Best Power Pop Songs of All Time?

"Can't Hardly Wait" by The Replacements.

Sounds a lot like it to me.

Like all Posies albums, it falls about after the first five songs.

1. The Who: I Can See For Miles
2. Nazz: Open My Eyes
3. Badfinger: No Matter What
4. The Raspberries: Go All The Way
5. Todd Rundgren: Couldn't I Just Tell You
6. Blue Ash: Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her)
7. Big Star: September Gurls
8. Dwight Twilley: I'm On Fire
9. The Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action
10.Pezband: Baby It's Cold Outside
11.Cheap Trick: I Want You To Want Me
12.Fotomaker: Where Have You Been All My Life
13.The Rubinoos: I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
14.The Records: Starry Eyes
15.The Knack: My Sharona
16.Shoes: Too Late
17.20/20: Yellow Pills
18.The Romantics: What I Like About You
19.Phil Seymour: Precious To Me
20.Rick Springfield: Jessie's Girl
21.Marshall Crenshaw: Someday Someway
22.The Plimsouls: A Million Miles Away
23.The Spongetones: She Goes Out With Everybody
24.The dBs: Love Is For Lovers

Of course Big Star--Back of a Car and the inevitable September Gurls are essential; also In the Street and When My Baby's Beside Me

The Move have to be in there somewhere too:
Flowers in the Rain; Wild Tiger Woman; Wave Your Flag and Stop the Train; Omnibus; Hello Susie; Fire Brigade

Easybeats are pretty proto-powerpop too:

Sorry; Remember Sam; Bring a Little Lovin'; Friday on My Mind; Heaven and Hell; Wait a Minute.

Cheap Trick--If You Want My Love

Diesel Park West--All the Myths on Sunday, the greatest Big Star rip ever

Records--Teenarama

Pursuit of Happiness - "Shes So Young"

Jellyfish - "The King Is Half Undressed"

Big Star - "Daisy Glaze"

Elliott Smith - "Son Of Sam"

Sparks - "Amateur Hour", "Tips for Teens"
Cheap Trick - "Surrender"

I'm quite sure you guys know this band. But I thnik we don't speak a lot about it. "Only Forever" is a wonderful album, one of my favorite of the 90s.

That's all I wanted to say :)

Liquor Giants...just from the s/t album:
Chocolate Clown
Fake Love
100 Dollar Car
Awful Good
Hideous Pleasure
Here
Jerked Around
All I Get

Gawd, how did Ward Dotson go so ignored?!?

A non-complete list of some of the best from the Yellow Pills comps...

The Rock Club - Time Will Tell on You
The Flashcubes - It's You Tonight
Chris von Sneidern - Call Out My Name
Kyle Vincent - Just a Matter of Time
Shoes - A Thing of the Past
Black and Blonde - Just in Time
John McMullan - Taking Me Somewhere
The Beat - I've Always Got You on My Mind
DM3 - Show You
Jason Falkner - My Home Is Not a House

Anyone like Adam Schmitt?

Another Girl Another Planet - Only Ones
Marie Provost - Nick Lowe
Peace Love & Understanding - Elvis Costello
Remember the Lightning- 20/20
September Girl - Big Star
No Matter What - Badfinger
I Think We're Alone Now - Tommy James
Let It Be Me - Dum Dum Girls
Take the Cash - Wreckless Eric

Dum Dum Girls???

Cotton Mather - the entire Kontiki album

Aww man, "Whippings and Apologies" by Sparks as well, totally righteous.

putting this here for future generations:

this video by THE COLORS never fails to make me happy (1980 power pop stuff if you ain't never heard them)

the stiv bators album is terrible/great.

need more 80s power pop:

Scruffy the Cat - My Baby, She's Alright
Let's Active - Every Word Means No
The Bongos - Bulrushes

The fucking Toms record is rocking my shit right now.

There was a cool book that came out a couple of years ago, "The Ultimate Power Pop Guide" which selected the 200 best power pop albums of all-time. If you google that name you'll find some industrious fellow took one song from each album and put together a series of compilations. Quite nifty! 200 power pop songs in a row is a bit much for me, though.

The Modernettes -- Little Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi0uz8JD9Aw

Elastica - Blue is one of my current obsessions.

Two drunk dudes were walking round the pub singing "Airport" by the Motors the other day.

Brendan Benson's "Tiny Spark" is a nugget-sized wrecking ball. Don't like anything else I've heard by him, but must have played "Tiny Spark" 1000 times in the past 3-4 years. That'd be on my alltime PP comp.

Brendan Benson's "Tiny Spark" is a nugget-sized wrecking ball. Don't like anything else I've heard by him, but must have played "Tiny Spark" 1000 times in the past 3-4 years. That'd be on my alltime PP comp.
--we can only flee in abject horror from yesterday's mistakes (staggerlee)

200 power pop songs in a row is a bit much for me, though.

Heresy!

200 power pop songs in a row is a bit much for me, though.

Heresy!

I picked up the MFSL of Marshall Crenshaw's self titled album and listened to that and Field Day a few times over the last week. Both albums left me kind of cold in the past and still do. "Too polished" are not the right words but something like that -- the guitar fills that are a little too canned, choruses that are a little bland. A band like the Rubinoos made some real clunkers but there's more heart in their music. Maybe it's his voice--I really liked Jaggedland, his 2009 album, where he sounds grizzled and older. That said "Whenever You're on My Mind" is pretty much perfect and "Cynical Girl" gets close.

MFSL is not really worth picking up but the bass is a little more pronounced.

http://open.spotify.com/user/jseraf/playlist/5TRkdCojkl2JpclHE949Mi

In the vein of The Toms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg1m0T9hwRI

If you want Power Pop, you have to check out the excellent Elaine MacKenzie album by Green, crammed with yearning & screaming PowerPopSongs. Follow-up White Soul is excellent as well. If I would have to pick one song to include on your comp, it'd be "Don't Ever Fall In Love With Someone, As Long As You Love Someone Else".

― willem (willem), Friday, December 5, 2003 3:56 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNrWZBzP6_I&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia0uL2vK4dY&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEjutUbgpH8

No Tommy Keene mentioned yet? I'd go with Underworld, but the guy has literally dozens of (should be) classic songs.

"Places That Are Gone" is mixtape gold.

Monroes have amazing hair.

Re: that Mark & the Spies track ... I get what you are saying with the Toms comparison, but IMO that's a lame track, and not alone of late in its old-guy Beatles-ness. I would even put someone like Mike Viola in this category despite his arranging strengths (see this spotify playlist for a lot more http://open.spotify.com/user/roshjosenblum/playlist/62NZXrvkr91d8Ngl0jHfbD ). Too high fidelity? Something that pretty could use some grunge and hiss. Too far removed from the Beatles to know the difference between homage and inspiration? Or maybe it's just songwriting. The chord progressions in the verse and chorus are not only cheesy (forgivable) but boring (not forgivable). The reason hi-fi, poppy tracks by someone like Matthew Sweet tend to work and have replay value is that there is always something at least temporarily ugly and off. e.g. "I've Been Waiting" - there are dissonances everywhere. Of course they eventually resolve, but it's not like it's resonant major chord after chord. "Sick of Myself" is a pretty pat track but the guitar work is good and the lyrics add interest. Those guys should learn from the Toms and do some variations on "Sun" until they learn that dissonance is not necessarily a bad thing.

Frisbie! I remember buying that record based on a breathless review on salon.com

For me their bid for power pop immortality is Vertigogo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7v0y0o0kVc

"Might Be Right" by White Reaper might be in my all time top ten. Has any power pop song in recent years come close, or eclipsed it? I'd love to know.

powerbump

it's really, really good.

i'm gonna go looking for some recent tunes that i think are in the same ballpark. i'll be back!

that whole album (all 29 mins of it) kills imo, as does the previous one

In the meantime, this recently compiled mix by one of my favorite music websites is an absolute treasure trove of garage-y power-pop:

http://www.ravensingstheblues.com/mixtape-young-hearts-unite/

for recent stuff, I absolutely love the Number Ones (from Dublin), this is the lead track from their last single, they haven't released that much recently but are still active afaik:

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

this is my fave song off their album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeJdW9-urUk

they are a lot of fun live

I'm not sure if powerpop is exclusively a boys club, but this song by The Beths seems to fit the genre pretty well:

https://thebethsnz.bandcamp.com/track/lying-in-the-sun