Is It Power Pop?!

PART TWO: Dan Epstein

This is a guest post series about power pop featuring some of my favorite music writers. We’ll be sharing a new installment every week or two in January and February. Full series here.

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Is It Power Pop?

By

Dan Epstein

I can’t say for sure when I first became aware of the term “power pop,” but I’m guessing it was sometime in the early/mid-‘80s, when I started collecting back-issues of Trouser Press and Bomp! magazines from the ‘70s. As overused and neutered as the term may be now, at the time I was excited by it, both because of what it implied and because it gave me a thread that tied together so much of the melodic, guitar-driven pop music of the ‘60s, ‘70s and early ‘80s that I already loved. Though one could certainly argue that the late ‘70s were “The Golden Age of Power Pop,” I realized pretty quickly that power pop wasn’t something confined to a specific era.

As far as I’m concerned, a truly great power pop song requires the following ingredients: A soaring melody whose flight is bolstered by loud (or at least jangly) guitars and muscular drums, and further lifted by luscious vocal harmonies. Sadly, so much of what’s passed for “power pop” over the years has been woefully skimpy when it comes to actual guitar/drum power or pop hooks. I’m all for wearing skinny ties, playing Rickenbackers and singing about girls; but way too many self-described power pop bands have started and ended with “watered-down mid-‘60s Beatles,” to the extent that many superior (and less stereotypical) practitioners of the form have become embarrassed to even be associated with the genre.

Which is too bad, because power pop at its finest can be a truly life-affirming thing.

Here are five favorite examples that always get my blood pumping, my brain fizzing and my heart radiating joy.

“The Kids Are Alright” by The Who

Pete Townshend coined the term “power pop” in 1967 to describe The Who’s then-new single “Pictures of Lily,” but by my estimation his band had been playing power pop since 1965. To me, “The Kids Are Alright” (and maybe the My Generation LP as a whole) is where power pop truly begins—a glorious confection of ringing guitar chords, rampaging drums, layered harmonies, a brain-burrowing chorus and lyrics about existential teenage angst. I particularly love the slightly longer British version, which includes an extended guitar break that makes the track feel like a pot on the perpetual edge of boiling over.

“Ecstasy” by The Raspberries

At their best, The Raspberries were the true apotheosis of the genre, largely because they understood how to combine the explosiveness of The Who with the sort of melodies that would make Paul McCartney raise his eyebrows and proffer an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Wally Bryson’s Pete Townshend-like power chords and Jim Bonfanti’s kinetic, Keith Moon-y drums alone would put this 1973 single—which somehow missed the Billboard charts entirely—over the top for me. But even with that “Pure and Easy” breakdown section, “Ecstasy” is so much more than a mere Who knock-off, thanks to its gorgeous chorus, equally gorgeous guitar refrain, and Eric Carmen’s lusty, nostril-flaring vocal.

“Girl of My Dreams” by Bram Tchaikovsky

By the late ‘70s, America was finally ready to embrace power pop, as evidenced by the chart success of artists like The Knack, Blondie, Cheap Trick, Nick Gilder, The Records and (in the Midwest, at least) Off Broadway. But if I had to pick one song from that power pop bumper crop, it would be Bram Tchaikovsky’s “Girl of My Dreams,” which pretty much embodies everything I hold dear about the genre. The single sadly stalled at #37 in the US (and despite the band’s UK origins, missed the charts entirely in their homeland), but I will always vividly remember how “Girl of My Dreams” burst out of my clock radio in eighth grade and froze me in my tracks with its otherworldly brilliance.

“Crash” by The Primitives

I fell head over heels for “Crash” the first (and only) time I saw its video on MTV during the summer of 1988. Most of my college pals were into more dissonant and aggressive new music, and they gave me massive amounts of shit regarding my total adoration of this song (and Lovely, the album it hailed from). I didn’t care, though; then as now, I think it’s absolute perfection—as someone pointed out in a YouTube comments thread, the only thing wrong with the song is that it comes to an end. And while “indie pop” was The Primitives’ preferred classification at the time, “Crash” totally qualifies as power pop by any conceivable metric.

“Lava” by Silver Sun

If I could own only one power pop album from the last 30 years, I would immediately grab Silver Sun’s self-titled 1997 debut. Led by the brilliant (and now sadly departed) James Broad, the London-based quartet had a thrilling knack for combining hooky melodies with fuzzy guitars, lush four-part harmonies and absolutely bonkers lyrics. The first time I ever heard “Lava,” it sounded to me like someone had chopped up the master tape of Cheap Trick’s Heaven Tonight and assembled a new song out of randomly selected, vari-speeded pieces—but upon my second listen, it all made a twisted kind of sense.

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Dan Epstein is a veteran music journalist and a musician who has been in numerous bands over the years, including the Jupiter Affect and Lava Sutra. His current musical project is The Corinthian Columns, and he recently collaborated with Jeff and Steven MacDonald on Now You're One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross, available from Omnibus Press. His Substack newsletter is Jagged Timelapse.

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The First Installment In The Series + Power Pop Playlists

Curated Music

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