Donnerstag, 7. August 2014

What Happened To Power Pop # 1


Last week Adam over at Bagging Area posted a song by The Posies. It is a great song and it's typed by journalism as power pop. There is no legal definition about what is power pop. For me the definition is something like this: It distinguishes itself by short '3 1/2 minutes of pop songs', easy arrangements, strong melodies and striking riffs. If I look back to songs that are close to power pop there are so many songs that come up to me. Therefore it might be a good idea to start a little series of songs that I would call power pop-like or that I would think that they are close to this genre (even if they are famous a lot of years ago). So look forward to what will appear in this series.

As I finished my little series about pub rock a few weeks ago and as I decided to let it follow by a journey through power pop I asked myself which song I should feature to the start of this new series. I came to the decision that I should start with a band that had it's roots in pub rock and then landed in the genre of power pop. The Kursaal Flyers were a band that had a lot of great songs with marvelous melodies backed up with great harmonies. So it is no chance that the leading members Will Birch and John Wicks formed another band after The Kursaals fall apart. The Records released their first record in Shades in Bed in 1979 and showed their quality in songwriting. They made with this record a pure pop masterpiece and the songs Starry Eyes and Teenarama come very close to the perfect pop song (Allmusic described it as a the main example of British power pop of the 70s). I love this record since I bought it on vinyl added with a 12´-inch with cover versions as a bonus. What more do you need sometimes than a song composed and arranged that is nearly perfect. If you listen to Starry Eyes you think this song is well knows to you. Will Birch itself calls him on the website of  The Records an „audaciously circumscribed‚ Do  ,Anything You Wanna Do‘ from Eddie & the Hot Rods“. It's certainty no disgrace to loans from another splendidly song to make it even better. By the way it was a fantastic cover art. A couple lying in black silk bedclothes - she's sleeping in he's wearing sun glasses and smoking a cigarette (after??).

The Records - Starry Eyes




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