Power Pop Is Having A Moment
A Few Favorite Songs & Quotes About The Genre's Resurgence
If you're a fan of hooky guitar pop by bands like The Beatles, Big Star, The Nerves, 20/20, The Records, Blondie, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Go-Go’s and Teenage Fanclub, the last few years have been incredible.
Against all commercial odds, a new crop of talented power pop/power pop-adjacent artists have emerged to carry the tortured genre’s torch. Some modern acts proudly wave the ‘power pop’ flag, while others struggle with genre labels.
I’m personally no purist when it comes to power pop. I believe the genre is best evaluated song-by-song (it’s very rare that every track on an album meets the strict criteria of fans). So, I happily include songs and artists from adjacent genres like indie rock, garage rock, punk, pop punk and jangle rock.
In other words, I know it when I hear it (and sometimes when I see it).
In 2022 alone we saw fantastic new releases from The Speedways, Alvvays, Mo Troper, Nick Frater, The Beths, Young Guv, Dot Dash, Beach Bunny, Dazy, Scott Robertson, Kate Clover and Supercrush, among many, many others.
As a regular contributor to Big Takeover magazine, I was lucky to interview several of these artists in 2022 to get their take on the modern power resurgence.
A Few Favorite Quotes:
Rory Cameron of The Whiffs
“I only use the term ‘power pop’ to describe us to people that I think absolutely know what it is (punk nerds), or I usually just say it sounds like a ‘punked up Beatles’ to my friends’ dads who I know are gonna love us. Dads love us.”
(Read The Whiffs Interview)
Phil Yates of Phil Yates & The Affiliates
“Earworms will never die in the music scene, and no other genre excels at producing earworms like power pop does. Maybe in that regard, power pop is the tardigrade of the music universe. It is a genre that seems to still survive regardless of the music environment.”
(Read The Phil Yates Interview)
Noah Nash of Uni Boys
“The whole sub-genre thing can feel confining, to the point where you feel a little trapped. People can obviously call our music whatever they want, and we understand that it does resemble all those qualities of what you’d call ‘power pop’…but when it comes down to it, the music we make is rock and roll.”
(Read The Uni Boys Article)
Peter Gill of 2nd Grade
“Anybody who’s strummed the intro to ‘September Gurls’ with huge jangly downstrokes knows how goddamn great it feels to play this kind of music, and that’s the feeling that motivates me to do what I do.”
(Read The 2nd Grade Interview)
Power Pop in 2023
And the great news is, the modern power pop Renaissance is showing no signs of slowing down in the new year. In fact, it only seems to be picking up speed.
Just grabbed the new Juniper the other day! They had a deal on Bandcamp where you could get both of her CD's for a special price, so I doubled up.
Thanks for shining your light on indie releases!