AnyBlogDotCom: Power Pop

Pop with power. Rock with harmony. Whatever it is, there's an immediacy and joy with power pop. Some bands are easy to identify as power pop, though others less so. There's an energy about power pop. That's essential. That's the power. And the music is generally delivered in fairly conventional song structures with catchy riffs and attractive melodies. That's the pop. If it's a mainly conventional blues based song with catchy riffs and attractive melodies played at some speed and energy, and you can dance to it, then it's power pop. "Anarchy In The UK" by the Sex Pistols is power pop. People call it punk - but punk is an attitude not a style of music. What the pistols are playing is power pop with a fucking attitude.

As I'm exploring Power Pop it seems that on the whole that Americans have a view of Power Pop that regards it mainly as music influenced/inspired by British Invasion bands like the Kinks and the Beatles, with a bit of psychedelia thrown in. Sort of late 60s British non-Blues based rock-pop. That's not quite how I see it. But, hey....

Wikipedia:

Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a form of pop rock [1] based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds.[2][3] It originated in the mid-1960s as young music fans began to rebel against the emerging pretensions of rock music, and developed mainly among American musicians who came of age during the British Invasion. The genre typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and "happy"-sounding music underpinned by a sense of yearning, longing, or despair.

The term "power pop" was coined by the Who's Pete Townshend in 1967 to describe their style of music. However, the term became more widely identified with subsequent artists from the 1970s who sought to revive Beatles-style pop. The sound of the genre became more established thanks to early 1970s hits by Badfinger, the Raspberries, and Todd Rundgren. Subsequent artists occasionally drew from developments such as new wave, punk, glam rock, pub rock, college rock, and neo-psychedelia.

Power pop reached its commercial peak during the rise of punk and new wave in the late 1970s, with Cheap Trick, the Knack, the Romantics, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, and Dwight Twilley. During this time, music critics who wrote about the phenomenon popularized the term's usage. After a popular and critical backlash to the genre's biggest-ever hit, "My Sharona" (The Knack, 1979), record companies generally stopped signing power pop groups, and most of the 1970s bands broke up in the early 1980s.

Over the proceeding decades, power pop continued with modest commercial success while largely remaining an object of critical derision. The 1990s saw a new wave of alternative bands that were drawn to 1960s artists because of the 1980s music they influenced. Although not as successful as their predecessors, Jellyfish, the Posies, Redd Kross, Teenage Fanclub, and Material Issue were critical and cult favorites. In the mid-1990s, an offshoot genre that combined power pop harmonies with uptempo punk, dubbed "punk-pop", reached mainstream popularity.

AllMusic:

Power Pop is a cross between the crunching hard rock of the Who and the sweet melodicism of the Beatles and Beach Boys, with the ringing guitars of the Byrds thrown in for good measure. Although several bands of the early '70s -- most notably the Raspberries, Big Star, and Badfinger -- established the sound of power pop, it wasn't until the late '70s that a whole group of like-minded bands emerged. Most of these groups modeled themselves on the Raspberries (which isn't entirely surprising, since they were the only power-pop band of their era to have hit singles), or they went directly back to the source and based their sound on stacks of British Invasion records. What tied all of these bands together was their love of the three-minute pop single. Power-pop bands happened to emerge around the same time of punk, so they were swept along with the new wave because their brief, catchy songs fit into the post-punk aesthetic. Out of these bands, Cheap Trick, the Knack, the Romantics, and Dwight Twilley had the biggest hits, but the Shoes, the Records, the Nerves, and 20/20, among many others, became cult favorites. During the early '80s, power pop died away as a hip movement, and nearly all of the bands broke up. However, in the late '80s, a new breed of power pop began to form. The new bands, who were primarily influenced by Big Star, blended traditional power pop with alternative rock sensibilities and sounds; in the process, groups like Teenage Fanclub, Material Issue, and the Posies became critical and cult favorites. While these bands gained the attention of hip circles, many of the original power-pop groups began recording new material and releasing it on independent labels. In the early '90s, the Yellow Pills compilation series gathered together highlights from these re-activated power poppers, as well as new artists that worked in a traditional power-pop vein. Throughout the early and mid-'90s, this group of independent, grass-roots power-pop bands gained a small but dedicated cult following in the United States.

List of Power Pop artists

5 Seconds of Summer

5 Seconds of Summer (2014)
Debut album.

AllMusic

This is the pop end of Power Pop. Plenty of drums and noise and energy, but the hooks are just a little too simplistic and pleasant. There is some element of the riffs used by punk bands, but the voices are very much boy band. This is Power Pop for pre-teen girls. After the debut the band moved toward more mainstream pop.

20/20

20/20 (1979)
Debut

Rather plodding and serious for a Power Pop band. The debut has touches of psychedelia and other Sixties influence. Quite boring. Contains "Yellow Pills" which has been asserted as a Power Pop classic. Hmmm. It sounds like something Status Quo would have recorded in their psychedelia phase, but with plodding upfront Eighties drums. There is a lack of the energy that I feel is key to Power Pop. But a Power Pop fanzine was named after the song, and a compilation album of "overlooked" Power Pop songs from '79 to '82 Yellow Pills: Prefill.

AllMusic

The 88

Kind of Life (2003)
Debut

The band, as with other American bands labelled "Power Pop", is clearly influenced by the British Invasion bands, in particular The Kinks. They sound like an American version of Blur, but without the edge and excitement.

AllMusic

The Academy Is...

Almost Here (2005)
Debut

Plenty of bouncy energy here, but this is more indie than pop. Hmm. So what's the difference between indie and pop? Well, rather like punk, there's an attitude and an image, but there's also a way of structuring the songs so it goes in unexpected directions. Still poppy and pleasant, nothing abrasive or challenging, but there's an extra layer of thought applied to the music and the playing of it that makes it a bit more interesting. This is, I suppose, the point at which power pop meets indie pop. It's pleasant, but there's nothing really significant here.

AllMusic

Ash