POWERPOP - We need to talk about it RIGHT NOW.

[guitarfool2002]

I'm not big on labels or labeling styles, but I do think if a band is going to be put into the category of "Power Pop" which is a specific term with a specific set of sounds you expect to hear on records labeled that way, that band needs to sound like a Power Pop band. And some of the bands listed, if they're going for more of the Top 40 pop sound of the late 70's over the guitar-heavy templates created by Big Star/Dwight Twilley Band, early Cheap Trick, and later Matthew Sweet (especially when he had Richard Lloyd or Robert Quine in the band...), or even certain Todd Rundgren records, they're not really in the category.

I almost don't want to bring it up but one of the threads that connects many of the best Power Pop bands and artists was a love for and wanting to write and record songs that sounded like the early Beatles. "Pretty" chords and chord progressions, memorable and hook-filled melodies, smooth vocal harmonies, all played on top of loud guitars, aggressive rhythm guitarists, unpredictable lead guitarists, and a solid drum beat.

If several of those elements are missing, and it sounds more like a late 70's Olivia Newton-John record than any of the above, it's not Power Pop. 

[Paulos]

So, Weezer are power-pop right? Pop music but played powerfully with loud chugging guitars?

[guitarfool2002]

So, Weezer are power-pop right? Pop music but played powerfully with loud chugging guitars?

If someone were to hear some Weezer songs and label them "Power Pop", I wouldn't disagree with them. I thought they were closer to the labels being thrown at various slacker bands in the early to mid 90's than any of those bands being compared to "Brian Wilson" or even...horrors...Big Star by any number of both ersatz and legit music scribes that were drifting around various publications, 'zines, and weeklys just as the 'net was starting to develop. Anytime someone released a record that had a vocal harmony and a chord progression that included a major 7th, it seemed they were next in the "Brian Wilson" line, and the inheritors of the Power Pop fortune, mined since the 70's and remaining an underground hip thing ever since.

The first time I heard Weezer's "Buddy Holly", I heard a falsetto voice soaring high as a prechorus built into a hook-filled I-IV-V pretty standard chorus setup, and not only that, but shades of "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", he not only built with a soaring falsetto but also changed from a IV major to a IV minor chord, shades of the better-composed 60's pop, which was the idea of power pop before the labeling and the louder guitars, and one of the better examples was Mike Nesmith's "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", with similar traits. Then, there was the glorious stop-time just after the guitar solo where the entire mix drops out, after being built up by soaring falsetto round-type melodies, to allow one single guitar phrase to ring out in full power.

That was "I Get Around", that was "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", that was "Paperback Writer"/Day Tripper", that was "Wind Chimes", that was "Last Train To Clarksville"...etc etc etc.

It wasn't saying anything new, it wasn't groundbreaking or even as compelling as those originals mentioned above, but damn it just felt great to hear someone else, someone musically inclined of a certain age, who had listened to some of the same records that I/we thought were among the best ever made. "Why don't they make 'em like that anymore?", the old-timers say...then you hear elements of that reshaped into something new...and it's a great feeling. You want to hear *more*.

So I thought...hmmmm...this new band Weezer is grabbing some production and vocal arranging ideas from Brian Wilson, circa 1964 and how Brian made I Get Around so electric, he's grabbing a bit of Mike Nesmith's chord quirkiness and creating a prechorus build that has a bit more sophistication and movement than your average band who wasn't detuning guitars, droning on a few minor chords, and staring at their Doc Martins, and the whole melody flows in a way that the lyrics almost don't fit, but in a way they do because they balance out what is ultimately a powerful pop record hidden under the early 90's media ideas of how to label this band. And the stop time/drop-out sections...

I was sold. Then I heard "Say It Ain't So"...it was all over. I was hooked. That was then, but I still think there are several Weezer songs after the "Blue Album" that are terrific pop.

Should I call it "Power Pop"? Would that be right? 

[Aum Bop Diddit]

My understanding is that the term "Power Pop" was coined by Pete Townshend, which I'd say gives an indication of the guitar-attack aspect of the genre, if one were seeking even loose definitions.  For me its like pornography -- I know it when I hear (see) it....

[Myk Luhv]

If Weezer is considered power pop then I'll just mention this here: Like Brian and The Beach Boys generally, Rivers and Weezer have the unfortunate problem of not knowing what to ditch vs. release on studio albums. The amount of very good songs on the Alone series -- even for periods not generally as acclaimed as the 1993-97 era -- is a testament to this. I think their third self-titled (even much of Make Believe) is rather well done. Has Rivers ever said why, seemingly out of nowhere, he started writing more personal lyrics again?

[Ron]

I too am loose with my power pop definition, I think a lot of techno type sh*t is power pop.  

Great example:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgffRW1fKDk

Republica = Ready to Go

I think I just like it so much because the harmony is so great in the chorus.  

Of course there was "Drop Dead Gorgeous" as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqmwbVSTGlg

Definately pop, but has teeth to it.  More great harmony.  Fantastic melody. 

[Ron]

Oh and about Rivers.  I think I read and understood that he went through a period where he wanted to attempt to write like the Beatles did... so he wanted to release several albums a year, etc. and wrote several songs a day.  So I think that was the time when he was doing less personal stuff and trying to write more typical pop rock songs.  I believe I heard too that the reason 'pinkerton' happened was because he wanted to make something that wasn't as pretentious and deep as what he perceived "songs from the black hole' to be.  So for a while there, he consciously was attempting to make music that was very poppy.