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.
Is It Power Pop?
By Joel Cusumano
My first band was a power pop mostly cover band called MSO (the meaning of this initialism has been lost to time).
I was 19 when I joined, having become a proselyte for power pop in high school after getting hold of the Rhino DIY comps—specifically the US and UK pop discs. I was attending college at the University of Missouri and the band was a group of guys who dressed like broke 2000s indie rockers but worshipped The Replacements and the first Cheap Trick album.
Around that time The Exploding Hearts arrived for us like the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“These guys are doing the thing we wanna do!” we screamed—and we started wearing pink shirts and tight denim, which was not exactly the way to make friends with the locals in mid-Missouri!
Throughout MSO’s approximately 2-year existence, our set included everything from obvious stuff like “Surrender” and “September Gurls” to relatively rare stuff (for 2000s mid-Missouri, at least) like The Quick’s “Pretty Please Me” and The Mice’s “Not Proud of the U.S.A.” Two decades later, I think the lesson of those records—guitars and hooks and direct emotional communication—is imprinted in my musical psyche, even if I wouldn’t describe my new album, Waxworld, as strictly power pop.
That said, a specific inspiration for Waxworld is Big Star’s Third—a massive, stylistically meandering, boiling-with-impotent-rage-and-ennui classic power pop album that is barely power pop!
I’m standing on the shoulders of giants in the “Is It Power Pop?!” column with regards to a definition of the genre.
Here’s what I’ve taken from studying each column: Power pop is guitar-based rock that is immediate, sweet, jangly, major key, with vocal harmonies; it eschews obscurity and technicality, and lyrically it sticks to broadly relatable themes of love and heartbreak and hunting out teenage kicks.
Yeah, basically. An attempt at an alternate academic term might be something like “British Invasion Revival.” But an academic definition misses the great fact that, as Dan Epstein pointed out in his “Is It Power Pop?!” entry—many of the bands that get called power pop didn’t intend to make “power pop” and possibly are repelled by any association with the genre. And so many power pop artists notably break the rules I laid out above.
A possible reason the genre defies analysis is because it’s more about a categorization by fans than the conscious intent of the artist. Steve Albini’s coarse summation of power pop—though I utterly disagree with his judgment of the music—hits the real nerve that there is an instability at the heart of what power pop is.
So, after all my boring wheezing, I have to agree that Jeff Whalen’s description of power pop is the best we have: “I know it when I hear it.”
“Teenline” by The Shivvers
I consider “Teenline” a power pop ur-text, archetypical of the genre in every way except the fact that power pop sadly tends to be dude-centric, so Jill Kossoris’ vocal presence represents a slight (and fantastic) shift from the norm. “Teenline” is not only a perfectly composed power pop song, it’s a perfectly composed pop song period! The structure should be studied by any songwriter; particularly for me the initial short-form chorus that tease the later full choruses, and the brilliant way the key change is incorporated into the bridge (which—correctly—only appears once!)
Lyrically, “Teenline” underlines a significant element of power pop: The genre’s awareness of itself as a genre. When Kossoris sings, “Because my heart’s on the teen line,” she’s not just bringing to mind a particular personal experience of jilted love, but referencing the language and imagery of ‘60s pop/rock itself (“heart,” “teen,” and general references to the telephone—think The Beatles’ “No Reply”). The awareness of rock vernacular is clearer in the second verse lines, “You’ve got a big black car and bird that sings / And it’s right, ‘cause you called me yesterday,” followed by a Beach Boys reference in the bridge (“If we wеre older, we wouldn’t have to wait so long”).
A final note: The Shivvers, until arguably recently, were an obscurity that only the heads knew about. And obscurity greatly improves a song’s power pop bona fides.
“There Must Be Thousands” by The Quads
Perhaps not as archetypically power poppy as “Teenline,” but The Quads’ “There Must Be Thousands” is just one of my all-time faves. It’s essentially a Chuck Berry song, re-packaged by a group of brothers from Birmingham with punk flare, directness, and youthful brilliance. It communicates what could be a mundane criticism of record executives from a clever perspective: “There must be thousands” who are against you out-of-touch stuffed shirts! There is nothing new under the sun, but regardless, a successful writer must find a new perspective to view them.
Interesting Wikipedia fact: Singer Josh Jones is now an Anglican priest.
“Where Does the World Go to Hide” by Utopia
My (mostly unserious) proposition to call power pop British Invasion Revival works here. Utopia’s Deface the Music is literally a Beatles pastiche (and for my money even better than The Rutles—no hate, I love The Rutles too!). The songs successfully straddle a line between joking and earnestness that evokes The Beatles’ own serious lightheartedness. For my money side A—which stylistically focuses on Beatles pre-1966—is more successful, and track 3, “Where Does the World Go to Hide,” is a genuinely moving pop classic that could be mistaken for a Beatles tune—well, if it weren’t for the distinct flavor of 1980 production styles poking out (but that ‘80s context is what makes this song read as more power pop).
“Love Goes Underground” by Pezband
Power pop has a very urban setting. No one sings power pop songs about milking cows or wandering the green fields of Albion. It’s not allowed. Pezband’s “Love Goes Underground” finds an exciting, modern, urban setting and dresses it in winding rhythms, sustained chords, and a bursting chorus. The vocal trade-offs in the verses are showstoppers.
This album is a band at its peak, really going for it in the best sense of that “let’s pack everything into the sophomore album because there might not be another one” way. Hearing this as a teenager I couldn’t believe these guys weren’t as massive as their suburban Chicago contemporaries Cheap Trick; I guess there’s some invisible line between their specific quirkiness and mainstream appeal. But again, the fact Pezband didn’t quite make it improves the group’s standing in power pop circles!
“High School” by The Flashing Lights
I have a tough time with ‘90s power pop; probably the production style (lots of up front vocals) and hyper awareness of the music as a genre irks me. But The Flashing Lights are an exception, and I probably put “High School” on every mix CD I made for a girl between the years 2000-2005. “Someone from my high school / must have really hurt me too” plainly states such an essential adolescent outcast sentiment, and I think I can close by re-emphasizing that power pop’s power, pun intended, is its ability to immediately speak to its audience of (possibly self-identified) outcasts, and directly tell them that there are others like them out there. What could be more powerful?
Joel Cusumano has been a staple in the Bay Area underground scene for years as the frontman of Sob Stories as well as the guitarist and collaborator in a wide-ranging lineup of bands such as Cocktails, R.E. Seraphin, and Body Double. His fiery and palpably catchy power pop debut solo LP Waxworld (Dandy Boy Records) balances quirky hooks and exuberant melodies with deeply introspective lyrics.
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.
Excellent choices - and I totally agree about Utopia’s 80s-ness dragging their Beatles pastiches into power pop territory.
Don't think I'd ever heard any of these and am glad I have now, especially "Teenline."