Talking Modern Power Pop
Talking Modern Power Pop
Music Writers, Musicians & Fans Discuss The Hotly Debated Genre
I was recently part of a modern power pop roundtable on the Pop Fuss Podcast.
The music obsessed host, Andy Solum, and his three guests—Allen Lulu, Jeff Shelton and myself—each picked three examples of current artists/tracks that we personally think define where power pop is these days and where it might be headed.
The episode was titled “Power Pop: The Next Generation” and I really think it’s worth checking out if you’re fan of this hotly debated genre. It all started with this quote:
Here’s a short Spotify playlist Andy put together for the episode. The first 12 songs are what we submitted, but there’s so much great new power pop/power pop-adjacent music being released these days that a few additional tracks from our free-ranging conversation were added after we recorded.
My three choices (machine gun drum roll, please…):
“Instant Nostalgia” by 2nd Grade
“Let’s Watch A Movie” by Uni Boys
“Expert In A Dying Field” by The Beths
Peter Gill, the creative force behind Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade, was the cover artist for Remember The Lightning: A Guitar Pop Journal, Vol. 4.
Here’s an excerpt from my cover story:
One track that immediately caught my attention was “Instant Nostalgia.” The non-stop, stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach, chiming guitars and persistent backbeat, overlapping vocals, sound collage digression at the end and relentless handclaps throughout might be the perfect crystallization of Gill’s style. But I was also drawn to the provocative title because of previous conversations I’ve had with him about the power and pitfalls of nostalgia in modern pop rock.
While acknowledging that ‘nostalgia is a beautiful thing,’ Gill remains ever-vigilant about how he chooses to deploy it in his songs because of how aggressively it’s used in marketing and emotion-mining these days—a balance he strikes effectively throughout Scheduled Explosions.
“‘Instant Nostalgia’ is a bit of a mystery to me. I recall in the lead-up to writing it I was thinking about something I had read, about how neuroscientists have estimated the duration of the ‘present’ as approximately three seconds, which is the amount of time it takes the brain to process incoming information and knit it up into a nice little package of ‘experience’ that can then be neatly sorted as belonging to the ‘past.’ Those three seconds we’re perpetually living in are a real mess; I love those three seconds. In that song the past, present, and future get all tangled up. Where the song ends, in some ways, is a very different place from where it starts, but in other ways not so different at all,” Gill said.
LA’s Uni Boys were on the cover of Remember The Lightning: A Guitar Pop Journal, Vol. 2 around the release of Buy This Now.
Here’s an excerpt from Marko DeSantis’ in-depth conversation with the band:
I spent some time this summer chasing the scent trail of a vibrant rock scene emerging from the shadows of Los Angeles, and a band at the heart of the action called Uni Boys.
Made up of co-frontmen Noah Nash (vocals/guitar) and Reza Matin (vocals/guitar), along with the rhythm section of Michael Cipolletti (bass/backing vocals) and Artie Fitch (drums), Uni Boys is the culmination of childhood friendships formed in the Southern California suburb of Aliso Viejo, where the foursome grew up sharing the same phases of music discovery and obsession.
Instant classics such as "On Your Lovin Mind" or "Downtown" from last year’s Do It All Next Week (Curation Records), or “Let’s Watch a Movie,” “I Want It Too” and “Two Years” from their fourth full length, Buy This Now (Curation Records, October 2023), sound raw and timeless. Nash and Matin take turns singing lead vocals and sound extremely cohesive, which makes sense since they remain thick as thieves.
Their recordings are lovingly homemade with simple ingredients: lyrics about the trials of young love, life and loneliness; reliable melodies; Rickenbackers and Fenders; punchy chords and catchy yet spare riffs and solos; secondhand combo amps set somewhere between jangle tone and barely-breaking up; urgent beats and walking bass lines. These songs could sit side by side with music from 40+ years ago, recalling elements of the Only Ones, the dB’s, Milk & Cookies, the Heartbreakers (Johnny’s and/or Tom’s), Candy, and, yeah, I’ll say it: early/mid-‘60s era Beatles!
The band is now in their early 20s, growing from a teenage endeavor called Uniform into Uni Boys. Considering all four Uni Boys records have come out in the span of four years, the band’s exponential sonic evolution is quite astonishing.
If any of my selections is likely to raise eyebrows with power pop purists, it’s New Zealand indie darlings The Beths.
But, as acclaimed music journalist/author Annie Zaleski points out in her essay about the band for Remember The Lightning: A Guitar Pop Journal, Vol. 1, The Beths are a prime example of how the genre could and should evolve.
Power pop is sometimes perceived as a genre trapped in amber—a style of music that enjoyed an initial wave of popularity in the ‘70s, refined itself in the ‘80s and settled into a permanent groove during the ‘90s. This perception doesn’t make power pop artists from these decades bad, of course, or take anything away from the piles of groundbreaking albums released during this timeframe.
But the dominance of this narrative can make it more difficult to see the ways power pop has grown and changed—and continues to evolve in new and unexpected ways. Among other things, younger generations tend to have a much more generous take on which bands are considered power pop. Artists that might have been categorized as indie (or indie pop) in years past now fall under the power pop umbrella. The result is a genre that’s thriving because it’s more inclusive and has much broader parameters than ever before.
One of the most exciting modern power pop bands is the Beths. Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, and fronted by vocalist/guitarist Liz Stokes, the group favors fuzz-coated rock and pop music with heft—or, as a press release for their critically acclaimed 2022 album Expert In a Dying Field puts it, their songs are an “incandescent collision of power pop and skuzz.” In practice, that translates to sticky-sweet melodies, explosive hooks, smart lyrics, and bold guitar riffs—all wrapped up in songs bursting with effervescent, infectious energy.
Of course, the hardest part of choosing only three songs was all the bands and tracks I had to leave out.
A few other amazing artists that went on and off of my list until I finally said “fuck it” and hit ‘send’ include The Whiffs, The Speedways, The Reflectors (they made Allen’s list!), Radio Days, Kate Clover, Kurt Baker, Wifey (they made Andy’s list!), The Owens, Couple, Hurry, Extra Arms, Liquid Mike, Supercrush, The Fatal Flaw and many others.
To round out this continuation of that podcast conversation, here are three talented artists I interviewed this year and some of what they had to say about power pop.
“I think songs that could be considered power pop come most easily to me. The core elements—tunefulness, a bit of oomph, a dash of pining—will always be things I’m most attracted to musically. Power pop is interesting because it’s an insular genre that has key touchstones and signifiers that most power pop fans can agree on, but the public at large seem largely unaware of.” —Javier Romero of Strange Magic
“I don’t think I ever sat down with the express purpose of wanting to write power pop specifically, but that’s just how the songs turned out naturally. We play catchy songs with loud guitars, and if that’s what power pop is to people, then yeah, we’re a power pop band.” —Teddy Grey of Wifey
“In my mind, power pop is just a louder, faster version of early Beatles stuff, basically With The Beatles on amphetamines. The most important thing is songwriting. All the great power pop bands know their way around chords, melodies and harmonies. That said, I don't think there are any strict rules. Honorable mention to the first couple Cheap Trick records. Those were huge records for me as a teenager.”—Dustin Lovelis of Softjaw
Really helpful in understanding power pop and where it is now.
Wifey's "Dimaggio" kills me!