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 Zac Anthony (The Wellingtons)
I loved power pop long before I’d ever heard the term—or even had the vocabulary to describe its genetic makeup.
It’s easy for me to float back to the moment when it clicked. I was on a school camp, about 12 or 13, traveling on a bus and sitting next to a fellow student who was a few years older. She was helping the teachers chaperone us pesky kids, and relying on her Walkman to block out the cacophony we were creating as we rattled through the leafy hills.
I can’t remember if I asked what she was listening to, or if she offered me one side of her headphones out of a benevolent desire to share what she knew was golden. I was obsessed with hair metal at the time, thanks to my three older brothers and its prevalence in the zeitgeist, but by the time we’d made it through “Buddy Holly,” “Undone—The Sweater Song,” “Surf Wax America” and “Say It Aint So” on Weezer’s Blue Album, things felt different.
I may not have fully realized it at the time, but I’d changed—I suddenly had a blueprint.
It was all there: the cascading, direct hooks; the crunchy power chords; the buzzsaw synths; the impassioned (bordering on desperate) vocal delivery; and the clever, sometimes off-kilter harmonies. That’s how I define power pop to the many uninitiated who might enquire.
Cheap Trick, The Beatles, Fountains of Wayne, Big Star, The Cars, and Sloan are all-time favorites of mine, and I’m guessing most of you are already besotted with them. So I want to take you through a few less obvious picks—deeper cuts I consider classics of the genre. Hopefully, by giving them a bit of airtime, you’ll find a new favorite song.
A lot of these discoveries trace back to one person: Scott Thurling from Popboomerang Records.
When I first moved to Melbourne from my small country hometown, Scott took me under his wing. I was trying to turn my high school band into ‘something,’ and he was running a mail-order CD service with a collection so great that just being at his house gave me a visceral reaction.
He saw something in our band and offered to start selling the CDs we’d made. Whenever I dropped off new stock, he’d lend me towering stacks of CDs to take home and demolish, and that rabbit hole basically shaped my power pop taste from then on.
He also hipped me to Jason Falkner, Owsley, Jellyfish, and many of my selections below—basically a power pop education-by-osmosis.
Give the algorithm a piece of your mind!
“Always on My Mind” by Phantom Planet
One of Scott’s loans was Phantom Planet’s debut album, which I loved, but it’s their sophomore The Guest I consider to be their best work. “Always on My Mind” just bounces effortlessly out of the gates. It’s an open, breezy arrangement (with help from Mitchell Froom), driven by electric piano, restrained guitar licks (and is that even a mandolin in the instrumental section?), plus expertly placed backing vocals that build the chorus without breaking a sweat. Alex Greenwald’s lead vocal blissfully delivers words of dissatisfaction, longing, and unattainable happiness which, in my book, is a core power pop ingredient.
“High School” by The Flashing Lights
The Flashing Lights are a big part of the Canadian power pop legacy and should be talked about as much as Sloan, if you ask me—if only there were more material. “High School” (and much of the album it comes from, Where the Change Is) is packed with immediate vocal hooks delivered over fuzzy, modulating power chords. The creative ‘more is more’ approach to drumming and bass (think The Who) really elevates what is already a banging, unheralded track.
“Calling Sydney” by The Shazam
An impeccable verse and pre-chorus built with real variety and deft skill, and just when you think this song couldn’t get better, the chorus explodes. I love the extended drum fill and the brief musical break into the last chorus adding a hit of tension and release. And the outro, with its layered backing vocals, brings it to a perfect conclusion.
The album Godspeed The Shazam is another overlooked genre classic that, to me, doesn’t get the enduring attention it deserves.
“Heather’s a Genius” by The Davenports
I could’ve picked about ten songs by The Davenports. This one’s hard to put into words, Scott Klass somehow inserts a deep weight and poignancy into his music that’s hard to pinpoint. Maybe it’s the details he chooses to give you about the characters, as much as the details he leaves out. There’s an element of magic and not-knowing that draws you in.
He’s an expert at slipping into falsetto seamlessly and dressing up melodies with layered production—even though the songs are strong enough to shine on their own. Don’t bother trying to get him. Scott’s a genius.
“Hover” by Rhett Miller
And finally, this one shoots me straight in the heart immediately. It never fails to create painful lumps in my throat and send me into a blubbering mess in two-and-a-half minutes.
It’s such a beautiful song, blanketed in Jon Brion’s ethereal production. The power here comes from the alluring melody and the raw lyrics, capturing those uncertain moments around falling in love when you’re young—being absolutely sure, but still a little apprehensive about the intensity of it all.
Give the algorithm a piece of your mind!
Zac Anthony has been performing on stages around the globe for over 20 years, most notably as the vocalist/guitarist for Melbourne, Australia’s The Wellingtons. Their most recent release is the 2025 album Baby Moon.
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.
As always thanks for the Great suggestions!
Love the Wellingtons and the Shazam. Hans Rotenberry came to our small town.