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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | DanAbnrml9@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: essence of power-pop |
| Date | Wed, 9 Jun 2004 08:21:36 EDT |
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In a message dated 6/8/2004 2:02:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
<<Well, I'd agree up to a point, although I think that power-pop is one genre
which actually revels in NOT making claims of sounding original. Other
genres have many acts who would have you believe that no-one has ever
sounded the way they do, even though their claim is patently false. Like I
said before, I don't think this self-referential stance is a bad thing - if
I did, I'd never buy as much stuff from NotLame as I do! I just sometimes
think that someone out of the power-pop loop would find it curious.>>
I would also like to add that I think a big difference is that most of what
is being "referenced" by the majority of power-pop groups is fairly old--25
years at least, if not 40--and very rarely do you find a power-pop group that
is primarily influenced by anything more modern. That may be a big difference,
because if you compare power-pop to a different genre, like, say, rap, or
any sort of electronic music, then you'll find groups who are influenced
by/somewhat imitating groups that are either still around or were around not as
long ago. This, I think, is the only real problem--if someone wants to sound
like the Monkees or the Zombies or whatever then I think that's cool--but I
think that the fact that the power pop universe cut itself off sometime in the
late '70s means that a lot of the new stuff sounds a little too much like it's
trying to recreate some type of golden age. I guess the stuff that I
personally like best (and listen to the most) is cognizant of all those classics but
sounds distinctly modern--someone like Bleu or Fountains of Wayne, for
example, or people like Adam Marsland and Mike Viola who have a very distinct
personality and could never be mistaken as imitators.
I definitely don't think that the "referencing another group" thing is
unique to power-pop, nor is it bad, it's just that because the references
themselves are so old it sometimes creates the feeling that power-pop is a dead
genre, no longer evolving on its own.--Jason
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