Is It Power Pop?!
PART TWELVE: Mike Maple
This is a guest post series featuring some of my favorite music writers and musicians. We’ll be sharing a new installment every few weeks or so (while supplies last). Full series here.
Is It Power Pop?
By Mike Maple
Power Pop has always been a hard idea to truly pin down, and I think that’s what makes it fun to talk about.
People usually point to major open chords, strong sense of melody, aching harmonies, yada yada yada. Boring. Power Pop is in the ear of the beholder, and one person’s power pop is another person’s pop punk is another’s person’s arena rock and so on and so forth.
To me, the best parts of power pop are in the intangibles. Does the song sound hopelessly optimistic or innocent? That’s what I’m looking for. It might sound crazy, but that’s why I’ve always found AC/DC to be power pop adjacent. It’s just the least jaded music of all time. They live and die by the power of rock and roll without a hint of irony and if that’s not what power pop is at it’s core then I’m not interested.
Is Liquid Mike power pop?
I don’t know. I think sometimes we are, sometimes we aren’t. I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking either one. Someone at a show the other day said we sounded like American Football combined with Cake. Who am I to tell them they’re wrong?
So, I’m asking for the same graces to be extended to me when I talk about some of my favorite “power pop” songs of all time.
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"Get the Time” by Descendents
We just got home from a two week tour with Descendents last night and it was incredible to see them play every night. I had never heard this song before this tour and I immediately fell in love. As soon as they finished playing it the first night I turned to the nearest person to ask what song that was. Truly one of the most meta and beautiful love songs that I’ve ever heard and it’s on an album with a roll of toilet paper as the cover. How can you not love that?
"Chocolate Town” by Ween
If Fountains of Wayne are power pop touchstones then Ween deserve at least some credit in that world as well. “Ocean Man,” “What Deaner Was Talkin’ About,” and “Sarah” are textbook power pop (to me). Is this song textbook power pop? Maybe not, but it is just as much as “Hung Up on You” from Welcome Interstate Managers.
“Dance the Night Away” by Van Halen
An honest to god “I got a crush on you” song from one of the horniest bands of all time. This just sounds like a song that Raspberries forgot to write. Amazing pre-chorus with harmonies to boot and not a wanky guitar solo to be found. Don’t get me wrong—I love Van Halen’s showmanship, but this is just a great fuckin’ pop song through and through.
“Save it for Later” by The English Beat
They did it. They wrote the most perfect song of all time. Why even try to write a better song? Can’t be done. This song plays during the montage scene of the movie Kingpin. I tried to kind of rip the vibe off for the song “Meteor Hammer” from our new album. That’s why the song is about a curmudgeon bowler.
“You Can Fly Anything Right” by Guided by Voices
Probably my favorite acoustic GBV song. Love the recording quality on this one, it feels extremely intimate which is another quality I love to hear in power pop. This song is evergreen and will live on for hundreds of years. This band will always be the band that made me believe that I can get a lot done doing things myself and trusting my gut, so I feel obligated to talk about them whenever I get interview questions like these. “You can fly anything right when you’re right”—good songs are good songs.
Mike Maple is the frontman and namesake for Marquette, Michigan alternative pop rockers Liquid Mike. The band’s new album, Hell Is An Airport, will be released Sept. 12, 2025.
Previously On “Is It Power Pop?!”
Is It Power Pop?!
This is a guest post series about power pop featuring some of my favorite music writers. We’ll be sharing a new installment every few weeks or so (while supplies last). Full series here.
Liquid Mike is my favorite current band. They are putting out great Guitar Pop, which seems to describe their sound more accurately than Power Pop. Many people would scoff at defining Van Halen or AC/DC as Power Pop, but using Mike's definition, it works. BTW, I've been trying to adopt S.W.'s term "Guitar Pop" to avoid upsetting PP purists.
AC/DC as power pop! An observation that had me reflexively thinking, "No way!" But then, I was, "Wait, un, yeah, they are!"