Power pop is the genre that never quite got its moment — and somehow that’s the whole point. It’s a sound built on the Beatles’ Revolver-era jangle and the Who’s coiled aggression, then handed down through a lineage of bands who wrote perfect three-minute songs and watched them sail straight past the charts. This week’s show traces that line from the source: “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Pictures Of Lily” set the template in the mid-60s, and the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action” and Big Star’s “In The Street” carried it into the 70s, where commercial indifference became something close to a badge of honour.
What’s remarkable is how the vindication keeps arriving late. Big Star sold almost nothing in 1972 and ended up soundtracking a hit sitcom two decades on. The Speedies were Brooklyn schoolkids whose “You Need Pop” found a second life in a printer commercial. Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque was voted album of the year over Nevermind, a decision that looked eccentric at the time and looks rather braver now. And the thread runs unbroken to the present — the Lemon Twigs and Weezer are working the same seam as Todd Rundgren, Dwight Twilley and the Raspberries did fifty years ago, with a similar disregard for whether anyone’s paying attention.
Tracklist
- The Beatles — And Your Bird Can Sing — Revolver (Remastered)
- The Who — Pictures Of Lily — Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy
- Big Star — In The Street — #1 Record (Remastered)
- Teenage Fanclub — Star Sign — Bandwagonesque
- The Heats — I Hope You're Wrong — The Heats
- The Goods — Summer's Almost Gone
- Tweeds — I Need That Record — I Need That Record: The Tweeds Anthology
- The Speedies — You Need Pop
- Shoes — Boys Don't Lie — Black Vinyl Shoes
- Pete Yorn — Idyllwild
- King Tuff — Stairway To Nowhere — MOO
- Weezer, Wednesday — We Might as Well Be Strangers (ft. Wednesday)
- Flamin' Groovies — Shake Some Action
- Todd Rundgren — Couldn't I Just Tell You — The Very Best of Todd Rundgren
- Dwight Twilley Band — I'm On Fire — Sincerely
- Smug Brothers — Interior Magnets
- Material Issue — Valerie Loves Me — International Pop Overthrow
- The Raspberries — I Saw The Light — Raspberries
