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Today's Power Pop Playlist

Spitfirejoe said:
I know it's been a long time that this thread has been dormant, but I've been listening to a lot of Power Pop lately. The Posies, The Plimsouls, Toad The Wet Sprocket (do they fit the definition?), Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds, Gin Blossoms, have been heavy in my rotation for a year or so.

I found this list of Power Pop acts on wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_pop_artists_and_songs

The Who and Pete Townshend have long been one of my favorite groups - never considered them Power Pop before, but I guess it fits. I'm pretty familiar with Todd Rundgren (w and w/o Utopia), as well as The Smithereens, Marshall Crenshaw, The Go-Gos, Weezer, The Cars, and Big Star. Picked up Dwight Twilley's "Sincerely" last week. I have some Fountains Of Wayne and Good Charlotte coming soon.

So what else do you guys recommend I check out? Matthew Sweet? Stiv Bators? Jimmy Eat World? I like to listen to entire albums, and find quite often that some of these guys have one to three good songs on a disc, while the rest aren't that great. Do you have any favorite albums I should listen to?

Thanks in advance...
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Limiting myself to artists in the Wikipedia article you linked...

A "Greatest Hits" of The Knack would be a good addition to any collection, as long as it has both Good Girls Don't and My Sharona (be sure you get the full album version that's around five minutes long; I believe there is a shorter "single" version out there that cuts out about a minute of one of the greatest guitar solos ever).

The Vapors' two albums, "New Clear Days" and "Magnets" are requisite, as is the only album by Nikki & the Corvettes (their eponymous 1980 debut). Besides the obvious Turning Japanese, The Vapors are responsible for songs like Trains and Jimmie Jones, while Nikki & the Corvettes split the difference between The Ronettes and The Ramones with songs like Back Seat Love.

I don't know if XTC really belongs on the list, but they are worth exploring too. My XTC collection is somewhat limited, so I'm sure others on this board might be able to steer you deeper into their catalog, but I can at least recommend "Black Sea" for songs like Respectable Street and "English Settlement" for songs like Senses Working Overtime.

Finally, I'm a little surprised to see OK Go on the list, but I guess they belong there. I'm just getting used to their new album, "Hungry Ghosts," which includes Upside Down & Inside Out, The Writing's On The Wall and I Won't Let You Down. As you can see from those last two, they are as famous for their intricate and creative one-shot videos as they are for their music. Their video for Here It Goes Again is one of the first music videos to "go viral," and the album it's from ("Oh No") isn't bad, with other tunes like Do What You Want and Invincible.

My favorite OK Go album, though, is "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky," which contains the song for one of the greatest music videos of all time, This Too Shall Pass. It also boasts End Love, WTF?, All Is Not Lost, and a stretch of road turned into the largest musical instrument in the world for Needing/Getting.

Enjoy!
 
Axe Elf said:
Limiting myself to artists in the Wikipedia article you linked...
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Oh... please don't limit your recommendations to that list.

Thanks for the list of things to check out, and the links! I do have copies of Skylarking and Dear God by XTC. Will give those a listen again. OK Go struck me as a video gimmick band, but will pick up Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
 
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Spitfirejoe said:
Thanks for the list of things to check out, and the links! I do have copies of Skylarking and Dear God by XTC. Will give those a listen again. OK Go struck me as a video gimmick band, but will pick up Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
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I don't think they are a video gimmick band so much as a band that still cares about making creative and interesting videos, as was the case back in the golden age of MTV. Nowadays most bands hammer out a video in a couple of hours for a couple of dollars that feature the band/artist playing/dancing/singing for the camera, and any cinematic ambitions are limited to cutshots of a woman staring wistfully out of a window into the fog or something.

The video for "This Too Shall Pass" occupied a team of around 60 people (including engineers from NASA, MIT and the California Institute of Technology) for about six months to design, build and execute, with construction alone taking about six weeks. Filming required about 60 takes in order to get the machine to function correctly from start to finish, with a team of 30 people needing up to an hour of reset time between takes.

If you can get the "Extra Nice Edition" of "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky" you will get over 30 more tracks, including remixes and alternate takes of the album's songs, bonus material like covers of songs by the Pixies ("Gigantic") and the Zombies ("This Will Be Our Year") and a few interview/behind the scenes tracks as well.

Again... ENJOY!
 
These two have been in pretty regular rotation too.

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Another thread out of mothballs

Velvet Crush
A Single Odessey
A Collection Of Non-LP Singles & EP tracks
Action Musik

Mitch Easter plays and produced most of these tracks, Mathew Sweet produced the others.
 
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I neglect listening to "power-pop" way too much. Of the little bit I have, Warm Soda is one of my favourite power-pop bands.
 
Another BostonDave playlist makes it to "page one" @ Music Forums. And on the same day. Far out.

Here's a shout out to you Dave, wherever you are.
 
Dwight Twilley Band from their fabulous first album, "Sincerely". Every song was good, including their should have been smash hit, 'I'm On Fire".

 
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