“Act Your Age!” – for generations, teenagers were pressured to shake off the frivolousness of youth, don their Sunday best, and prepare for a lifetime of servitude in the workplace and/or kitchen. And then the 1960’s happened, for which the kids declared they were all right and just wanted to have fun, fun, fun…. well, until their father reclaimed the family automobile. A hair before I was born, Pete Townsend coined the term “power pop” to christen exuberant, youthful, melodic, guitar-driven rock that was a respite from the sludgier, denser, darker fare that was on the horizon from the likes of LedZep, Black Sabbath, and Jimi Hendrix.
The heyday of the genre peaked a decade later with Cheap Trick, Sweet, and the Bay City Rollers. Almost all power pop classics were about girls, Rick Springfield (‘Jessie’s Girl’), The Knack (‘My Sharona’), Dwight Twilley (‘Girls’), Elvis Costello (‘Veronica’) and much later on, basically every song by Material Issue (‘Valerie Loves Me’, ‘What Girls Want’, ‘Diane’, ‘Kim The Waitress’).
In the early 2000’s, an incredible power pop band burst onto the scene – The Exploding Hearts – and the decade could have been theirs for the taking had a tragic accident not taken their lives. But the genre’s relentless spirit still lives on through the worldwide International Pop Overthrow festivals and terrestrial and satellite radio stations dedicated to the genre. Burbank’s Big Stir Records lovingly signs and promotes a brilliant galaxy of artists and offshoots including the legendary Graham Parker, and the Jem Records you may remember from your childhood is still around and releasing power pop… well, gems.
Mainstream and Social Media want us to believe that pop culture is a youth market, and that anyone with an AARP card spends their nights watching Matlock and Tracker on CBS, but even those of us who prefer an early bedtime and no longer over indulge in club culture still like to rock – and we have the record collections to prove it. So in that spirit, here are some of the best power pop records to join my hallowed CD and vinyl racks this year. Artists of all ages , veins filled with piss and vinegar, and amps cranked to 11.
Half the band, double the pleasure – that’s the ethos of The Half Cubes, a two-member side hustle from power pop darlings The Flashcubes. The day job band released a winning compilation of power pop covers last year called Pop Masters, so this sort-of sequel takes on 24 more homages – in many cases having the original artists guest on the sessions. Case in point, Moe Berg of The Pursuit of Happiness joins Half Cubers Tommy Allen and Gary Frenay on a winning cover of ‘She’s So Young’. Another highlight is a spot-on tribute to the OMD classic ‘Souvenir’. The album is dedicated to the memory of Eric Carmen, whose ‘Someday’ they lovingly tackle here. Longtime Popdose favorite, Fernando Perdomo, contributes guitars to 13 of the album’s 24 tracks, somehow finding the time while also producing, performing, and releasing a torrent of new songs in the power pop, progressive and yacht rock genres. We first heard the sound of Fernando when he produced Cait Brennan’s power pop classic, Debutante, before she signed to Omnivore and he signed to Cherry Red.
Akron, Ohio’s Librarians with Hickeys (Mike Crooker and Ray Carmen) return with another absolute banger-fest in the form of How to Make Friends by Telephone. Their last album, Handclaps and Tambourines, was one of Popdose’s top-ranked albums of 2022. If you love upbeat, pep in your step, instantly hummable sonic brainworms, the Librarians’ Dewey Decibel System is filled with new classics.
California’s Redd Kross, led by brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald, have been kicking up the jams since the late 1970’s – at times the band has included Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks, Bad Religion), Jack Irons (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Vicki Peterson (The Bangles). In 2024, their star-studded documentary, Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story embarked on the festival circuit, while their self-titled 8th full-length, aka The Redd Album delivered 18 high energy songs in just under an hour.
Popdose previously raved about Octoberland, the latest album by The Armiores, a Burbank band fronted by Big Stir label-heads Rex Broome and Christina Bulbenko. Our gut take on the album, “a deluge of indelible moments, ear worm hooks, buoyant melodies, and brilliant lyrics that connect with my heart, spirit, fists and feet” only strengthens with subsequent listens.
Another friend of Popdose and The Planet LP podcast is troubadour Ward White. Here Come the Dowsers is a brilliant, yet unofficial, companion piece to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, each song serving as a standalone and yet somewhat entwined short story about mystery, mayhem, and intrigue behind the scenes in an aging Tinsel Town. Purists may call this one more baroque pop, but there’s plenty of melody and energy in the production to fit it nicely into this roundup.
NYC’s The Cynz led by Henri Seiz and timeless Barbara Eden doppelgänger Cyndi Dawson, have been fittingly called “the closest thing to the 1970s CBGB’s you will get from a band that formed in 2011.” They’re tearing up the live scene up and down the East Coast, as evidenced on their latest Jem Records single.
Technically one could also include the latest Billie Joe Armstrong releases from Green Day and Pinhead Gunpowder in this list, as they center the Venn Diagram between classic power pop and punk, but we’re going to discuss Billie Joe in two upcoming posts so stay tuned.
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