The Smiley Smile Message Board

So yesterday I read this,

http://www.avclub.com/articles/a-beginners-guide-through-the-heyday-of-powerpop-1,86527/

And I am all about POWERPOP again (probably thanks to strong coffee) but I need all the recommendations you have. All of them.

For example, this is my jam right now.

The Romantics - What I Like About You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jvHKjDKY_O8

and this,
The Boyfriends - I'm In Love Today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ankke6WlE

Also listened to the Shoes album they mention in that article and hot damn.

Also, I love Raspberries, Big Star, Todd, etc.

But, my fellow Americans, ask not what your powerpop can do for you, but what you can do for your powerpop - Give me things to listen to!

I know that feel, bro.  :lol

As for my recommendations:

Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend & 100% Fun
Jellyfish - Spilt Milk & Bellybutton
Marshall Crenshaw - Marshall Crenshaw


Plus basically anything from Fountains of Wayne (!!), Big Star, Weezer (obviously) and a little band called Wondermints.  :3d Oh, and maybe try the Raspberries, too.  :)

SUPERDRAG!! Awesome underrated power pop band. Their album In the Valley Of Dying Stars is my favorite.

Track down an album by Bill Lloyd (once of Foster & Lloyd) called Set to Pop.

Redd Kross.
Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Action

That album is one of my all-time favorites, the songwriting and performances are incredible.

I have only one thing to say: The Rubinoos. Everything by them.

And speaking of power pop, here's a 70s power pop inspired tune by the group I'm in:

http://surfschooldropouts.bandcamp.com/track/run-away

The Rubinoos - favorite power pop band. Nice guys, too. You really need EVERYTHING by this band. I'll help you out if you want specific reccomendations or if you just can't find something.

The Innocents (aka Beathoven) from Tasmania also have some solid, solid stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du2K81JvCbM

Also:

The Red Button
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A0t-4z5lPU

Ouch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47vThL9kHP4

Love all Flamin' Groovies and all the Sire stuff is wonderful Beatles/Stones/Byrdsesque at its best while still being original, but "Shake Some Action" is simply one of the 5 greatest rock and roll albums of all time.  Maybe top 3. Or....

Rhino released a terrific comp called "Poptopia" in the mid-90s, broken down into a 70s, 80s, and 90s disc.  Love them and still listen to them all the time.

Top 5 Power Pop "singles" off the top of my head:

"I'm on Fire" -- Dwight Twilley Band
"September Gurls" -- Big Star
"Shake Some Action" -- Flamin' Groovies
"Whenever You're on My Mind" -- Marshall Crenshaw
"No Matter What" -- Badfinger

Plimsouls and Tommy Keene....

ABD has got many of my faves on his list. A lot of power pop is just too sticky sweet for me; the best power pop, pops but also rocks. Try these (many of which I'm sure you've heard):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voKihZAN4ng (from verse to catchiest chorus in the shortest time!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xoke1wUwEXY (none better)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7aoWX8ENT0 (a little bit edgier and better live)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TUepa0yfyw (how was this not a massive hit?)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzzCSVCqOc (fantastic single)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH5Arbm47IQ (80s power pop)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsPKKuQmJJQ (I'll take this over September Gurls)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WTjBdRtM2U (tough call between this and their cover of Katrina's song)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov_ByEAACok (really fun debut album)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsP4PGWqaZM (battle of the retro clothes with the next band)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgdgptaBma8 (one freakishly talented, if insanely derivative, band)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRlBOUs6PkU (old friends, but Noel loves 'em too)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eERZYhox110 (only discovered these guys fairly recently; really should have been huge...I mean Rod Stewart was!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffRTp1YTa0s (their ignored third album had a couple of great power pop songs)

I'll probably post more since you just took up a good chunk of my Friday night!

Crap, forgot the Plimsouls and Tommy Keene.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIxgBMNhsKU (Eddie once saw me play this live...it was embarrasing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_1fyj2CoFU (loved this EP)

Lesser known but great stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aymSfT7bz8w (one of the few cds someone ever sent me unrequested that I actually liked!)

Two of the best powerpop albums ever, and by lesser known bands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2p85Xt3QcI (not the best song on the album, by far, but all I could find on youtube)

And THE ALBUM YOU MUST HEAR IF YOU HAVEN'T:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxxhGePwa68

And can't forget Puffy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQPcXzvq7Rs (first single, sounding a LOT like ELO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRVShbxb87Q (play count the power pop references)


OK...that's all...for now...I promise.

RRA1's faves NRBQ have done some highly powerpoppy songs, the best known being on their Yankee Stadium and Tiddlywinks albums.

Love Puffy!

Speaking of ex Jellyfish (Andy Sturmer being the 'Phil Spector' of a lot of Puffy's stuff) check out Roger Joseph Manning Jr's 2 albums and also Jason Falkner's :) 

Barenaked Ladies have had a few halfway decent powerpop tunes on their last few albums (though they're mainly known for their folky-sounding joke songs).


It's All Been Done-Huge Hit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3xXlXSOKk

Too Little Too Late
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMKr92cGOUo

Maybe Katie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk7UHL4OJpg

Maybe Not
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2508pPY78u0

It's Only Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3woCrJgJebU

Down to Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFcT-p7VCd4

Running Out of Ink
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJQX6F27ihU


And don't forget Teenage Fanclub:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tENat-9HD5k

Great, great, great band. Head Trip in Every Key is a masterpiece!

Sold You an Alibi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp8BwBjsZp8&feature=related

Hellbent - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt8IOx1UcHQ

Do the Vampire - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34u4S04fDYE&feature=related

Mr Underground - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg3D89JS9LU&feature=related

mommy's alright, daddy's alright, surrender!

I was listening to Big Star today. It's hard to believe that their albums were made in the early to mid 70's, they sound like they came much, much later.

Yup.
RUBINOOS.
Definitely.

The thing that so many "power pop" bands missed out on is the "power" part of the equation. There has to be churning, loud guitars and powerful drums to make it. Things like The Rubinoos, that is just bull**it pop music, glorified Shaun Cassidy.

The dB's

Have you heard any Subvision?  I really dig them...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4juhw4soJ-c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pksoOtG6DXY

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

I can see where you are coming from, but the artists labeled as "pop" starting around the mid-to-late 70s turn people off - so groups like the Rubinoos brought back some of the old school pop sounds during a time of Debby Boone, disco, and Helen Reddy. I guess you could call it power-pop-lite.

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.  :-D

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?  :)

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....

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?

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. 

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.