Power Pop?

No, the best guitar album ever.

If you say it's the best guitar album in the last 10 years, well that right there is enough to make me part with $15. Thanks!

I also really like Oranger - The Quiet Vibration Land that was recently licensed by Poptones.

For some older joys, you must have Bellybutton and especially Spilt Milk by Jellyfish. I'll assume you have those already though. No power pop collection is complete without them.

I have never 'got' the Raspberries at all. They just seem TOO sickly- sweet, whereas Big Star leave a lot of rough edges in there in comparison.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Wondermints. A bit too slavishly Wilsonesque for my tastes, but I'd be interested to know what others think.

If Beulah counts, then their last record is great, too. Same with the Shins, whose debut comes out on Sub Pop in a month or so. I'll second Oranger and, especially, the New Pornographers, as well.

The Shins? I got a track off somewhere (can't remember) and liked it a lot but it was a meandering folky thing not anything I understand as 'power pop'. I was thinking about checking their album out but now I wonder......please advise?

It wasn't The Scars, was it - Peter Porter poem used for lyrics etc.?

Singer Mike Finney turned up in a band called Secret Seven post- Distractions IIRC, who got plenty of press from the likes of Morley, McCullough, but didn't release any records.

The Scars: borderline new romantics as regards image, as I recall. Bit too histrionic for powerpop: kind of the Associates if they were Dud not Classic. I owned _Author Author_ (nice cover) but never played it, and sold it years ago.

and

Redd Kross' "Phaseshifter"

do it for me. "phaseshifter" is fucking great, and AFAIK almost unknown.

A Story:

Some years ago, I worked for a PA company, and found myself doing monitor mix for leatherface who were playing on a bill along with Redd Kross and The Senseless things. I watched Redd Kross' performance from this glazed balcony which doubled up as a sort of dressing room. One of the senseless things continually slagged thee kross off, and seemed to be genuinely outraged by their appearance ('70's "partridge family" chic) and their music. Naturally enough ther rox0red 2x harder than the other bands on the bill!

well...I didn't say it was an interesting story, did I?

x0x0

You could probably use the same defense for power pop and chart pop - familiarity, resonance; getting things right in a known, circumscribed format; etc. I'd only wanna use it for power pop though.

http://www.last.fm/tag/powerpop

so, uh, at what point did haircut emo reclaim the term "power pop" for its own?

Wow, yeah, thats kinda ridiculous. But, according to one of the comments on there, "definition of powerpop: music for teenaged girls ".

gentleman jesse is really good stuff

I really love the Title Tracks album, "It Was Easy," and the new songs he is writing seem to be really great. There's one on the Daytrotter session they did called "Cain and the Twigs" that I can't stop listening to. They've played with Gentleman Jesse before.

http://volume1brooklyn.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/title-tracks.jpg

I downloaded the 4 Out of 5 Doctors...I remember this band from high school. They are pretty good!

new Kleenex Girl Wonder is worth checking out - on spotify now. I'm getting a Sex Clark Five vibe from some tracks and the overall flow.

Not sure where to put this, but here seems like as good a place as any.

The first half of the new Sweet Apple (J Mascis on drums, other dudes from Witch and Cobra Verde) record, The Golden Age of Glitter, is some of the best power pop I've heard in a long time. It sounds at times like a Cheap Trick record with a few J Mascis solos tossed in for good measure, it's wonderful (not to mention backing vocals from Mark Lanegan and Bob Pollard!). The second half tapers off, especially the ballads at the very end, but, man, that first half (arguably maybe first two-thirds) is some damn fine power-pop. I wish Masics soloed on more than three tracks, but he's otherwise occupied on drums.

Okay, yeah, I'm still loving the shit out of the first half of this Sweet Apple record. The first track, "Wish You Could Stay (A Little Longer)", has gotta be in the running for the best power pop song of the last few years - doesn't hurt that it has Lanegan singing and a Mascis solo. "Renuion" sounds like some bastard offspring of Cheap Trick and KISS, with Pollard vox. Really fun stuff.

I'm a bit conflicted about that album...a couple really good ones but the line into bad taste and bad composition is crossed more often than not. Wish You Could Stay is the best track by far.

EMITT RHODES TO RELEASE
FIRST NEW ALBUM IN 43 YEARS.
RAINBOW ENDS COMING FEBRUARY 26, 2016
FROM OMNIVORE RECORDINGS
The singer-songwriter, whose 1971 debut is a power-pop classic, was joined by special guests Roger Joseph Manning Jr. & Jason Falkner of Jellyfish, Nels Cline, Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs, Jon Brion, Bleu, and members of Brian Wilson’s band.

SXSW 2016 showcase confirmed.
PledgeMusic campaign underway, providing premiums varied from deluxe editions of recording to a day in Rhodes’ studio.
Emitt Rhodes 2015

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Emitt Rhodes began his career in his teens, as drummer for the SoCal band the Palace Guard. He eventually took the reigns as leader of the Merry Go Round, who scored pop hits with “Live” and “You’re a Very Lovely Woman” in the late 1960s. At the release of his critically acclaimed eponymous debut in 1971, he gained a reputation as a “one-man Beatles,” since he wrote, recorded and produced the album in his home studio. But then, the way many music stories unfurl, after battling bad contracts and industry demands, Rhodes saw his last release, Farewell to Paradise, in 1973. Emitt Rhodes never recorded another full-length LP. Until now.

On February 26, 2016, Omnivore Recordings will proudly release Rainbow Ends, Emitt Rhodes’ first new studio album in 43 years, on CD, Digital and gatefold, colored vinyl. A PledgeMusic campaign has been set up for pre-orders, offering exclusive collectibles, the album itself, and even a day in Rhodes’ studio. Details are available at www.pledgemusic.com/emittrhodes

After connecting with producer Chris Price in 2013, Rhodes revived his home studio with help from Price and an all-star band, all of whom had been enamored of Rhodes’ work: Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner (both solo artists, members of Jellyfish, and currently in Beck’s studio and touring band), indie producer and musician Fernando Perdomo, Rooney’s Taylor Locke and New Pornographers’ drummer Joe Seiders. They would cut the new record live in that space.

More special guests appeared to make this momentous release even more special: Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs (Bangles), composer and producer Jon Brion, Wilco’s Nels Cline and Pat Sansone, Bleu, and Probyn Gregory and Nelson Bragg from Brain Wilson’s band, among others. What was achieved is more than what folks thought would ever happen. They made Emitt’s first full-length in more than four decades.

Rainbow Ends is the album generations have been waiting for. Eleven new tracks for longtime fans who’d held onto their out-of-print ABC albums, for those who found out about Rhodes via “Lullaby” being featured in The Royal Tennenbaums, and for the uninitiated who’d heard their favorite artists and friends rave about his small, but truly vital and influential catalog.

An Emitt Rhodes showcase at SXSW 2016 will be a highlight of the annual music festival, and more dates are in the works.

Producer Price says, “I view this as a continuation album, meaning it isn’t meant to be recreating the sound from his first record, but instead what he might have sounded like after his third album, Farewell to Paradise, if he kept making music in the mid-to-late ‘70s.”
According to Rhodes, “I had a spurt there, you know. I just wrote a whole bunch of songs. I’m just gonna write what my heart tells me, because that’s the only thing that really matters, isn’t it? Sometimes you don’t know, and then the light goes on and you do know.
“The music is very good on this record. I think that these guys are all wonderful players and there’s all sorts of interesting stuff. I hope people like it, and I want you young guys to be able to get your due.

“I think whenever it happens, it happens on time.”

It’s rare to have your dreams come true. For many, a new Emitt Rhodes recording has only been a fantasy. In 2016, the Rainbow Ends at a true pot of gold.
Track Listing:
Dog on a Chain
If I Knew Then
If It Isn’t So
This Wall Between Us
Someone Else
I Can’t Tell My Heart
Put Some Rhythm to It
It’s All Behind Us Now
What’s a Man to Do
Friday’s Love
Rainbow Ends

Do these decades-later power pop new albums ever end well?

Time will show the wiser

I've been periodically checking out the new releases posted to the Powerpopaholic blog, then spinning off their related Spotify artists, and I have found a couple of gems.

V Sparks' Hey Love is more on the ELO/Rundgren side of things, and it's one of my favorite singles of the year.
Henry Chadwick's Guest At Home is from last year, and it made my year-end top 10. Hoping to hear more from him.
Power Pop Co-Op's If Everything Was Easy has a little bit of a Wedding Present edge to it.
Greg Ieronimo's Rewind has a killer key change.

Also I have to give props to The Lemon Twigs, fellow Hicksville High School alums who have a ton of potential.

cool thanks for the tips

Picked up the Numero Group's Buttons: From Champaign to Chicago comp and it's great

also the current Matthew Sweet tour with Tommy Keane is a great old school power pop experience (guitarist from Steve Wynn plays w/Sweet)

Kurt Baker's last three albums are incredible!

^hugely cosigning this

I saw KB in a Japanese Steakhouse/halfway house in Pottstown, PA. I didn't even know he was anywhere near me till maybe two hours before the show. Got to chat with him for a bit and he was incredibly nice guy on top of being the best songwriter going today.

I don't know where else to mention that I completely slept on this year's White Reaper album which has a bunch of gems on it

ty will queue...

Didn’t know where to put this and it didn’t really need its own thread, but anyway: The Last’s lost album Look Again is getting an actual release later this month on digital and vinyl.

(I just got a near-mint copy of their first SST album Confession which I’ve been spinning much of today, and saw that no one had shared that here, but the band is virtually ungoogleable so…)

Early Rundgren was a huge thing for Alex Chilton. he even wondered aloud on a radio show (tape very eventually incl. as Big Star bonus track a few years ago) if they weren't getting derivative of him (way to sell the new album, AC), So yeah check Runt--The Ballad of Todd Rungren and all that early stuff, the earlier the better wouldn't hurt. Ditto w the Shoes, esp Black Vinyl Shoes. Also the Bangles, Blue Ash (a twofer reissue, on Collector's Choice, so 2000s), the aforementioned Redd Kross have a bunch of fairly recent reissues also. But as far as good lesser-knowns, here's an Ohio band I wrote a show preview for in '08:
Tin Armor
Saturday @ Rumba
Columbus-based Tin Armor’s music gets tagged as “power pop,” a term that seems to have first appeared in the early ‘70s, when attempts were made to revive the spirit of the mid-‘60s Beatles. Many power poppers are merely nostalgic, but the struggle with emotional regression is Tin Armor’s tried-and-true subject. Two new songs on their blog are demo versions, but post-relationship insights and flashbacks are already getting stress-factored into tight (never claustrophobic) structures, as on 2007’s full-length “A Better Place Than I Have Been” and their 2008 self-titled EP’s thunder, lightning and eerily clear night skies.

These guys were pretty good sometimes too:
The Friday Night Boys
Thursday @ The Basement.
The Friday Night Boys’ 70s-based power pop is a style born to dance with terminally adolescent temptations. “Chasing A Rock Star” eventually talks some possibly seductive sense, as a jealous guy learns to rival the music’s sinfully merry spin. More typically, the Boys scavenge tasty symptoms and specimens of overt obsessions, especially in the festively forensic tracks following “Chasing…” on the 2008 EP, “That’s What She Said.” Hopefully, they’ll chop their sometimes overcooked full-length debut, “Off The Deep End”, into a crispy crazy salad for their live audience.
and
The Smith Brothers
It's not really surpising to learn that the Columbus-based Smith
Brothers recently played with some of their early power-pop
inspirations, such as Wings' Denny Laine, Badfinger's Joey Molland
and the Smithereens' Pat DiNizio, who joined the Brothers for a
rousing "Tonight," by Cleveland's Raspberries. The Brothers, who also
contributed to a forthcoming, four-disc Squeeze tribute, always hold
their own with wit and dedication, on catchy classics and supple
originals.
05/12 @ Skully's, 1151 N. High St.
9 p.m

related:

Rooney
Saturday @ Newport Music Hall
Rooney are party professionals, working for the weekend like hand-clapping, guitar, piano and nerve-jangling, table-clearing, pool-cleaning, JetBlue emergency chute-opening slaves. They’ve got the built-in anxieties of power pop’s perpetual adolescence, but they’re still learning the best ways to burn some endless summer. If the future’s a bill too big to pay, that’s another gap that even non-ID-carrying sounds can fill for a minute. They like lovers’ quarrels, because they want you to school them. With no disrespect to power pop’s dads, the Beatles, “I don’t wanna let it be.”

Free Energy
The core of Free Energy barely contains brothers Scott and Evan Wells, plus their bro’ Paul Sprangers, who have found vinyl-shiny Philadelphia freedom from their native Red Wing, Minnesota, coincidentally home to a locally legendary juvenile detention facility (Bob Dylan wrote “my school song” about it). Ecstatically declaring ”I wanna make out with the wind”, they keep it winsome, bouncing off power-pop echoes of arena-rock awesomeness, and staying forever young.
8/27 @ The Summit, 2210 Summit St.
9 p.m.
Beyond the usual names, anyway.

Power Pop Criminals is shutting down soon due to the owner's health problems. Download while you can. https://powerpopcriminals.blogspot.com/

A site I once used regularly but haven't for many years. Hope he's okay. "Due to a major health issue, I could call it 'the most related one to music'..."--all I can think of profound hearing loss.

Not sure if this is worth posting about or not--a quick glance says it's mostly the usual suspects.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/looking-for-the-magic-american-power-pop-in-the-seventies-various-artists-3cd/

Seeing the MC5 (good song choice), Todd Rundgren, BOC, and Badfinger is nice, though, and no problem with "Boys Don't Lie" as the Shoes song (many others just as perfect).

I've been obsessed with that titular Twilley track lately

BTW, Power Pop Criminals is now https://powerpopangels.blogspot.com