The Best 50 Powerpop Albums according to RYM

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.