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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: quintessential power pop |
| Date | Thu, 21 Aug 2003 02:39:15 -0500 |
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> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:07:10 -0400
> From: Kevin Mathews <kevin@powerofpop.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: quintessential power pop
> Message-ID: <200308200607.APL28532@ms4.verisignmail.com>
>
> Greg wrote -
> >I love the Beach Boys, but to me they're a pop band, not a
> >power pop
> >band. Power pop may chime, jangle, and soar, but it's gotta
> thump as well.
>
> Granted. But Townshend used "Fun Fun Fun" as a reference
> point - which is an excellent example of the Boys' Chuck
> Berry-Four Freshmen hybrid - for "power pop".
>
... which is why I was careful to mention that in 1966 the term was
more of an ideosyncratic construct on Towser's part than it was a
broadly-accepted bit of rock'n'roll nomenclature. Many times in life an
invention doesn't turn out to be exactly what the inventor intended it to
be, especially when the invention happens to be a term dubbed by a visionary
notorious for his flights of theoretical fancy about music. I wouldn't be
surprised if he just spontaneously came up with the term "power pop" right
in the middle of that *Hit Parader* interview once he was on a roll
discussing what his band was trying to achieve in the studio at that time.
I've never fully sussed out Townshend's feelings about the Beach
Boys and surf music in general. I know that later on in the Who's career he
considered the classic-era Beach Boys songs to be kid's stuff, agreeing to
revive their 1966 *Ready Steady Who* cover of "Barbara Ann" during the *The
Kids Are Alright* film rehearsals as a friendly gesture towards his
surf-besotted drummer. But in earlier days? Like most British musicians of
his era who weren't strictly blues or jazz players, his biggest initial
influence apart from 50s rock'n'roll was R&B, which also happened to be the
music favored by his band's audience, London mods. While the Beach Boys fit
neatly into the whole 50s rock'n'roll aesthetic due to the overt Chuck Berry
references within their music, they certainly didn't sound anything like the
R&B that was the Who's jumping-off point. And, lyrically, most English kids
were at a loss when it came to embracing the Beach Boys oeuvre, since the
southern California vibe of sun, surfing, cars, and girls in bikinis was
completely alien to them. Townshend has always had a great ear for other
people's music, so I have no doubt that at some point in his career he
admired what Brian Wilson had been doing in the early and mid-sixties. But I
wonder just how much of an individual connection Townshend could've felt
with the music of the Beach Boys -- unlike his Who alter ego Keith Moon, who
always considered surf music to be his personal vehicle for escapist
hedonistic abandon.
> In any case, Big Star/Badfinger/Raspberries had many songs
> that did NOT have the thump (because they were not one-note
> wonders) so where do you draw the line. For eg. would you
> consider "Thirteen" power pop?
>
No, "Thirteen" is a ballad. Just because Big Star is a band best
known for its power pop doesn't mean that all of the band's songs fit that
style -- "The India Song", "Try Again", "Watch the Sunrise", "I'm In Love
With a Girl", etc., are no more power pop than is "Thirteen".
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 05:56:00 -0500
> From: "Billy G. Spradlin" <bgspradlin@cablelynx.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: quintessential power pop
> Message-ID: <200308201054.h7KAsnFh008383@lvapp13.prod.networkip.net>
>
>
> > 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.
>
> While Chuck invented Rock "N" Roll's basic songwriting form, I feel his
> songs
> were derived directly from R&B and not as much from (tin pan alley) pop or
> country like Buddy and Don & Phil's (or The Bryant's) classics were.
>
As Mike Bennett pointed out, there is actually a pretty strong C&W
influence in Berry's music.
> Great
> wordplay, legendary riffs and solos, but not the right kind of "killer
> hooks"
> and vocal arrangements that can be directly related to Power Pop. Is
> "Johnny B.
> Goode" a Power Pop song? No, but you can take Buddy's "Heartbeat" and rev
> it up
> like the Knack in 1979 and turn it into Power Pop.
>
Killer hooks? Chuck had plenty of 'em.
My point was that Chuck Berry was there to create the original
template for what Buddy Holly would commence accomplishing two years after
Berry had begun his string of hits. During his 1957-59 heyday Buddy Holly
wrote and recorded rock'n'roll, and as Cub Koda rightly pointed out in Chuck
Berry's AMG biographical entry, Berry was the guy who first went beyond
rockabilly to create what was quintessentially rock'n'roll. In terms of
sound, arrangement, and instrumentation Holly merely refined what Berry had
modeled earlier, a debt Holly tacitly acknowledged by covering "Brown-Eyed
Handsome Man" (just as he gave a nod in the direction of Chuck's Chess rival
Bo Diddley by writing and recording "Not Fade Away"). That doesn't lessen
Holly's importance as a seminal figure and rock'n'roll genius one bit. He's
the giant upon whose shoulders the Beatles sat, and the Beatles are the
giants upon whose shoulders power pop sits. But Chuck Berry is the giant
upon whose shoulders *everybody* (apart from the early Sun rockabilly guys)
sits, including Buddy Holly. Besides, let's not forget that it was John
Lennon who said that if you were going to call rock'n'roll by another name,
you might call it "Chuck Berry" instead.
And in that sense, power pop is quite directly related to Chuck
Berry. If power pop is one of the branches of the rock'n'roll tree, Chuck
Berry is one of the thickest parts at the base of the trunk.
> The Who had one hell of a lot more oomph than the New Colony Six
> >(although the early, "At the River's Edge" era NC6 was a legit garage
> band
> >rather than the sappy MOR pop outfit of their later hit-single period).
>
> I agree, the NC6 (or any Chicagoland 60's band) would have gotten blown
> off
> the
> stage by the Who (how did Herman's Hermits feel when they toured with
> them?)
>
Probably about the same way that the Monkees felt about touring with
Jimi Hendrix.
>
> But I feel "Love You So Much" is a true Power Pop song in songwriting and
> arrangement. The guitars DONT have to be cranked to 11 for a song to be
> Power
> Pop!
>
> Same with The Beatles (She Loves You, I Feel Fine, Paperback Writer) and
> Hollies classics (Look Through Any Window, Here I Go Again, Im Alive)
> where
> the
> mantic drumming and in-your-face vocal harmonies make up for any distorted
> guitars.
>
Oh, I don't think that the *guitars* necessarily have to be cranked
in order for a song to qualify as power pop. But a strong and heavy bottom
is a must. Take "September Gurls", which is generally considered to be the
Rosetta Stone of power pop. Chilton's guitar chords are thick and
substantial, as is his solo, but the guitar sound is more chimey and ringing
in a Byrdsian sense than it is "cranked". The guitar sound is meatier on
that song than the guitars on, say, Reunion's "Life Is a Rock" or Blue
Swede's "Hooked On a Feeling" (to use two 1974 pop contemporaries of
"September Gurls"), but certainly not as meaty as the guitars on "Go All the
Way", 'Couldn't I Just Tell You", or "No Matter What". But there's no
question that "September Gurls" has ample power, and the power mostly came
from Jody Stephens's drumkit.
> > I love the Beach Boys, but to me they're a pop band, not a power
> pop
> >band. Power pop may chime, jangle, and soar, but it's gotta thump as
> well.
>
> Beach Boys Today and Summer Days had plenty of Thumpin' moments. To me
> theres
> not much differance between Brian Wilson using 40+ Session Musicans to
> create a
> huge roar on "Do You Wanna Dance" and Johnny Ramone cranking it out the
> same
> song on a Mosrite and Marshall Stack on "Rocket To Russia".
>
I agree. There are Beach Boys moments where their sound achieves
something like power pop status through sheer sonic force -- "Do You Wanna
Dance" being a good example, because as you say their version is actually as
punchy as the version of the song that the Ramones did. But I think that the
punch in the Beach Boys version comes more from the fact that Brian Wilson
gave Hal Blaine's powerhouse drums plenty of tapewidth than from Wilson's
Spectorization of the song with a couple dozen backing musicians.
Gregory Sager
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