Among all the non-genres in the history of rock, power pop – also due to its longevity – undoubtedly occupies a special place. But what, exactly, is power pop? A melodic punk, less rebellious and more romantic? A hard-rock without the macho component and the long solos? Sort of teen pop with big guitars in the foreground? If you think about it, it's not that simple to answer the question. Although there is no lack of points of contact with all the genres in question, power pop still remains a discussion in itself, difficult to categorize. Because it's too perfect and clean to be punk in the strict sense; to the powerful voices that characterize hard-rock he prefers often effeminate voices. And it's also too adolescent and disengaged to be confused with classic rock, but at the same time it's too loud and raucous to be passed off as real pop. So, what is it then? A bit of all these things put together, with the ingredients dosed differently.
And yet, magically, a power pop song – once you have trained your ear and done a bit of practice – can be recognized immediately. There are songs, even very famous ones, that are only and exclusively power pop and could not be anything else. In short: energetic songs that exude youthful vitality from every pore, with melodies so sticky that, once they get into your head, they never get out.
If at the beginning of the 70s power pop was still mainly derivative Beatlesian (Big Star, Badfinger, Flamin' Groovies, Todd Rundgren), soon changed shape, until it was incorporated into the sound of some heavyweights of the American new wave, such as Blondie and the Cars in the second half of the decade.
Power pop also often rhymes with one-hit wonderor more generally with artists who today tend to be remembered for a single hit song: think of the Knack of “My Sharona”, the Only Ones of “Another Girl, Another Planet” or, in part, the Rick Springfield of “Jessie's Girl”.
So is power pop a purely American thing? Absolutely not: singers who grew up in the noisy context of pub rock such as Joe Jackson, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds and punk groups with a particular predisposition towards melody (this is the case, for example, of the Buzzcocks, the Jam and the Undertones) are there to reiterate the important contribution provided by Great Britain to the development of the genre.
If it's true that the 70s were the golden decade of power pop, that doesn't mean it had nothing more to say in the following decades. In the glittery ones Eighties It was especially popular in American colleges (just think of Rem and Game Theory) and made converts among the most pop groups of the Californian Paisley Underground scene (Bangles, Three O'Clock). At the same time, it was also embraced by bands who, once they abandoned the hardcore punk fury of their early days, discovered they had a weakness for melodies. This is the case of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, with the latter then paying homage to the tutelary father of power pop, Alex Chilton, in a splendid song named after him. A transition period that led to the real rebirth that took place in the 90s, thanks to the precious contribution of groups such as Weezer, Posies and Teenage Fanclub, who relaunched the word of power pop, thus making it discovered by new generations of listeners.
But let's stop talking, we've already gone too long to present a genre that has always made essentiality its greatest value: so here are 50 of the most significant songs of power pop.
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Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
