Can we talk about power pop?

[Paaaaul]

YES.

He's perennially unfashionable and most of his songs were written in the Eighties, but Lee Mavers' output was power pop of the highest order.

The La's - I Can't Sleep (BBC Session)
The La's - Callin' All (BBC Session)
The La's - Was It Something I Said (Kitchen Tape Demo)

There was an excellent reissue of the Viper album, Callin' All - Lost La's 1986 - 1987 a couple of years ago which had 16 bonus tracks and much better sound quality. It's nearly as good as the 'proper' album. And that BBC Sessions CD is ace too.

[cosmic-hearse]

T Boys - One Way Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfA9178G4xw

The Wasps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atJDV3y2DdU

Da Biz - On The Beach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFgLNn9O82o

The Tours - Language School:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H6thEJa78E

[Butchers Blind]

Another that's worth your time is Mayflies USA - Summertown.  Hooks and choruses galore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L69NkjcIz6M&list=PLAB0A015A75FDE266

[daf]

Orange - Judy over the Rainbow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjRzr7p0reU

Rick re-recorded this a few years later as 'The Orgone Box', but the Orange version (from 1994) is my favourite.

[Butchers Blind]

Here's a nice slice of PP from the new Superchunk record

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUxkZreYiQs

[CaledonianGonzo]

I know it's been mentioned already at the start of the thread, but it's worth reiterating just how wonderful this is:



Talk about an album where *everything* about it is right (OK, maybe not the lyrics do Does She Talk?).  Not only is it one of the best albums of the 1990s, it's one of the best power pop albums and a peerless artistic statement that, sadly, Sweet's never quite managed to match in the (many) years since.

Views on the follow-up albums as follows:

Altered Beast - Almost as good.  Maybe one or two too many torn-faced sludgy rockers (Knowing People), but Someone To Pull The Trigger almost matches Winona for fragile, yearning beauty.  The final run of Reaching Out, Falling, What Do You Know? and Evergreen is immense.  Plus, Nicky Hopkins is on it.
100% Fun - Wheels are starting to come off a little on this one.  Has bright moments, but plenty of tracks that don't really cut the mustard.
Blue Sky on Mars - A bit brighter.  Back To You, Make Believe and Behind the Smile are some of his better later songs.  Doesn't get a lot of love, but looking at the tracklists just now, I think I prefer it to 100% Fun.
In Reverse - I can see what he was trying to do with this and it works a lot of the time - he really pulls off the baroque vibe on What Matters and If Time Permits.  But the ballads are the best tracks and the rockers - Split Personality, Write Your Own Song - don't really work for me.
Kimi Ga Suki - Dead Smile is really, really good.  Otherwise, I'm not sold.
Living Things - I should probably go back to this one, though I was far from impressed on initial plays.
Sunshine Lies - Er....

[Butchers Blind]

Yeah, Girlfriend is a milestone in the genre.  Sweet's releases have been hit and miss since but there's usually a few gems to be found on subsequent albums. Time Capsule and the aforementioned Someone to Pull the Trigger on Altered Beast, Sick of Myself on 100% Fun is absolute classic powerpop.  Have a lot of time for In Reverse (this being the album that introduced me to Sweet) and Kimi Ga Suki but since then the quality has slipped.  The covers albums he did Susanna Hoffs were pretty decent as well.

Speaking of Sweet has anyone mentioned Velvet Crush yet?

[CaledonianGonzo]

They have.  I also mentioned it a few years back in the 1000 Best Albums Thread:

964.
Velvet Crush – Teenage Symphonies To God



Released: July 5, 1994
Produced by: Mitch Easter
Label: Creation
Genre: Crunchy Power Pop

Yes – I'm nominating another album of guitar music made by retro white men with an eye on the past.  It's fair to say that it won't be the last time I do this.  While I can happily talk about the merits of individual tracks by dance acts and hip-hoppers, I don't really feel equipped to expound at length on their long-players.  Some genres just lend themselves better to 45s and it may come to pass that the 1000 singles thread was their moment in the sun and they wind up ultimately under-represented in this thread.  The Ronettes may not feature much.

Anyway, this type of meta-discussion is probably best saved for the thread about this thread, so I'll crack on with the show.

Firstly, you'd be forgiven for asking 'Who?'

The little band that couldn't, the Velvet Crush story is a frustrating patchwork of could have and should have and would have.  Even in their heyday they remained a minority concern, and a nomadic label history and baffling decision to 'go heavy' on album #3 tested the patience of what few fans they ever had.  It's easy to imagine them with their noses pressed up against the glass as various lesser bands peddling similar fayre (coughThePosiescoughFountainsofWaynesplutter) became, if not household names, then at least familiar touchstones of the alternative scene.

This is one of the best power-pop albums ever, though.  Certainly better, if it's not damning them with faint praise, than the 60s-aping Britpoppers like Cast and Dodgy who were garnering the headlines at the time (though I certainly have a soft spot for the latter's' early work - 'Lovebirds' is a cracking single).  Maybe the best album ever to have come out of Providence, Rhode Island - though I've got no idea what its competition might be.  Boston?

Their second album, Teenage Symphonies To God was the one moment in Velvet Crush's career where they were in the right place, at the right time with the right record.  Added to the Alan McGee roster around the same time as a host of other pop bands - 18 Wheeler, BMX Bandits - it was released on Creation in the summer of 1994 to a slightly above-average fanfare of positive reviews and then....nothing.  Barring a couple of singles that died small deaths without troubling the charts and a tour of this sceptred island where I saw them play an under-attended show in King Tuts Wah Wah Hut, they more or less dropped off the map.

With a sleeve just the right side of Dr Seuss-style kitsch, Teenage Symphonies To God is an unashamedly nostalgic record, as befits one that is named after a Brian Wilson quote and contains a track titled 'My Blank Pages'.  The crunching guitars, tambourines and three-part harmonies evoke bands like Help-era Beatles and the poppier side of Big Star.  The b-sides of lead single 'Hold Me Up' contain a cover of Gram Parson's Byrds track '100 Years From Now' and it is completely in keeping with Velvet Crush's own compositions.  Any fans of Matthew Sweet in his mid-90s prime who haven't heard this owe it to themselves to check it out.  Not only does it contain a hitherto unavailable Sweet track that sounds like it could be an 'Altered Beast' highlight ('Something's Gotta Give') but it is the work of people with a practically identical mindset - just a bit, you know, chirpier.  Though they evolved separately, unaware of each other's existence in Rhode Island and Bellshill, there's a lot of common ground with Teenage Fanclub, a shared sense that things might perhaps have been slightly better in some ideal, imagined, halcyon 60s summer.  Those of you reading this who only really relish forward-looking, futuristic music might not find much to treasure here.

Bookended by twin tracks about 'lingering' – 'Hold Me Up's tightly-strung burst of pop, 'Keep On Lingering's country strum, there's not so much stylistic variation across the piece as stylistic stability, a belief in their chosen genre's potential and a knowledge that sometimes there isn't really any need to re-write the rulebook.  The sound is simple, Spartan even - drums and wires being hit with sticks and plectrums.  The odd bubbling synth.  Electricity through cables.  Fuzz.  There are a couple of minor guitar wig-outs, but they are fairly minor.  There's a lovely folk-ballad in '#10', but it's only faintly folky and adheres fairly closely to the Gene Clarke 12-string template.  Oh, and speaking of Gene Clark, there's an adorable cover of his 'Why Not Your Baby' that makes you wonder why it's not a better known song.

There's perhaps not much in the way of 'insane technical genius' here.  Good.  Ric Menck is frequently heard to proclaim himself the greatest drummer in the world - and he may have had a point – but it's the type of greatness that is all about keeping things crisp and clean and not over-busy.  Menck is, then probably, the greatest drummer in sixties-influenced 1990s retro-pop, a model of power and simplicity in the Charlie Watts mode and it's no wonder that he's still lending his considerable skills to albums by the likes of Sweet and The Tyde while Paul Chastain and Jeffrey Borchardt are presumably now music teachers or something.

Velvet Crush aren't particularly clever, but they are heartfelt and as they keep racking up formidable tune after formidable tune – 'Atmosphere', 'Faster Days, 'Weird Summer - it might become clear to the listener that sometimes the most you ever need to know is that if you amplify a guitar and strike the strings, the resulting sound is as magnificent a buzz as you'll ever hear.  And buzz this does.

[Kane Jones]

100% Fun - Wheels are starting to come off a little on this one.  Has bright moments, but plenty of tracks that don't really cut the mustard.

Haha, you and I will probably never see eye to eye musically, my friend!  100% Fun is his finest album to my ears.  Girlfriend is good but not quite catchy enough for me, and Altered Beast I found to be bit of a mess.  100% Fun was where it all came together for me.  A bit rockier, great sing-along choruses, and two beautiful ballads in 'I Almost Forgot' (possibly my favourite song on the album apart from 'We're The Same') and 'Smog Moon' which is just brilliant.

I always love to read your opinions though CG, despite seldom agreeing with them!  Keep it up.

[Butchers Blind]

They have.  I also mentioned it a few years back in the 1000 Best Albums Thread:

Nice write up.  Did get to see them live here when they toured with MS back in '05 I think it was at the old Astoria.  Not sure what they're up to now as they've been silent since the release of Stereo Blues

[CaledonianGonzo]

100% Fun is a decent album.  If we were awarding notional review stars, it'd get three compared to Girlfriend's five and Altered Beast's four.  Production maybe isn't quite as 'crisp' as it could be for a powerpop album - you're view of it being a bit 'rockier' is correct, but I don't think that's in its favour.  Some of the tracks just don't stick in the mind too well.  In fact, looking at the tracklist I'm not sure I can even recall Lost My Mind.  Though I agree that I Almost Forgot and Smog Moon are both very good - just nowhere near previous album highlights like I've Been Waiting or Girlfriend's title track.

Nice write up.  Did get to see them live here when they toured with MS back in '05 I think it was at the old Astoria.  Not sure what they're up to now as they've been silent since the release of Stereo Blues

Sadly not - the last time I saw either Sweet or VC live was back in the mid 1990s, I think.  Both gigs in King Tuts in Glasgow. 

Sweet would have been touring Blue Sky On Mars at the time, so that's, what, 1997?  Actually, that's more recent than I thought it was.

[Kane Jones]

100% Fun is a decent album.  If we were awarding notional review stars, it'd get three compared to Girlfriend's five and Altered Beast's four.  Production maybe isn't quite as 'crisp' as it could be for a powerpop album - you're view of it being a bit 'rockier' is correct, but I don't think that's in its favour.  Some of the tracks just don't stick in the mind too well.  In fact, looking at the tracklist I'm not sure I can even recall Lost My Mind.  Though I agree that I Almost Forgot and Smog Moon are both very good - just nowhere near previous album highlights like I've Been Waiting or Girlfriend's title track.

The production on 100% Fun is a little muddy, definitely. That'll be Brendan O'Brien fresh out of his grunge production stint I would imagine. Funnily enough, the two tracks you mention from Girlfriend are the two I enjoy the most and can imagine being at home on 'Fun'. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to recall any of the other songs from GF to be honest. Bear in mind that I heard 100% Fun before I heard Girlfriend, and it struck a real chord with me, which is another reason why I think so highly of it.  Also, as much as I love Big Star, Shoes, The dBs, etc. I definitely come from a more 'rock' background than an 'indie' one when it comes to songwriting and performance. Regardless, you've made me want to give Girlfriend a re-listen, so cheers for that!

[CaledonianGonzo]

That'll be Brendan O'Brien fresh out of his grunge production stint I would imagine.

Yup - that's what I'd figured.  A man who looks at an album and thinks 'This needs to sound a lot more like the Stone Temple Pilots'.

I think most folk would agree that, despite the relative strengths of a lot of his other output, Girlfriend is Sweet's real moment in the sun.  Though I definitely approached it from the other direction, coming at it via an indie-schmindie appreciation of things like Teenage Fanclub and The Byrds, rather than from Pearl Jam.

[Kane Jones]

Yup - that's what I'd figured.  A man who looks at an album and thinks 'This needs to sound a lot more like the Stone Temple Pilots'.

I think most folk would agree that, despite the relative strengths of a lot of his other output, Girlfriend is Sweet's real moment in the sun.  Though I definitely approached it from the other direction, coming at it via an indie-schmindie appreciation of things like Teenage Fanclub and The Byrds, rather than from Pearl Jam.

I did it all backwards; I got into power pop via Cheap Trick, The Posies and Fountains Of Wayne and now love Teenage Fanclub, The Byrds, Big Star etc. through studying the genre.  Anyway, at least we agree Matthew Sweet is great :)

[CaledonianGonzo]

Anyway, at least we agree Matthew Sweet is great :)

Though we probably don't like him enough to want to buy his pottery:

http://www.matthewsweet.com/portfolio-item/lolina/

[Kane Jones]

Though we probably don't like him enough to want to buy his pottery:

http://www.matthewsweet.com/portfolio-item/lolina/

Hmmm. I'll give it a miss, I think.  He missed a trick not titling that section of his site 'Power Pot' though.

[Marty McFly]

New Silver Sun album on the way! James Broad has uploaded the first new track, Pariah, to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPmB2hp_Lr8

From the new album 'A Lick And A Promise' - coming September 2013 on iTunes and probably a few other places too. 15 tracks. 41 and a bit minutes. Recorded between 2001 and 2013. Written & performed by James Broad. All wrongs unreserved.

[Jawaka]

Found an album in a charity shop by Hey! Hello!, self titled. Seems like it hasn't been out that long, only picked it up due to the mention of Ginger Wildheart on the case, turns out it's a new project of his. They have a site here: http://www.heyhello.net/

Reason I bring it up here is when hearing the album it reminded me of Silver Sun, in a way anyway, with maybe a bit of the more recent Devin Townsend stuff. Can't say if power pop was the sound they were going for, and I could be way off with what I think power pop is, but the albums pretty good!

Couple of tracks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6--PtPKL0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jN040ErUqc

I'd say there's a bit of Bis in there too?

[PaulTMA]

Follwing on from the Velvet Crush recommendations, until recently I had not heard anything prior to their debut album.  'Hey Wimpus!' is credited as the early recordings of Paul Chastain & Ric Menck, which simply means are too embarrassed these days to simply list it as more accurately/honestly as a Choo Choo Train collection.  (It does also contain a cover of Paul Collins' 'Walking Out On Love', the same recording released as the first Velvet Crush 7".)  As someone who doesn't think much of what they released after 'Teenage Symphonies To God', it's a bit of a revelation to hear how good they were earlier on - much more in a jangle/twee-friendly universe than Velvet Crush, but quality-wise, possibly even better than their 'In The Presence Of Greatness' debut.  'Hey Wimpus!' appears to gather together all the Choo Choo Train material, with the exception of the 'This Perfect Day'/'Happy Bicycle' 7", which doesn't feature Chastain.  Therefore another essential purchase is 'The Ballad of Ric Menck' compilation, which includes this single and everything released by The Springfields and The Paint Set - basically more proto-Velvet Crush, except with Menck behind the mic.  If you like Velvet Crush and haven't already heard these - I remember seeing The Ballad Of... CD back in the 90s and stupidly never bothered with it - then there's no better time than now to catch up...

[doppelkorn]

Does 867-5309 / Jenny by Tommy Tutone fit in here?

[kngen]

Today, I've been introduced to 20/20 - a 70s California power pop band of some renown. I'm just going to have to pretend that I've known about them all along as they are so fucking perfectly what I wanted to hear right now, and I really can't believe no one has played them to me before (or if they have, I've ignored them because I'm an idiot).

Here's a youtube playlist

[boki]

Can't say if power pop was the sound they were going for, and I could be way off with what I think power pop is, but the albums pretty good!

It was pitched as "Noisy-as-fuck pop music", so I was a bit disappointed that it didn't really turn out to be all that noisy.  I'm still quite conflicted about it all - I was really looking forward to it, 'cos I think Ginger and Victoria work really well together, and there are some really catchy moments, but I don't think it's anywhere near Ginger's strongest set of songs.