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| From | "josh chasin" <jchasin@nyc.rr.com> |
| Subject | Re: quintessential power pop |
| Date | Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:07:49 -0400 |
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Two comments, interesting at least to me...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com>
> I don't disagree with the seminal importance of Buddy Holly and the
> Everly Brothers, but as I've said on this list more than once, it all
starts
> with Chuck Berry.
If indeed it all started with Chuck Berry (and with "No Particular Place to
Go" ringing in my head I can't say I disagree) then you can draw a straight
line back from Chuck to his influences, through T-Bone Walker to Charlie
Christian-- meaning Power Pop has at its earliest ancentry very similar
roots as the blues.
Like I said, interesting to me...
> The usual explanation is that power pop began with the Raspberries,
> Badfinger, and Big Star at the turn of the decade as a backlash against
the
> growing ponderousness of rock, and as an attempt to revive the
three-minute
> verities of 1964 and 1965 as an alternative to that aforementioned
ponderous
> rock. It does make sense to look at the origins of power pop that way,
even
> if Pete Ham, Alex Chilton, Eric Carmen, etc., never put it in quite those
> terms themselves; since it's essentially a classicist and derivative
> subgenre, it only stands to reason that its progenitors would also have
> something of a secondhand approach to their music, although nobody would
> question the fact that a band like Big Star was able to create something
> completely new while aspiring to revive something old.
I am distinctly reminded of the interview with Chilton in the middle of the
live CD from WLIR on Long Island where they ask him why he plays such
anachronistic music. I often think that "power pop" didn't become a genre
until time passed it by; in other words, when the Searchers, Byrds, Beatles,
Who, Kinks, etc. dominated the charts, it didn't need a name-- it was just
"top-40." When Badfinger, Big Star, and the Raspberries (I tend to toss
Todd Rundgren in that group as well; Something/Anything was contemporary
with all their early releases) came out after the "singer/songwriter" and
glam years, with music borrowing heavily from the verities of 1965, suddenly
you had a genre on your hands. And we all know, genres need names.
Ever since, there have been Power Pop bands, no matter what else was
happening in music. No question that there was power pop in the mid-70s.
In the punk/new wave years, well, a lot of that music is classic power pop.
In the synth-laden 80s we got bands like the Romantics, Marshall Crenshaw,
and the Bangles (who's first album remains a power pop touchstone in my
book.) The grunge years? Jellyfish, Posies, Teenage Fan Club, Matthew
Sweet, the Lemonheads. On to today and bands like Fountains of Wayne and
Weezer (and I'm trying to stick to the relatively populist.)
In 1999, Tom Petty said something about rock'n'roll that I think applies to
power pop: "Rock'n'Roll, "he said, "will never go out of style. The design
is flawless."
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