff is second-rate at best but it's worth searching out for occasional solid tracks. I'll second the Hummingbirds recommendation.

THe Windbreakers, definitely. I had forgotten about them, which is really sad. Terminal was my favorite record by them, but the were all worth a listen at least.

If The Wind is the band I'm thinking of, they put out some excellent breezy powerpop things. It seems like they had a record or two on Bomp, Voxx or Midnight. One of those '80s labels...

Lordy me, I just don't understand. .38 Special isn't power pop, and the Knack sucked, but at least the Knack sang about the things that power pop is all about. Not too well, but they at least tried. In the New York Times they have this slide show of significant deaths of 2010 and they put Doug Feiger, that idiot from the Knack, in the slide show but left out Alex Chilton! Re the first comment--how is "Radio City" not power pop? Bryan Adams? Rick Springfield? There's also the looming question of, like, quality here...Jeezus.

And speaking of things, there was a great band called The Things that might fit in here.

why was doug fieger an idiot? i think the knack did what they did really well.

Yeah, I'll take Get The Knack over any Big Star album -- it's not even close. And he wasn't an idiot; he wrote (and sang) some great songs. (As did Adams, Springfield, and 38 Special, whether they were powerpop or not. And a lot of times, they were.)

I'll take Get The Knack over any Big Star album

I don't hate the Knack or anything but this is crazy talk

No it's not.

Also not remotely clear to me how say "So Caught Up In You" or "Hold On Loosely" or "If I'd Been The One" (or "Jessie's Girl" or "Cuts Like A Knife") are not "about the things that powerop is all about" -- like, mainly, boy-and-girl problems and stuff, right? -- but what do I know?

'Hold on Loosely' is as powerpop as anything has ever been.
And I'll throw BoC's "Burnin' for You" back into the mix, at this point...

^^^^^The Windbreakers' Disciples of Agriculture: "I'll Be There" isn't the greatest song ever with that title, but it's not all that far behind. I also saved "You Gotta Go Away" and "Lonely Beach" in the permanent library.

I now have an inkling of understanding as to why power pop fans are so annoyingly self-righteous - it's because of Totally Missing The Point lists like this.

Would have voted for Nerves 7" single over all of this

Rubber City Rebels

bump this... I have been in obsessive mixtape mode recently and discovered a bunch of good (new to me) stuff thanks to Emmett McAuliffe's book "Pop Power" and a few hours sifting through accumulated and unlistened compilations. ones that I remember off the top of my head that are on youtube:

The Keys - I Don't Wanna Cry
Sorrows - Teenage Heartbreak

The Treble Boys' Julie Anne was stuck in my head for a couple days straight.

also recently saw Brendan Benson live with the Posies and they ended their set with a killer version of September Gurls. He puts on a solid show, great voice that's right on pitch and everything was paced well.

Does anyone have recommendations for late 80s, early 90s shoegazey power pop? E.g. the Candyskins' Never Will Forget You, the Hummingbirds' Everything You Said (produced by Mitch Easter).

Didn't go thru all the responses but no Redd Kross? jeeesh!
j

Redd Kross aside, where are The feckin' Raspberries?!?! Copper Blue beating Marshall Crenshaw's s/t 18-1 is totes ridiculous, too.

An album that never gets mentioned by powerpop fans (or Fleetwood Mac fans) is Walter Egan's debut Fundamental Roll, which I think any Crenshaw fan would love. Produced by Lindsey Buckingham, full of Buddy Holly-influenced songs about girls and cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjkdFJTqcFk

The problem with RYM is that once an act is deemed partly powerpop, they are automatically competing on equal level with powerpop absolutist acts. Thus, Weezer and Sugar do better than Raspberries and Rubinoos, because indie is more popular on RYM than powerpop.

Does anyone have recommendations for late 80s, early 90s shoegazey power pop?

I don't know a whole lot about shoegaze, but my sense is that the James Dean Driving Experience might fit. There's a site called Obscurely Fragile Productions that posted their stuff last year. "Oh, Grateful" is a favourite.

i'll check that out, thanks clemenza.

Hold fire...Just so's you don't think I'm crazy, the James Dean Experience aren't shoegaze at all. I think I made the connection because that Obscurely Fragile site posts other stuff that is shoegaze. JDE are power-pop, but not shoegaze. They're far away from Chuck Eddy's crunchy power-pop, too--they're about as twee as you can get and still be power-pop (not an oxymoron for me, but for a lot of people, yes). Anyway, they're great; I've been listening to them in the car for a couple of days, and "Oh, Grateful," which I've had for a couple of years, is only one of many excellent songs they left behind on a handful of EPs.

JDDE were lumped in with the shambling scene at the time. I saw them several times on C86ish bills - never thought of them as powerpop.

Most people wouldn't. I've got a really wide net on that that takes in stuff from JDDE to certain Riot Girl songs.

This thread is all over the place. People who like power pop usually only like one variety of it. Some YouTube's might help!

Here's an ever-so-slightly inferior EP version (as opposed to the flexi-disc) of the James Dean Driving Experience's "Oh, Grateful." You can decide for yourself whether it has anything at all to do with power-pop. If, for you, the term covers territory from 20/20 to Matthew Sweet, it won't; if you're like me, and it means something closer to jangly guitars, it does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CiqzZZFBlU

Hmmm. I like that well enough, and I see the argument for counting it within the genre - it comes from many of the same sources as trad powerpop - but count that as powerpop and a ton of Brit indie from 85/86/87 suddenly becomes powerpop rather than indiepop ... I like both, because they hit a lot of the same pleasure centres, for the same reasons, but I can't help feeling they're just different beasts. But given I was arguing Hollywood Records is powerpop upthread, I'm not in a strong position to make the "but it's just not!" assertion.

I gave a power-pop mix-CD to a friend last year, and I detected a definite "You call this power-pop?" disbelief when I asked him what he thought of it. I know he came around to like the songs eventually, but my guess is that he never accepted it as power-pop.

JDDE sounds more powerpop to me than Weezer or Sugar do. The powerpop scene has more or less adopted that late 80s jangly guitar thing with the likes of The Smithereens and Hoodoo Gurus, and this sounds rather similar to them indeed.

anyone heard the new dwight twilley? i was browsing stereophile in the library & they said it sounded just like those first two; same guitarist, same rockabilly echo & sharp tunes. could be a case of "best since exile" syndrome though.

I had no idea there was a new Twilley album. he's not the only one to make a comeback - Richard X. Heyman, Mitch Easter, and Marshall Crenshaw have all come out with solid new albums recently.

I have a feeling that 2011 is going to be a big year for Power Pop. The Shoes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Endorsement deals for the Pop Flies. A reality show for Peter Holsapple. I can't put my finger on why I feel this, it's just a hunch.

Geir, JDDE sound nothing like Smithereens or Hoodoo Gurus. The latter two are rock bands with not a hint of twee. JDDE are a jangly band with a whole barrelload of twee.

clemenza for president!

the indie pop/twee vs. power pop distinction is one of the tougher ones to delineate precisely, along with pub rock and possibly power pop tinged 2000s emo. there are a bunch of poppy twee bands but most are a degree or two of separation too far away from the raspberries/beatles/big star model to really count. typically the problem is in the vocals, which are either not melodic enough or too kiddie. IMO.

i second that emotion, obv.

just listening to Oh Grateful - reminds me of the Field Mice's "Coach Station Reunion" which was in the running for a recent mixtape before coming to the conclusion that it's not power pop. solid track either way.

Geir, JDDE sound nothing like Smithereens or Hoodoo Gurus. The latter two are rock bands with not a hint of twee. JDDE are a jangly band with a whole barrelload of twee.

I would say this song, its chorus in particular, contains just those twee elements that make it fit into the powerpop style.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkYmSYtGzmI

Twee, Geir? Listen to the words. I Want You Back's chorus is a revenge fantasy. Musically, too, it's far too robust. Soaring 60s styled choruses do not on their own make something twee.

anyone heard the new dwight twilley?

Yeah, I reviewed it for Rhapsody. Sounded pretty wimpy to me. It's got a couple tracks I wouldn't mind hearing again, but nothing near the level of "I'm On Fire" (I otherwise don't know his early LPs very well.) And that's it, as far as I could tell. My review:

http://www.rhapsody.com/dwight-twilley/green-blimp#albumreview

My three favorite things to argue about:

1) baseball hall of fame resumes
2) is it power pop or not?
3) will she or won't she run in 2012?

Power pop arguments are the friendliest. We make our case, we move on. 2012 arguments are tricky, because you're trying to get inside the mind of a wingnut--the terrain in there is rough and unfamilar. HOF arguments are bloodsport. Words like "Dawson," "Rice," and (especially) "Blyleven" are weapons of mass destruction.

yeah, there is basically nothing twee about that Hoodoo Gurus track. and yes, she will, or at least I hope so!

I was in Queen Video this afternoon, a Toronto store that specializes in cult and foreign stuff, and all of a sudden the Shoes' "Do You Wanna Get Lucky?" came over the speaker. I had only dropped in for two minutes to pick up something specific, so the odds of a) them playing the Shoes x b) me being there to hear this = astronomical. I asked the punk girl at the counter if it was the radio; no, it was a mix-CD from a friend. (She handed me the case, and I took a quick look--saw Guided by Voices and the Suicide Commandos.)

Hearing the Shoes in a public space: it's never to me happened before, and will never happen again. I had to commemorate the occasion.

WXRT in Chicago occasionally plays a Shoes song or two; if you ever find yourself in a public space in Chicagoland that's playing XRT over the PA, it may well happen again.

I'm on my way. (I visited a friend in Rockford once--I know they're famous within a 17 mile radius.)

New discovery: the Lovelies' "Troublehead."

http://grooveshark.com/#/album/The+Tuff+Of+The+Tracks/5885736

I almost wonder if the Los Campesinos people didn't have it somewhere in the back of their mind when they wrote "You! Me! Dancing!" I just wish it were longer.

Yeah, I had a bunch of Lovelies singles and that album back in the day. Pleasant but just didn't make a lasting impression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH6p95ZTtCw

The Windbreakers' "I'll Be There," if the embedding doesn't work, one of my favorite power-pop songs--I mentioned it earlier in this thread. I saw on PowerPop Overdose that the band's co-founder, Bobby Sutliff, recently had a bad car accident; they've started up a fund to help pay medical expenses.

most baffling poll result ever

Seeing the dB's, Flamin' Groovies, Only Ones, and Cheap Trick combine for zero votes, I wouldn't disagree. (At least Black Vinyl Shoes got one vote.)

Nice to see Windbreakers mentioned, sorry to read about the car accident. Tim Lee and his wife Susan live here in Knoxville, they have a rockin' trio and they play around town all the time. They're sort of linchpins of the local scene, and totally sweet people.

a classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrH87zE04Os

I will always rep for the Mayflies USA on power-pop threads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmVwjqWpWMc

Think I linked to this on another thread--great recent discovery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOTXWoeIew

that Off Broadway track is a good one.

Agree with this:

No Superdrag, no credibility.

― & other try hard shitfests (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, October 9, 2009 7:13 AM (2 years ago)

Also agree that these results are baffling. Lots of my favorite records on that list, though.

I would've voted for Brendan Benson's LAPALCO.

those are the weirdest results I've seen on an ILM poll

it's like we polled a bunch of teenagers in a Tower Records in 1993.

gonna rep for Green again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNrWZBzP6_I

those are the weirdest results I've seen on an ILM poll

indeed. and it surprises me how underrated TFC are in ILM

Jeff Lescher from Green writes about their records on the RYM pages of them. he is signed to the site as a regular user.

Sugar better than Big Star?? WTF!

ilm cult of mould is mad fervid

Ok this seems as good thread as any - recently won an eBay auction for the first 20/20 record - I love good modern power pop (voted for Jason Faulkner on this poll, really dig Posies, Fannies, gigolo aunts etc) ... I haven't heard a note of 20/20 - please describe what I'm in for ...

I have it, don't remember it--didn't make much of an impression. But they do have a following--they get mentioned a couple of times in this thread.

Jeff Lescher from Green writes about their records on the RYM pages of them. he is signed to the site as a regular user.

Wow, didn't know that! Thanks for the tip!

20/20 has some good tracks, I think of them as a worse version of Shoes though.

Something I found on Radio Ready: Lost Power Pop Hits 1978-1983. Most of them should have stayed lost, but I like this. Not jangly, not crunchy--it's a side of power pop that's more like speeded-up moodiness along the lines of Del Shannon or Gene Pitney.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eaSvfwjLng

hey someone put my thing on the 'tube! if this doesn't work it's track 10 at about 29:05.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZCfSiT76bM

nice, tsf! in answer to yr prev question i’d file that in predom crunchy

Sweet "Carolina"!...The link I posted just above has disappeared; I think it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdSkwtVwuPI

ha! it took me a while to figure out what the question was but it's been 13 years.

A quick list of some of my favorite power-pop songs, as I understand the term--where I'm coming from, as Stevie Wonder might say:

1. "Girlwish," Fudge (1991)
2. "Not Me," Shoes (1977)
3. "Another Girl, Another Planet," Only Ones (1978)
4. "Mannequin," Wire (1978)
5. "Any Other Way," Posies (1990)
6. "Consider Me Gone," Jellystone Park (1991)
7. "Big Blue Bus," Stupid Cupids (1987)
8. "I'll Be There," Windbreakers (1985)
9. "Shake Some Action," Flamin' Groovies (1976)
10. "Southern Girls," Cheap Trick (1977)
11. "Oh, Grateful," James Dean Driving Experience (1987)
12. "Completely," Seaside (1991)

I've bypassed the '60s, because there's too much thinking involved if I don't.

― clemenza, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:34 (fourteen years ago) link

Old post but wow at some of the deep cuts here like (obscure pre-Clinic band) Jellystone Park... I just found a copy of that flexi and it's awesome. Jame Dean Driving Experience also one my top favorites. Fudge too of course. Great stuff.

Evan -- Thanks...I actually downloaded Jellystone Park and James Dean Driving Experience (and possibly Fudge) from an old blog called I Wish I was a Flexidisc (long gone). Amazed you came across a physical copy.

If you never saw it, preserved on Wayback Machine (with nothing but dead download links, I'm sure):

https://web.archive.org/web/20241130091544/http://iwishiwasaflexidisc.blogspot.com/

Ah! Yes, I've been looking for a download of Jellystone Park. Do you still have that? Otherwise I'll just need to rip my own copy.

That blog looks amazing... I'm sad I never came across it back when it was active. I'd love to download most of what I'm seeing there.

As far as coming across a physical copy - yes I've been lucky to find a lot of rarities from that time and place as it is a huge interest of mine. My collection is getting pretty stacked! Also despite the fact that I'm stateside so the UK stuff is tougher to come across in the wild.

Evan -- Not sure how mad you are for this stuff, but: when I was downloading everything 20 years ago, I put together 10 CD-80s from the Flexidisc site: I Wish I Was a Flexidisc, Vol. 1-10, 279 songs...I think I can duplicate all the CDs, just need to figure out how; if you want to cover postage (from Canada), I could get them to you sometime in the spring.

https://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com/

This dB's-centered bootleg blog covers a lot of power pop ground and more (e.g. Big Star & Alex Chilton, Elvis Costello, The Feelies, Game Theory, Jason Falkner, Lloyd Cole, Mitch Easter, Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock, and every spin-off and side project of the dB's). Scroll through the list of artists on the right-hand side of the page.

Thanks clemenza!!! You don’t have them backed up on your computer then do you? A link download through wetransfer would probably be less trouble but depends on the steps involved in duplicating the discs I suppose. Like whether you need to rip them either way.

Let me investigate--will get back to you via board email.

wtf at the results for this

I'd say four of the top five at least fit my own (very loose) parameters for what counts as power-pop. Sugar doesn't really--not that I don't like songs by them, just not sure they belong. (And yet, and yet...I'd probably be okay sneaking "Books About UFOs" or "It's Not Funny Anymore" onto a power-pop mix-CD, so I can't really defend excluding them.) But the runaway winner should have been Black Vinyl Shoes.

if you weren't the sole voter for Black Vinyl Shoes then it was probably me, unless I just missed this poll at the time

My first post here mentions missing the poll, so could well have been you--well done, if so.

I was curious how RYM's evaluation of power-pop has changed in the last 15 years.
Only 23 of the records listed here are still in the top 50 of their chart. The greatest tumble was down to # 210 - The Only Ones.
Sister Lovers and the two Rundgren records are no longer classified as part of the genre, although the "Couldn't I Just Tell You" single is.

Evan: I sent you board email.

Thanks - received! I don't check that email account much so naturally delayed. Also I miss things here until I stumble my way back through threads.

Anyway, massively appreciated for sure, let me get back to you as I have A LOT going on right now (baby on the way next week).

Oh I meant to ask too, is it that entire blog across the 10 discs then?

congrats evan!

thank you!

Baby, power-pop, baby, power-pop, baby...your focus should be the new baby, yes. (Congratulations.) I think the 10 discs probably cover everything.

Baby, power-pop, baby, power-pop, baby...

Sounds like the chorus of a particularly meta power-pop song.

(Congrats, Evan!)

thank you!!

Also shown here (if sorted by added) is my major haul this month - kind of a last hurrah of vinyl collecting for a little bit.

https://www.discogs.com/user/razenave/collection

Two of my favorite powerpop songs are Bram Tchaikovsky's "Girl Of My Dreams" and The Records "Starry Eyes", both found on the excellent "DIY - Starry Eyes" Rhino comp. I love me some Big Star but the British lads did something a bit different that I connect with.

Ever heard Too Much Joy's cover of "Starry Eyes?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLKvlJFlj8

or Dr Janet? Yo La Tengo/Screaming Trees/Das Damen one-off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssa-dOpM3M

Pretty good--not as good as I remembered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2p0RuoO-a4

I was so into Too Much Joy in '92-'94ish, somewhere in there.

Haven't listened to 'em since ... I wonder how they hold up?

They're still making music! Or rather, they're back to making music: they put out an album in 2021 called Mistakes Were Made, their first since 1996, that I thought was really great. I haven't spent as much time with the follow-up, All These Fucking Feelings, but they're definitely worth catching up with if you were ever a fan.

Recent Music League power-pop round revealed the track Tears by The Crocodiles that I would instantly have no reservations calling the greatest power-pop song of all time and maybe one of the best pop songs of all time. Thanks, whatever your username is on here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh01Rv6Z-28

The album is amazing too

I listened to my second* Cheap Trick album today - One by One - off the back of Chuck Eddy's comments in Stairway to Hell which I'm having fun re-reading atm. And I kinda forgot how tough they were (not really as Beatlesy as advertised, except the Paulieisms on "If You Want My Love") but mostly it reminded me of.. Slade! 80s Slade, even, which I enjoy a lot. But "She's Tight" and especially "Saturday at Midnight" and "I Want Be Man" are very clattery and mechanical and weird (without entering 'zolo' territory per se). Parts of the latter might as well be KFMDM. Is this really considered one of their weakest?

*My first was The Doctor, naturally.

One ON One ahem

Get to those early ones! "Downed," "Southern Girls," "He's a Whore"--they had both ends of the spectrum covered ("jangly" vs. "crunchy"--see earlier in this thread).

Having re-read that again I feel like I'm having an especially cursed week vis a vis typos. Subeditor needed pls.

The first Cheap Trick looks like my next port of call. But I was sorta tempted by Dream Police which I figured was sorta their top of the mountain 'let's move our newly-expanded audience along with us into slightly more esoteric territory' album. Sorta tempted because what would it sound like without the context of earlier albums? And is it even true?

I like the song a lot, don't remember anything else about the album. I was kind of late to them myself--I bought Dream Police when it came out, but I think that was my first CT album. I had some radio familiarity with their two big hits before that. I think they were definitely looking to expand their audience, but maybe, until their late-'80s success (no interest in any of that myself), they were caught in the middle of nowhere: too metal for new-wave, too pop for metal, etc.

That Crocodiles song is enjoyable! Best power-pop song of all time? Of course. Definitely.

i was the Crocodile Tears submitter... believe i came across it a couple years ago trawling streaming service new zealand 80s playlists looking for jangle obscurities, or maybe clicking through "similar artists" when finding an interesting group thereon. it's definitely an interesting album veering from roy wood / deaf school type oldies gone slightly overegged towards split enz type tamely berzerk new wave prog, but really the only song that sticks with me is the single. i guess it was a pretty fair hit in new zealand, #17 in 1980. and you gotta love a band that makes the two singers one female one male feel equally weighted and natural, it creates a sort of self-contained world of "we can sing from any romantic perspective and comment on it".

jenny morris recorded an inxs b-side cover of jackson in 1985 that is probably her most interesting post-crocodiles recording.

i'm in the process of putting together a history of female lead vox power pop chronological 100 song playlist starting from precursors like wanda jackson (settled on "whirlpool") and etta james with "tears" of course included. there's so much good modern stuff, it's fun to narrow it down to the best options.

I'd love to hear that when you finish it

i was the Crocodile Tears submitter... believe i came across it a couple years ago trawling streaming service new zealand 80s playlists looking for jangle obscurities, or maybe clicking through "similar artists" when finding an interesting group thereon. it's definitely an interesting album veering from roy wood / deaf school type oldies gone slightly overegged towards split enz type tamely berzerk new wave prog, but really the only song that sticks with me is the single. i guess it was a pretty fair hit in new zealand, #17 in 1980. and you gotta love a band that makes the two singers one female one male feel equally weighted and natural, it creates a sort of self-contained world of "we can sing from any romantic perspective and comment on it".

jenny morris recorded an inxs b-side cover of jackson in 1985 that is probably her most interesting post-crocodiles recording.

― mig (guess that dreams always end), Friday, January 24, 2025 11:46 PM

"Tears"' profile in NZ was sustained a bit by both Jenny Morris' big solo hits / supermarket bangers ("Body & Soul"/"She Has To Be Loved"/"Break In The Weather") and a fairly dire/slick '92 re-recording, as well as being prominently sampled in the Headless Chickens' Cruise Control (funny how Flying Nun's biggest chart hits were from a more-or-less grebo band).

When you were trawling for NZ jangle obscurities, did you come across Christchurch's The Perfect Garden? Recorded late 80s but not properly released until 2018-ish.

Very late but I also think lack of inclusion of the Smithereens is a crime.
Also Syd Straw's Surprise!

xp no i hadn't heard The Perfect Garden, this is an excellent ep

Cherry Red had a really cheap deal on a 3CD set of early Shoes material 73-78.
Already reduced plus 20% off during January. So came out at about £8.

Haven't really heard the contents but the band self recorded 3 or 4 lps before they got signed to a larger label.

20% off any old product on Cherry Red label with a code that's on the label website. Until end of month.
So I think might be any non new release product specifically on the sub label of the name.

that Shoes box is well worth it for £8. I've got most of it already but there's a few bonus tracks there I don't think I've heard. not sure I've heard their Bomp single tbh although it's just different versions of songs that appear on their other records

Syd Straw's Surprise

Hmm, other than the dBs cover, I don't hear any power-pop on this; country-rock, folk-rock, Americana, some kinds of art rock...