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Gary Pig Gold's All-Time TOP 10 Power Pop People
In Chronological Order...
Certainly we could all be arguing blue-faced until that mythical Next Big
Thing finally arrives over just what exactly IS "Pop," Powerful or otherwise.
Why, a good case could be made that Irving Berlin, or either of them
Gershwin Bros. for that matter, were actually the undeniable Fathers of All
Things Pop. Others will insist the genre dates "only" back to the fine-print
on some Pete Townshend-art-directed Who flyer circa East London, 1964.
Whatever the case(s) may be, THIS here Pig is more than content to define
that damnable pigeonhole known as "Power Pop" as quite simply, quite pimply,
"Music that makes you Smile while it makes you Jump." Up and down,
preferably. So There! Now, taking only these two mere criteria in hand, I
hereby boldly list the ten recording artists that most often make ME grin
while I shake:
1. BUDDY HOLLY AND THE CRICKETS
The seeds of the (first) British Invasion date quite a bit prior to the
release of "Love, Love Me Do," I’ll have you know! For it was in the dark,
damp Spring of 1958 that those grave Texans Buddy, Joe B. and Jerry "Ivan"
made their first and, tragically, only tour of Great Britain – a tour which,
in retrospect, was the galvanizing event kick-starting the entire British
beat boom to follow. Look no farther than them Beatles for evidence of just
how profoundly Buddy’s month in England effected that nation’s fledgling
power-poppers: both Lennon & McCartney wrote their first songs ("Hello
Little Girl" and "I Lost My Little Girl") under the undeniable spell of
Holly’s hic-cupping swagger, and shortly thereafter electrified their skiffle
group in order to make the first-ever Beatle recording… of, dare I say it,
Buddy’s own "That’ll Be The Day." But Beatles, Schmeatles! The Crickets
were just as fine, fine a group in their own rite, as even one listen to any
of their Sixties-sounding (though FIFTIES-recorded!) hits prove. For
example? "Not Fade Away," "Maybe Baby," "Well Allright": three tracks
absolutely without precedence in an era then ruled by simple slap-back,
side-burned rhythm ‘n’ roll. Power Pop, to me, had its birth the moment
Buddy and band first stepped inside a recording studio. If you don’t believe
me, just pull out the nearest copy of WITH THE BEATLES.
2. DEL SHANNON
Buddy Holly may have somehow fore-shadowed the Swinging Sixties, but the
equally great (and equally late) Del Shannon wrote the songs and defined the
very ATTITUDE which bridged Elvis to the Beatles, Stones, Dylan et al.
Shannon’s songs – not to mention his lifestyle, both on AND off stage – were
loud, captivating, and always tinged with a sorrow and fitful resignedness
which resonated profoundly across both sides of the musical ocean (from
Lennon’s early greats "All I’ve Got To Do" and "I’ll Be Back" to most every
note of merit in the Bobby Fuller Four catalog). As few others dared to in
the regimented world of pre-‘64 Brill Building pop, Del Shannon rocked with
an eerie, almost other-worldly abandon which can be heard resonating at the
root of most any well-respecting P-pop song (especially in the key of
A-minor!) to this day.
3. THE DAVE CLARK FIVE
Like their truest American prodigies the Monkees, the DC5 were mercilessly
picked on for such trivial things as wearing silly stage outfits and not
playing their own instruments in the studio. While those same potshots can
also legitimately be aimed at everyone from the Beach Boys to the Byrds, Dave
and his four jock-rocking buddies rightfully couldn’t care less as they
became the first band with a British accent to tour the United States, appear
practically non-stop on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and throw nearly two-dozen
hits effortlessly up the international charts during a brief but
mega-impressive six-year run. Sneer if you must, but one bar of "Because"
reveals this band had solid pop chops in the song-writing department, while
tracks such as "Try Too Hard" and especially "Any Way You Want It" rock
harder than anything else did on AM Radio circa 1965 (…and yes, that INCLUDES
the Stones, Who, and even Yardbirds). Points must also be awarded this
quintet for their never-wavering loyalty to their chosen (yep, Power-Pop)
idiom: You wanna talk Consistency? The DC5 were able to flesh out their
1967 YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES album with an out-take or two from a 1964
soundtrack session …and nobody was ANY the wiser! Now, I’d like anybody out
there to try to throw "Baby’s In Black" onto SGT. PEPPER’S without raising a
sore thumb or two…
4. PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS
Those who might snicker derisively over the DC5’s milk-white dickies (not to
mention similarly pasteurized choice of songs) probably double over in
hysterics at the mere thought of Revere and his Raiders, garbed in their
red, white ‘n’ blue "idiot costumes," lip-syncing to "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" on
some distant afternoon-TV frug-fest. Well, what the Raiders – like Dave’s
Five – may have had to endure in the way of disrespect, they WAY more than
made up for with a veritable string of hard-popping classics (for example,
their "Steppin’ Stone" absolutely SHREDS the Monkees’, and only those
once-sexy Pistols came close to ever topping the Raiders’ raunchy rendering
thereof). Indeed, the wildly versatile Mark Lindsay could at once drive home
ravers like "Let Me" and "The Great Airplane Strike" – to name but two – with
a Jagger-like ferociousness (cool ponytail too!) then just as gamely concoct
and soft-sell chewy, bubbledelic confections such as "It Happens Every Day,"
"Cinderella Sunshine" and especially the incomparable "Mr. Sun Mr. Moon" with
the wave of a tri-cornered hat. Such indelibly dayglo-bright sounds as these
last three-mentioned, which the Raiders evolved towards in their
oft-forgotten later years, can still be heard coloring the Wondermints’
brightest moments (to cite one example) lo these three long, long decades on.
No small accomplishment indeed. (PS: and did I mention Mark’s cool
pony-tail too?)
5. THE WHO
DAMN that "Tommy"! The Who, thanks to that monstrosity, are cruelly destined
for little more than Hard Rawk Immortality, to be spoken of in the same musty
breath as Zeppelin or even (gasp!) Grand Funk to the uninformed, unwashed
masses. But let us remember that in the long-gone daze before Roger Daltrey
had forsaken his tube of Dippity-Do haircreme to become the lion-tressed,
chest-pounding Mountain Man of Woodstock, the Who created a stunning series
of 45-RPM gems (roughly "I Can’t Explain" thru "Call Me Lightning") and one
pants-down masterpiece of a long-player (THE WHO SELL OUT, their undeniably
crowning achievement) which laid the veritable groundwork for all which
became, and REMAINS, Power Pop. Period.
6. RASPBERRIES
Many would have inserted Badfinger (at least!) at this crucial point in our
little History Lesson. But to me, that most luckless of Apple bands far too
often frayed their musical edges with directionless detours towards
Yank-styled b-boogie when they should have been sticking to what they knew –
and DID – best (ie: most anything from the magic pen of Pete Ham). The
Raspberries too often struggled with that early-Seventies duality between the
bitter and the sweet as well (or, as no less an expert as Scott McCarl once
explained to me, "Eric Carmen never really could figure out if he wanted to
be Brian Wilson or Paul McCartney"). But for a while anyways, Cleveland’s
Finest saw fit to brave even the dowerfully denimed sea of Sabbath and Purple
with defiant cries of "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna Be With You." Clad at
their zenith in little more than ice cream-white stagesuits -- not to mention
supremely confident front-cover grins unseen since the hey!daze of the
afore-mentioned DC5 and Raiders -- the Raspberries’ brave battle against the
all-encroaching FM bile that was soon to become The Seventies was,
ultimately, in vain. For no sooner had they’d Started Over (with the
ironic-in-bucketsful "Overnight Sensation") than it truly was ALREADY over
for the band …and Mr. Carmen then wasted little time in becoming the
McCartney many had feared he’d always aspired to. Still, what those
Raspberries achieved in their criminally short reign almost
single-in-handedly rescued All Things Power Pop from a fate worse than Linda
Ronstadt. Let’s hope they don’t now blow their
quarter-century-after-the-fact Reunion (he said, fingers firmly crossed).
7. ABBA
It was deep inside an ancient issue of "Bomp!" Magazine where Greg Shaw first
warned us that, yes, the Groovies’ new SHAKE SOME ACTION was a beaut, but
equal turntable-time was also deserved by this new (to America) Swedish (?!!)
quartet who seemed to be picking up where no less than our beloved Mamas &
Papas had once left off. It took but one spin of "Ring Ring" to convince ME
that Mr. Spector’s fabled but creaking Wall of Sound had been erected proudly
anew, and that sweet, shimmering Powerful Pop was once again being created in
some far-flung land across the Atlantic. Well, suffice to say that by the
time Agnetha, Frida, Benny and Bjorn HAD finally invaded the American Top
Ten, it was in their slick new guise as Dancing Queens (alongside those
similarly once-p-poppin’ Brothers Gibb... ahh, my). Nevertheless, from
ABBA’s very first record to their very last (1982’s criminally over-looked
"Under Attack"), these four polar poppers created deep, unimaginable magic in
each and every groove they manufactured …why, they even made ARMED FORCES (by
that OTHER Elvis) sound semi-palpable to American ears! Sorta.
8. THE RAMONES
These true visionaries had the suicidal bad luck to creep above the
Underground at just about the same moment as their mutant offspring the Sex
Pistols, Clash, etc. etc. did, and as a result, what should have become the
greatest American cartoon series since The Archies ended up as little more
than the leather-jacketed, New Yawk punch-line to several of the music
industry’s least flattering bathroom jokes. The Ramones deserved better …and
Still Do, by the way. In deftly trolling the best of pop’s past (Beach Boys’
song-craft buoyed by vocals which somehow crossed Ronnie Spector with Peter
Noone!) and by buzz-sawing it savagely into the Eagle-infested wasteland
known as Rock ‘n’ Roll 1976-vintage, the Ramones – and the Ramones alone –
kept the truest-of-blue Power Pop spirit alive when few others had the guts,
not to mention brains, to produce much better than roteful sub-RUMOURS
riff-offs. These guys’ landmark first shows in Britain had as profound an
affect on that nation as Buddy Holly’s tour a decade earlier (it was said
that most everybody in the Ramones’ initial U.K. audiences either started a
band or a fanzine the morning after those concerts), and had America half a
brain – or at least a bit more COURAGE, culturally-speaking – Joey, Johnny,
DeeDee and Tommy/Marky/whatever could have easily ruled the airwaves for at
least the duration of the Reagan administration. As it is, we’ll be lucky if
the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame lasts long enough to induct these
bloodied-but-unbowed underdogs of all Power Poppers …before some skinny-tie
nominates The Cars instead.
9. BILL LLOYD
Let us not forget the bounty of wicked pop delights which have been
faithfully gushing from Nashville, Tennessee since nigh on before you or I
were born. Forever mistreated as pop’s poorer (and dumber) cousin, Country
Music has provided warm and loving homes for some of this nation’s
greatest-ever song-smiths. Two such one-four-five wizards got together in
the mid-Eighties, called themselves Foster & Lloyd, and all but revived the
ragged legacy of Don & Phil Everly (themselves long-standing, down-south
p-pop giants) with a guitar-driven, bigger-than-the-sky sound which was a
lone howl of sanity in an otherwise increasingly diverse,
sonically-challenged audio landscape. Within three glorious years however,
after routinely being branded too-rock-for-country-radio and/or
too-country-for-rock, Radney Foster set out upon his own way, leaving Bill to
finally indulge his Big Star-meets-Bacharach fantasies to the utter fullest.
The results to date have been a trio of albums (especially the wholly
magnificent SET TO POP) which are destined to be forever-after recognized as
no less than rock-solid totems to the entire great new "Nash-Pop" scene …a
scene which, by the way, is just now beginning to percolate out of Music City
towards the ears and hearts of power-poppers everywhere. Please try to
remember, though, that Bill Lloyd did it first – and, so far, he’s done it
BEST.
10. THE MASTICATORS
I quite innocently happened upon this band at 1998’s International Pop
Overthrow festival, inside a tiny club in the Los Angeles hinterlands. It
was a Sunday afternoon; it was a hundred degrees out in the parking lot and
at least TWICE that indoors. But it took less than one song to convince me,
and most everybody else in the room, that here was that rarest of cases when,
seemingly from out of nowhere, four musicians gathered on stage and proceeded
to produce a half-hour of out-and-out, pure pop magic. The Masticators,
under the nothing short of bewitching command of Lisa Mychols, shook and spun
every ear in the house with one brilliant slice of two-minutes-fifty after
another …each casually tossed off as if they were flipping flapjacks at the
nearby pancake house. But who knows? Maybe this band really CAN create such
joyous magic at the simple drop of a D-chord! It may yet be a wee bit early
to tell, but if bands like the Masticators (and songs like theirs) can still
be found wailing down that L.A. basin of oblivion, then Power Pop may very
well BE alive and well; all rumors of its demise (or at least exile to the
hinterlands of AOL chat rooms) grossly exaggerated. I, for one, predict
there is a bounty of fine sounds yet to be experienced which should keep us
ALL smiling and jumping far, far into the dreaded Y2K. Everyone now reading
this should do their utmost to make sure I’m right, OK? OK!
Send all love letters/hate mail to: Gary Pig Gold
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