Who Loves some Power Pop?

[GrooveWarrior]

I have an extremely diverse CD collection. One of my favorite Genre's is Power pop!!

Who else loves it?

I'm talking:
Owsley
Jellyfish
Rooney
Spacehog
Jason Faulkner
etc.

My favorite albums are:
Owsley - Owsley
Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
Spacehog - The Chinese Album

[fretlessman71]

Fountains Of Wayne is a guilty pleasure for me.

[pjmuck]

Here here! Some further listening suggestions you mayh or may not know:

Tally Hall - The best new band I've heard in years, and talent far beyond their ages. They also self-produce some funny little home made videos appear on YouTube too.
The MerryMakers - now defunkt I think and they only released a couple of albums.
The Sugarplastic - often compared to XTC, though they've got their own thing going on. Quirky and hooky.

[Matt Till]

Would Stereolab count? I like them. I pretty sure "The Go Team" qualifies as well.

[projectMalamute]

Go to the source.

The first 4 or 5 Cheap Trick albums are fan-fricken-tastic power pop.

[gweimer]

Utopia-Utopia (the b&w cover)
The Fratellis - Costello Music
psychodots - Terminal Blvd (bassist Bob Nyswonger posts here occasionally)
Starlight Mints ( I think they qualify)
Off Broadway - both releases

[Winston TK]

Ah, you're all people after my own heart. Powerpop is a great musical genre.

And now, for the shameless personal plug: Why not check out my powerpop band, The Tomorrows? You can find us here http://www.myspace.com/tomorrows1 All of us in the band are HUGE powerpop fans.

[David1234]

My band kept getting called Power Pop so we've started taking an interest too. We got on a compilation "the powerpop overthrow vol 2" as well.

[lunarpollen]

A lot of the material from Japanese band the Pillows could be considered power pop

oh yes, one *excellent* band you should all check out is Pugwash, the best band out of Dublin, Ireland. Like XTC meets ELO. And with plenty of mellotron!!!

http://www.myspace.com/pugwalsh

[lunarpollen]

Oh yes how could I forget Groovy Uncle. Perfect songs, perfect performances, perfect arrangements...

http://www.myspace.com/155408545

[bassteban]

Originally Posted by projectMalamute

Go to the source.

The first 4 or 5 Cheap Trick albums are fan-fricken-tastic power pop.

Thank you, fellow old fart(I assume- ain't no youngsters like that crepe ). I remeber that term being applied to them back-in-the-before-the-day, bit I can't recall that it caught on until recently.
BTW, the 1st is best, IMO.

[Thunderthumbs73]

That one song by Spacehog which had the weaving, McCartney-esque (?) bassline in the verse sections was pretty cool. Can't think of the name of it. It's too late...

[GrooveWarrior]

Originally Posted by Thunderthumbs73

That one song by Spacehog which had the weaving, McCartney-esque (?) bassline in the verse sections was pretty cool. Can't think of the name of it. It's too late...

That song is "In the Meantime". It was their one hit song. The Chinese album is much better than that, and chock full of goodies.

I agree with the old school Cheap Trick reference. Same goes for The Cars.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the last Tears for Fears album, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending. That one is a power-pop tour de force.

[joemer]

Originally Posted by GrooveWarrior

I have an extremely diverse CD collection. One of my favorite Genre's is Power pop!!

Who else loves it?

I'm talking:
Owsley
Jellyfish
Rooney
Spacehog
Jason Faulkner
etc.

My favorite albums are:
Owsley - Owsley
Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
Spacehog - The Chinese Album

I must be older than you guys, when I think of power pop I think of bands that I loved like the Raspberries and Badfinger- great bands, great power pop ballads.

[projectMalamute]

Originally Posted by bassteban

Thank you, fellow old fart(I assume- ain't no youngsters like that crepe ). I remeber that term being applied to them back-in-the-before-the-day, bit I can't recall that it caught on until recently.
BTW, the 1st is best, IMO.

Not really too much of an old fart. I was like 2 when that first record came out. I got in to Cheap Trick after seeing them completely by accident in '95 or something. I could tell that story, but someone who posts on another board I frequent did a much better job than I could. This is a wonderful little thing about seeing Cheap Trick at the All Tomorrows Parties festival a few years back:

Originally Posted by some dude on another board

Cheap Trick: A Story

by run joe, run

One day me and my friends went to ATP it was the Shellac curated one we saw lots of good bands like Dead Moon and Plush and also Shellac. We had a very good time and also The Breeders played and lots of good bands. At the end of the three days we were very tired. The last bands to play were Cheap Trick and The Fall we tried to choose between them. Me and my friends had never listened to Cheap Trick only heard one or two songs and knew the silly man with the guitar and knew they had a very famous live album done in Japan. Some of my friends chose The Fall but me and some others chose Cheap Trick it was a real gamble but that is the one we chose.

The nice man from Shellac his name is Steve Albini he came onto the stage and told the audience he was not in Cheap Trick but he was proud to call them friends and his name was Steve. Then the band called Cheap Trick came on the stage and started playing songs and I liked the sound of it and went near the front to see the band better. I was close to the silly guitarist man and the singer and they played songs which I didn't know but when I heard them play the songs I thought that I knew them all already and that they sounded like classic famous songs that I loved straight away. Each song after the next seemed better and better and all with great choruses and then I started thinking the guitarist man is not really silly he just pretends to be silly like a funny clown but he is not silly when he plays the music on his guitar.

Then I realised that the man who was singing he was very good and his voice was a very good voice and he did not speak to the audience not even once because he was concentrating on the singing he was doing so much. I looked around me and saw that some people maybe thought the band was a silly rock band and were funny but they were enjoying it as well and some of the people liked it a lot. I stayed at the front and I realised that the band Cheap Trick were not silly and I started to feel strange like it was special. The guitarist man said the singer was his favourite singer in the world and the singer's name was Robin Zander and I looked at him and he was very sweaty and not saying a word to the audience still but singing as if they had told him he was going to die very soon and this might be his last ever time to sing.

I looked at the other men in the band and they were called Bun E. Carlos on the drums and Tom Petersen on the bass and the funny guitarist was called Rick Neilsen and he threw plectrums into the audience and I got some of them and when I watched the other men in the band playing the songs I thought maybe they had been told that this might also be their last concert so better make it a special one. But I was more looking at Robin Zander the man who was singing because I could tell he used to be a famous rock star on people's posters on their bedroom walls and now he was much older and maybe he once wanted to give up singing because he was older but instead decided to concentrate on the singing and get better and better at it as he got older. He was very sweaty and it didn't put him off and he was very exciting to watch and he didn't move around.

As I heard more and more songs in the concert I thought about how the band Cheap Trick had played big stadiums and had girls screaming at them and been very famous and probably had lots of drugs and other things like that but now they were here playing to some people who didn't know them or really care about them like I didn't know them and some of the people watching probably wanted to see The Fall instead. But they did not get sad and instead they played like they did not want to be anywhere else or be doing anything else in the whole world. The more I watched and listened the more I thought that maybe they were much better than a lot of bands I had seen before who were even much younger than them. I became lost in the power of the band and I think that maybe someone like a doctor or a powerful ghost told them that if they do not play the best concert they can possibly play they will not live anymore and the band Cheap Trick played the show at ATP as if it was for their lives.

Cheap Trick played for their lives and because they want to live and want to play rock music more than most other bands I had ever seen in my life. As I watched them I understood what true rock music was and it was maybe the best band playing a concert I have ever seen.

I have never seen a band give so much and I was in a daze afterwards and thankyou to the nice man Steve Albini and Shellac for asking them to play at the festival where I was I will never forget it. Some of my friends didn't like it but some of them said it was one of the best things they had ever seen and we couldn't really talk to eachother properly. Then we went home the end.

[fenderhutz]

Would The Refreshments fit in there?

I can't tell you how much I played this album to death.

[bassteban]

...a doctor or a powerful ghost...

[Winston TK]

Originally Posted by joemer

I must be older than you guys, when I think of power pop I think of bands that I loved like the Raspberries and Badfinger- great bands, great power pop ballads.

So, so true! Both of these bands were stellar. And, of course, let us not forget Big Star!

[Lowbrow]

Yes, let's not forget -- Big Star #1 Record is the definition of power pop.

[lambro]

Owsley's first CD is quite good, fantastic tones and writing


check out the early 70's group the Rasberries, their song "tonight"
pretty good blue print of what would become the formula

also, not quite power pop, but not sure how else to catagorize them, but Slade had some great stuff as well

I would also put Foreigner in there later on