Ambient I Alt-country I Americana I Anti-folk I Art rock I Blue-eyed soul I Conscious Rap I Electro I Emo I Fence Collective I Folk traditionalist I Folktronica I Freak Folk I Fridmann's Freaks I Gangsta rap I Garage I Grime I Hardcore I Heavy Metal I House I Hip-Pop I Indie rock I Manufactured pop I Montreal scene I Neo-Psychedelia I Nordic pop I Post-rock I Power-pop I Progressive rock I R&B I Second Childhood I Singer-songwriters I Slowcore I Synth pop I Techno
Key acts: Fountains of Wayne. OK Go, The Feeling, Weezer, Jonas Brothers
As the word “pop” became debased, essentially being used to describe the worst kind of manufactured pop, we needed a new way to describe pop that was actually good. Hence power-pop. Think of it, then, as anything that harks back to the Beatles (up to and including Revolver) and especially anything that brings in a little extra new-wave energy — as typified by the dumb but infectious hooks of the Knack’s My Sharona, the slick, more-power-in-reserve coolness of the Cars’ My Best Friend’s Girl and the driving riffery of Tom Petty’s American Girl. Power-pop classics of the 1990s, such as Matthew Sweet’s guitartastic Girlfriend and Jellyfish’s incomparable Bellybutton, failed to connect with a wider audience, but power-pop gained a new level of success this millennium when it was co-opted by the kind of boybands who protested that they weren’t boybands at all, such as Busted and McFly, and by American grunge-lite acts such as Blink 182 and Good Charlotte. The Disney popsters Jonas Brothers are currently continuing this tradition, while a classier version of power-pop can be heard in the works of Maxïmo Park and the Feeling. The spring in power-pop’s step is neatly symbolised in the video for OK Go’s Here It Goes Again, where the band perform their YouTube-famous dance on treadmills.
ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS
Recent: Busted, A Present for Everyone (2003); The Feeling, Twelve Stops and Home (2007); Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)
Classic: The Cars, The Cars (1978); Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend (1991); Jellyfish, Bellybutton (1990)
Key track: OK Go, Here It Goes Again (2005)
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