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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | bob_hutton@standardlife.com |
| Subject | PowerPop |
| Date | Wed, 2 Jul 2003 14:17:10 +0100 |
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Two quality posts from Greg Sager in one day - obviously having a nice
relaxing day at Sears Tower, Greg? ;-)
Mods Mayday: I too had the album (vinyl) when it came out way back then.
Can't remember much about it at all, but DO recall one fantastic little
song called "Love Only Me" by a band called The Mods. Don't know if they
did anything else of note, but that song was a wee slice of pop magic. I
was quite into the mod scene at the time (although you'd never guess it if
you could see the way I dress now) and saw the Jam loads of times, plus the
Vapours (co-managed by Bruce Foxton, the Jam's bass player), The Chords,
The Boys etc. My good chum Bob Kelly told me that he saw Secret Affair at
a reunion gig just the other week, not sure if they have reformed or if it
was just a one-off. There were a lot of good songs came from that scene,
eg "Millions Like Us" by The Purple Hearts, "Maybe Tomorrow" by The Chords,
"Time For Action" etc. Also a fair amount of dross, it has to be admitted.
As for the term power-pop, I know it was coined by Pete Townshend (I
thought he used it to describe "I Can See For Miles" originally). The
first time I heard it was when it was used to describe a band called The
Pleasers, who were a kind of Beatles soundalike group, back in 1978 I
think. Then there were other bands like The Records, The Knack, The Cars,
Tonight (who had a UK hit single called "Drummer Man" - anyone remember
it?). I think that the music press back then thought there was going to be
a power-pop movement, hard on the heels of punk/new wave, but it just never
happened (shame) and we ended up with New Romantics instead. Sigh.
Does anyone know when the term power-pop became used to describe a genre of
music (I think Pete T just used it as a descriptive term)? Were bands like
Big Star and The Raspberries called "power-pop bands" when they started up?
B^)
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