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

pop music with a fuzz pedal.

I think it was made up by some journo.

Powerpop is not c or d just as clouds aren't it just is

greg shaw's deployment of "power pop" was all about wanting something to make it big that never did. and so, perhaps, for me the term refers to something i'd like to exist more than it actually does.

my take on the usefulness of the category is, roughly, to restrict it to (as posted above) pop + heaviness (eg fuzz pedal (=the nazz, o' course!)) and a kind of harmony vox vision of teen romance (and so DEFINITELY NOT straight out popular rock like b.t.o.).

todd rundgren could be a good emblematic figure. maybe only one really all time winner post-nazz - "i saw the light" - but his sound expresses absolutely the attitude, which is: being in love with the idea of pop; him wanting to be phil spector or something, only a matter of years after the fact of the man's heyday; wanting to be the beatles and (sorta) hendrix. so, maybe: power pop is pop fans making music for an audience of pop fans slightly removed from the actual contemporary top-ten-buying public?

the main obvious actually great bands of this elusive genre - and even the ok ones - (ie big star, badfinger, the raspberries, the shoes and the dbs) evanesce on approach into being just, y'know, bands and family trees for me - more than a genre - so that the essence of the thing seems to lie in a small scattering of individual songs/entirely marginal bands (the records "starry eyes", for sure! and, say, bram tchaikovsky "girl of my dreams", fotomaker "where have you been all my life", blue ash's first lp…) and there are not many major label candidates (20/20, pez band...?). (the last absolute word on the limit of the genre, by the way, has to be hyped-to-death's "teenline" series which comps the thousands of one-off and indie singles – so, the scruffs….)

for me it is strictly a '70s thing: maybe some songs off of joan jett's "the album", and "crash" by the primitives ought to count, but anything too recent and it gets to be sort of different. (like people now attempting versions of '70s power pop.) a decade-opening benchmark: "rock'n'roll" by the velvet underground - celebrating the mythology of rock's redemptive power, celebrating '50s archetypes of teen culture. (this attitude became so huge that a couple years later the runnaways' cover is an obvious choice.) powerpop is one of the better versions of the '70s move to electively identify with the idea of this postwar teen/rock stuff. like sha na na or whatever, but less dumbo. people into the dream of cars, girls, milkshakes, tight pants, skinny ties, harmony pop - and quite aware that it's sort of a choice, like joining a gang, to be into that stuff - the pop of yesteryear - even that it's out of step with the order of things. check: jonathan richman singing "i'm straight", lenny kaye's doowop collection...

the velvets, the dolls, the ramones, the dictators or patti smith are not powerpop, of course, but even they all have elements of that attitude, that it's hip to dig quite old square/mainstream pop stuff (heard patti do "you light up my life"?). much more like powerpop (but arguably a thing-in-their-own-right, by strength of association with the whole nyc thing): blondie. what dave q was picking up on the other day and casting negatively - their knowing appropriation of pop stuff within the rock band format: doing a reggae song, a doowop cover, copping shangrilas moves.... yeah, they're powerpop!

borderline case: the modern lovers don't make it 'cos 1) too much like the velvet u/ground (wrong kind of heavy) and 2) the family tree/real band in their own right thing. BUT powerpop does tend to go with that kind of projection of a nerdy/sensitive (masculine) self-image: go out with me and it will be FUN and we'll do all that cool teen stuff. and that's part of what cuts all the badass self-image stuff (dolls, ramones, dictators) out of contention (they do not do relationship songs! (covering "i got you babe" doesn't count - obviously)).

This is an idea on which we might follow up. What are the "other questions" that bands might have asked instead?

And, no, BTO are not Powerpop. I wouldn't call Oasis Powerpop either, as Powerpop has an American set of important influences added to the British ones. I don't hear a lot of Beach Boys, Byrds nor Big Star in the music of Oasis.

I maintain that powerpop starts when Americans began imitating the Beatles. For me, the origins are the Everly Bros. recordings of the mid-'60s on Warner Bros, stuff like "I'll See Your Light" and "So Lonely." The Left Banke. The Knickerbockers. Obviously, the Byrds. The Beau Brummels. And I think that the *emotional* content of powerpop goes back to Del Shannon--the outsider rampaging through these compact forms with his heart on his sleeve, even though Del's early singles are something else entirely. But listen to the Andrew Loog Oldham sessions Del did, like "Home and Away," from '67. That's powerpop.

Then you got the Move, the Small Faces, and the Who--more self-conscious efforts to beef up the British Invasion sound. That also is powerpop. The Easybeats, who as one of the great formalist bands of the era certainly provided those kind of formal thrills without really "saying anything." To me, it's all about not having a big statement to make, that's powerpop.

Where it really starts as something you can say is a distinct genre is Badfinger, Big Star, some of Todd's stuff, Blue Ash, the first Flamin' Groovies album. That's '70s powerpop. Cheap Trick, certainly, but although I like them a lot, I think they're not subtle enough to be exactly what I'm talking about.

Greg Shaw--I have this Bomp! magazine devoted to powerpop, and the guy was way fuckin' off about it, he indeed had this agenda that "punk is over and now it's about these bands who take the 'power of classic rock/punk and add melody to it' "--well, he missed what it was by a mile. The Ramones weren't powerpop.

The Knack sucked, basically, even though "My Sharona" is a classic single. Many of those L.A. powerpop bands were deficient in one way or another. Again, the key, to my mind, is subtlety mixed with power. Which is why Big Star is the ultimate powerpop group by several miles. They weren't "powerful" but they were definitely playing rock and roll. They had the compression of form thing down, though. The dB's were much the same thing.

By the time you get to the Posies or to Teenage Fanclub, you're just basically in the realm of slavish adherence to this ideal of powerpop, and the "content" of such music is even more attenuated than what you find in the '70s stuff. I mean what in the fuck is the Move's music *about*? It's not about anything, which is why it's powerpop. It has this lingering "subject matter" which derives from the Beatles or whoever, they were great imitators of the Byrds, the Beatles, Love, Moby Grape, etc. I mean you could say the same thing about Jellyfish, who were incredibly accomplished--it's just formalism taken to ridiculous heights. There has to be this crazed formalism--"remember how well the Beatles or the Byrds did this, we do this too and beef it up for you"--with some kind of hidden emotional core. That's hard to do and that's to me the essence of the whole genre.

It's funny, too, to realize that at one time the Beatles were the end-all of pop music and that powerpop is inevitably drawn from that experience/realization, and to remember that powerpop has always been a real minority, insular genre!

Which is why BTO, while displaying some of the same surface properties of powerpop, is just too prole. Powerpop has to be basically kinda mod to work, you got to come across as something of an aesthete.

I like everything, but as far as this certain idea of pop music goes, I don't think anyone is ever going to really improve on what the Byrds did, in terms of sheer mastery of form mixed with experimentation mixed with beauty and accessibility of sound. Obviously there's lots of other stuff that works on its own terms as well or better, I'm no moldy fig wishing for the good old days, but in terms of pop music you hear on the radio, I don't know if there's anything else I can compare it to. Maybe I am totally wrong--shoot me down if you must, this is just my attempt to explain, I'm sure quite clumsily, part of my "aesthetic."

I personally don't think the Knack sucked. You see them as being deficient in some way with the exception of "My Sharona" -- am I wrong to assume that this is because "My Sharona" (as opposed to "Good Girls Don't" and other songs of theirs) is somewhat compositionally complex?

There has to be room in power pop for a simple 2:30 song with simple chords. That is, I believe, the received definition of the term. Yours strikes me as revisionist.

I guess, Tim, what I'm trying to get at is this notion of "rocking and not rocking." Which a Big Star song like "When My Baby's Beside Me" does real well. That's what I think powerpop does. "My Sharona" is simplistic, it's really just a riff, a good one, but the songform thing isn't happening that well there. Also, I think really great powerpop has the idea of the *insidious* in it--there's some attempt to overload the form while at the same time playing it cool. And I guess that's what I mean by "subtlety"--playing it cool not hot. I mean I understand what you say about "revisionist" but I think Del Shannon and the Everly Brothers in the mid-'60s have a lot more to do with powerpop than that whole Greg Shaw idea of "short songs with power chords," you know. If that were all there were to it, then indeed BTO and the Ramones would be powerpop. Cheap Trick would be the ultimate example of the form, but they're far from that. Something like "Whenever You're on My Mind" by Crenshaw is close to what I'm talking about, that whole "Field Day" album is probably the best powerpop album ever made. Because his heart is close to breaking and the only thing that saves him is his mastery of what seems to be a simple thing, but it ain't simple. Perfect equipoise. I like the stuff that's more laconic, rather than being in-your-face, I can get in-your-face from any number of rock tunes.

Cheap Trick may not have been very "subtle" on their debut album, but a lot of the tracks on "Heaven Tonight" (their best album IMO, even if I knew they found it slightly overproduced themselves) certainly have that powerpop subtleness in the arrangements about them.

You're wrong about "My Sharona," by the way, which is 4:52 and which I diagram as ABABCABDE.

A = verse (plus whatever amount of vamping leads up to it
B = chorus (third repetition of chorus is altered)
C = instrumental break and solo
D = lengthy solo in new key (w/ melodic intro and outro)
E = coda

I don't think the common notion of the term "power pop" can be summarized as "short songs with power chords." There's an aesthetic that has to be there. And I think it comes from things like "No Matter What" by Badfinger, the Raspberries, etc.

OK, Fine, But On The EDITORIAL Page?

But if you go by the standard parlance then "A Million Miles Away" by the Plimsouls is power pop, right? So then "Some Day Some Way" by Marshall Crenshaw is power pop, too. That's not to say that everything Crenshaw does is power pop, however. I certainly don't hear "Whenever You're on My Mind" as, you know, BEING VERY POWERFUL.

altered beast had power! or it was loud anyway.

More for those first couple of Yardbird singles, Graham Gouldman is a secret godfather of powerpop. "Heart Full of Soul" and "Evil Hearted You", as they have big fuzzy guitar riffs with vocal harmony featured in the chorus, seem like a template for this kind of sound. There are also a few early Kinks tunes that fit the same kind of sound and even have a more fuzzed up guitar than many of the Beatles songs from the same time.

Chicago had a p/p scene in the 70s, behind Cheap Trick were Pezband (2 wimpy albums, 2 good EPS, good live) and Off Broadway (1 good LP, 1 unheard by me) and of course the Shoes who were an anomaly but made some of the best records in this genre IMHO.

I think Edd's got it pretty much right in terms of development, Beatle/Byrds devotion. I always loved Badfinger but even on the radio, I don't know, something about the Raspberries always seemed too cheesy for me, they're closer to Bay City Rollers than Big Star.

Edd are you familiar with the Scruffs or Tommy Hoehn? Believe they were from Memphis, made records in the late 70s. I've only heard one song by each on a p/p comp, but the Tommy Hoehn cut ("Blow Yrself Up") is a real keeper.

What about the Dwight Twilley Band? I don't know if I've ever even heard them, but their name was bandied around a lot back in the day.

Which is fine, since the Bay City Rollers >>> Big Star (as were the Raspberries.). "Cheesy" here = rocking powerchords, right?

My fave forgotten 1979 LA powerpoppers were probly the Pop and 20/20 (both of whom had just a wee bit of Roxy Music in them). The Beat's first album was also really good; *way* catchier than the Shoes.

as much as i like half of the bands mentioned on this thread, the other half could easily be described by the words: anal, pinched, bland, bleached, and fussy. okay, i kinda do wanna listen to the smithereens right now.

i miss duane :(

i haven't heard em for years: yes we should ask

(ilxors shd be warned i have been having a BIG GIANT TIDY UP and have unearthed a LOT of potential "where is the love" fodder haha)

(to make that minor prog-spasm oif two weeks back look HEALTHY AND SANE)

"It isn't just good: this is the best music I've ever heard in my life (reviewer hyperbole, translating to: it's pretty 'effin hot). Of the first four tunes ("I Wanna Be With You"/"Let's Pretend"/"I'm a Rocker"/"Tonight"), three are among the greatest songs of the decade...(Later) And just when you thought you could never stand to hear another over-played Spector tune, the 'Berries rip off a "Be My Baby" that is a mindblower...castanets, perfect vocal, kill drumming, I mean WHAT THE FUCK?!? This original band never even played a proper Los Angeles club gig (I saw the final lineup, a whole nother kettle of fish altogether), had no particular live rep except for having the balls to open for Savoy Brown and (once) Blue Oyster Cult. Obviously, the Raspberries lost the fight to make the Top 40 cool again."

Here's my review of the Quick (and a couple other things):

http://villagevoice.com/music/0340,tracker_writer.inc,47223,.html

(Actually, "Girl of My Dreams" started out sounding a lot like "Born to Run." Has there ever been a thread on Bruce Springsteen's overwhelming influence on 1979 new wave -- as in Bram, Boomtown Rats {been watching a DVD of a 1978 Hammerstein Odeon show by them -- rockin'!), and the oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs in all those Elvis Costello songs?)

That Metal Mike thing was actually a letter he wrote to Swellsville!

Cherry Red is putting out the Milk'n'Cookies album:

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/rpm/newrel.htm

Ian North's 2 synth albums are great: "My Girlfriends Dead" and "Rape of Orchids".

Nah I like the rocking powerchords on Go All The Way, Tonight etc. It's Eric Carmen's glossy vocals I'm not wild about. I'm 1/2 drunk so I'll signoff now...

Big Star are southern rock & roll (as opposed to southern rock).

I'm OK now but one mertini (haha)really does it these days.

do any of the core power pop bands actually use power chords? when i think of big star, or marshall crenshaw, or teenage fanclub, or any of their peers/disciples/etc., i think of ringing, open D's, A's and G's.

Obviously, I think saying that the "core power pop bands" are Big Star, Marshall Crenshaw, and Teenage Fanclub gives a bit of a slanted perspective on the genre as a whole.

can they? an open D is by definition not a power chord. same with open A, C, E, G, etc. unless you alter your tuning to get rid of the thirds, or you play really weird open chords. sorry to be all anal and everything; just trying to live up to my name. (i confess i haven't heard "good girls don't" in a long time. i'll have to check it out.)

as for my core power pop bands, that was actually me just picking three likely names out of a hat. i'm actually not sure what the core power pop bands would be if i actually sat down and thought about it (or, say, read the rest of the thread). but everyone agrees on big star just like everyone agrees that al green is a soul singer, no?

I don't get this. How did they rock OR roll more than, say, Skynyrd? (Which is to say, how was lots of "Southern rock" *not* rock & roll?)

Piece on Big Star and "power pop" I wrote for Stylus. I got haters on my blog after this one! It was awesome.

Marshall Crenshaw and Matthew Sweet

I never said that! All I meant was Big Star took the three minute song format and rolled w/it, they didn't jam and boogie like Skynyrd and the Allmans (and no no I don't equate them either). The Beatles with southern accents? That's how I hear #1 Record and Radio City.

I think the reason we butt heads on this stuff sometimes Chuck is that I deploy terminology like "rock/rock&roll" in a case-by-case, purely descriptive basis rather than using it to map out a bigger aesthetic. I was just trying to nail down what I hear in Big Star, not make an invidious distinction between rock and rock&roll or a dismissive sweeping generalization about southern music.

(dozen or more xposts)

f/c cuz: what's your band called?

I used to go see old Chilton back when he was playing more, and always there would be someone yelling, "play harder! rock more! faster, louder," and he'd go, "naa..." That's just not what that's about, it's very calibrated and deliberate, and if it works for him (and for me), fine. A subspecies of rock and roll--just like the Beach Boys are, at least after about '64.

Anyway, enough--I think "powerpop" is a real limited genre with not all that much to really represent it, most of it is indeed attenuated and not worth listening to.

I have just discovered Geir's favourite new band of 2008: Jackdaw4

myspace: Jackdaw4
http://www.myspace.com/jackdaw4

The following have been mentioned in the feedback we have had for the album: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Prefab Sprout, Jellyfish, Todd Rundgren, Tears For Fears, XTC, The Police, Squeeze, Queen, ELO

http://www.jackdaw4.com/non_flash/news.php
Cargo distribution has picked up Bipolar Diversions and the CD will be in good record stores around the UK on Monday 7 April 2008.

looking at this thread this morning, I just got exhausted. The Bay City Rollers were "better" than Big Star...er, OK! Have fun with that. No one can agree. I still think, despite my best efforts to be populist and all, that Marshall Crenshaw beats just about any of the people we're discussing; he calls it power pop, and so do I. I do like the Raspberries more than I used to--unlike Big Star, say, they were a good live band. Big Star was just about the worst live group ever; they didn't care; they thought they were the Beatles. If I had to pick just, say, 4 albums to represent this "genre" I'd pick Radio City, Crenshaw's Field Day, that Raspberries best-of and probably Stands for Decibels, the first dB's record.

Bachman Turner Lollerdrive.

they played thirteen at the end of one of my fave sitcoms last week. hope alex sees some dough from that.

one of my fave sitcoms last week

There's a good sitcom?

been out of the powerpop pool for a while but i am loving the heck out of the crusaders of love and baby shakes albums at the moment..

I missed that 2008 update on this thread, but Jackdaw4 do indeed sound like a kind of act that I like, judging from the soundclips. No wonder, with such a list of references. :)