Can you make some music recommendations?

[Dunnyman]

OK, I'm a huge fan of what is generally called "Powerpop". At the top of any fan's list is the Beatles, but of course goes from the Byrds, the Kinks, Big Star and all the way to OK-Go and Fountains of Wayne. I don't have Sirius yet, and my concert going of late has been curtailed due to work, so I'm probably missing out on some good new music or heck, some good recent music, and if you can recommend some stuff that falls in the powerpop category, I'd be most happy!
Really, the genre is simple, hooks, 3 & 4 part harmonies, (preferably) 12 string guitars and you usually can't go too far wrong with a tambourine. A few ballad type things are cool, but mostly high energy stuff and even a slightly punky edge is all great.
Bands I already like:
Beatles
Kinks
Byrds
Zombies
Hollies
Badfinger
Big Star
T-rex
Jonathan Richman
The Knack
Squeeze
Smithereens
REM
Matthew Sweet
Tom Petty
Teenage Fanclub
Velvet Crush
Weezer
The Posies
Del Amitri
Fountains of Wayne
OK-Go
Bowling For Soup

so if you have some rec's along those lines, current or not, help me expand my music library!!!

[TemporalWisdom]

New Kids on the Block
Miley Cyrus

[Stubblecat]

Seriously, if you like Power Pop, I'd heartily recommend Sloan. They're like Canada's Beatles. All 4 members write and sing equal songs on (almost) every album, and they often swap instruments as well. They put out a hits comp a few years ago called 'A Sides Win' which is a great introduction to the band. There are plenty of audio clips online for sampling.

Other contenders could be:

Cheap Trick (1977-1979 plus their self-titled album from 1997)
That Dog (sadly overlooked Geffen band from the 90s. Their '97 album 'Retreat From The Sun' is AWESOME)
Michael Penn (what is it with the year 1997? 'Resigned' is the way to go...)
Dodgy (a bit Brit-pop, but instrumentation sounds more like The Who)
The Apples In Stereo (low-fi super-sweet power pop)

[HGervais]

Guided By Voices and by extension, the solo work of Robert Pollard. Really.

[Dunnyman]

Whoops, missed Cheap Trick on my list..been a huge fan since I saw them open for Ted Nugent in 78!
Micheal Penn rocks, and Sloan? Good god. I checked out a couple of audio clips online, and immediately ordered their last two records. The four songwriter setup works great, it seems one of them's the rocker, one does the quirkier pop, another handles the big harmony stuff and the other's the jangle specialist. Very impressive. Have to dig up some Dodgy, another favorite of mine from the 90's, the Candyskins worked with them a lot.

[zircona1]

Have you heard of Material Issue?

They were a band out of the Chicago area in the late 80's-early 90's who were doing the power pop thing long before Weezer or OK Go. They made three records (I think) and then the lead singer killed himself sometime in the later 90's. Anyway, judging from your list of music you like, these guys should be right up your alley. I only have one of their albums, Freak City Soundtrack, and I had to get it off eBay b/c it's out of print. iTunes has a couple of their albums (including a 20th Century Masters disc). I recommend downloading "Goin' Through Your Purse" and "Kim the Waitress".

[Steve T Power]

Whoops, missed Cheap Trick on my list..been a huge fan since I saw them open for Ted Nugent in 78!
Micheal Penn rocks, and Sloan? Good god. I checked out a couple of audio clips online, and immediately ordered their last two records. The four songwriter setup works great, it seems one of them's the rocker, one does the quirkier pop, another handles the big harmony stuff and the other's the jangle specialist. Very impressive. Have to dig up some Dodgy, another favorite of mine from the 90's, the Candyskins worked with them a lot.

Met a few of the guys from Sloan on a few occasions, they're an awesome bunch. They have a GREAT story about Burton Cummings too...

I highly recommend Action Pact and Navy Blues is probably their most iconic album.

Meanwhile - check out The Music - Bizarre hybrid of Brit techno, rock, and pop - Here's "Freedom Fighters" from their second album - Welcome to the North - which is a little more rock-ish then their other two. Here's Strength in Numbers off of their third album of the same name.

[Stubblecat]

Whoops, missed Cheap Trick on my list..been a huge fan since I saw them open for Ted Nugent in 78!
Micheal Penn rocks, and Sloan? Good god. I checked out a couple of audio clips online, and immediately ordered their last two records. The four songwriter setup works great, it seems one of them's the rocker, one does the quirkier pop, another handles the big harmony stuff and the other's the jangle specialist. Very impressive. Have to dig up some Dodgy, another favorite of mine from the 90's, the Candyskins worked with them a lot.

I used to live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was the original home of Sloan. I dated their label rep for MCA for a short time.

Sloan's 2nd full-length album, Twice Removed is recognized as one of the very best Canadian rock albums of all time.to wit, from their Wiki:

Sloan's second album "Twice Removed" was named by Spin Magazine as one of the "Best Albums You Didn't Hear". A 1996 reader poll by Canadian music magazine Chart ranked it as the best Canadian album of all time, only two years after its release. The same poll in 2000 ranked the album third, behind Joni Mitchell's Blue and Neil Young's Harvest. However, in the 2005 poll once again ranked the album first, dispelling doubts that the 1996 vote was premature and overzealous.

In my humble opinion, if you want to buy any Sloan albums, go with these titles first (and in this order):

Twice Removed (1994)
One Chord To Another (1996)
Never Hear The End Of It (2007)
Navy Blues (1998)
Between The Bridges (1999)

I love all of their albums, but those are (IMHO) their top 5.
There's also a torrent out there which collects their extensive B-sides. It's 3 discs. And I heard a rumour that the original bootlegger of that collection is a very handsome fellow indeed. And a hit with the ladies. And... well, quite frankly loved by all.

And he's almost finished the next installment which covers recent B-sides as well as collaborations, radio and TV appearances.

But that's just a rumour...

[Paul Kile]

OK, Dunny - we may disagree on politics, but we definitely agree on music! I have had good luck searching on CDBaby (http://www.cdbaby.com). That site has a very detailed genre list, so you can drill down to such categories as Power Pop, and more specifically Jangle Pop. That search unearthed a treasure trove of independent artists that still know how a Rickenbacker 12-string should be played (Ya DON'T turn it into a shredder!!!). I am an old codger that still thinks MP3s sound like the proverbial snot-filled harmonica, so if I find someone I like I will rather buy the CD than download the song. CDBaby lets you listen to the tracks, sometimes with whole songs or longer cuts than the 20-second snippets Amazon doles out.
Here are some artists to check out:
Artist - Album
Crumb - Evenings and Weekends
Shake Some Action - (album by same name)
Richard Snow - Tuesday Music
Seven O'Clock Junkies - Here Comes Everything
The Invisible Mind Circus - Look Inside
Horst Peter Schmidt - Jingle Jangle Journey

Also, check out Les Fradkin, he is a true Rickenbacker fanatic (as witnessed on his album "Jangleholic"). He has done some decent covers of Beatles and Byrds, as well as gems like We Five's "You Were On My Mind". His voice could be better, but his heart is in the right place.

And if you can find it, Andrew Gold put out a tribute album called "The Fraternal Order Of The All", which pays homage to bands in the psychedelic era. He has tracks that sound very Beatles and Beach Boys - like, but the ultimate is a track entitled "Space and Time". The first time I heard it, I swore it must have been done by McGuinn and Crosby circa 1966. It's so well done that I buried the track on a Byrds compilation CD I put together, right between "She Don't Care About Time" and "Lady Friend". It fits right in! (BTW, this one is hard to find. If you don't have any luck, I ended up with 2 copies of this CD. Let me know and I can ship one off to you)

I could go on, but my brain is getting tired! Think I'll go veg out and listen to some tunes....

[erich]

Ab-so-lutely concur with Stubblecat's Sloan recommendation! I got One Chord to Another back in 1999-2000 'cause I saw it on someone's list of top '90s albums and never looked back. There are a couple of missteps on the later albums, but Never Hear the End Of It is an epic double album, and their latest, Parallel Play, is pure genius.

Also psyched to see The Kinks and Fountains of Wayne in this thread. Both great bands, but I've always thought The Kinks were way underrated. The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society is one of my all-time favorite albums.

Don't know if they count as "power pop" but They Might Be Giants have been on heavy rotation for me since I first heard them back in seventh grade. Probably my favorite band as far as sheer creativity, and man are they prolific.

[Gabriel Girard]

The Smiths - either Meat is Murder which is their most ''rockin'' album or Louder Than Bombs which shows their full palette.

If you dig Michael Penn you should ceck out Aimee Mann - one of the best singer/songwriters out -there.

I'm not really sure if they fit but check out Pulp's Different Class - awesome pop album.

[HGervais]

If you dig Michael Penn you should ceck out Aimee Mann - one of the best singer/songwriters out -there.

Totally seconded.

[Steve T Power]

If you dig Michael Penn you should ceck out Aimee Mann - one of the best singer/songwriters out -there.

Totally seconded.

Totally third-ed.

[Dunnyman]

Thank you all for the rec's! I ordered Never Hear the End Of It & Parallel Play from Amazon, and whilst searching the used bins here in Seattle I found Navy Blues. Why hasn't the USA caught on to how good this stuff is? They're right up there writing-wise with Fountains of Wayne, and damned prolific. There wasn't much info on any upcoming tours, but do they generally hit most of Canada on tour, like say, Vancouver? The used bins also provided a copy of Material Issue's International Pop Overthrow, which is pretty darn good, I'd heard of them through the Yellow Pills CD collections and liked a lot of their stuff, and their recording (with Liz Phair) of the Banana Splits theme is one of the highlights of the Saturday Morning Cartoons album. I couldn't find anything by The Music, but they sounds like a cross between some of Sammy Hagar's better stuff (their guitar work), a bit of The Cult and some Brit-techno stuff. I'll track some down tomorrow! OK, Paul, I thought I was the ONLY one who even remembered Andrew Gold, let alone listened to him! He had a couple of tracks on the Yellow Pills stuff with the mention to "check him out, he's much more than "Lonely Boy" His stuff ain't easy to find, but it's all excellent! I'll dig into the other rec's tomorrow and uh, Aimee Mann? OH hell yeah....! She'll always be one of the best in the business, and she gets bonus points for uttering what may have been the funniest line ever in Buffy. "I hate playing vampire towns!"


Of course, the greatest of all powerpop bands was The Victoria Line out of San Jose, CA, but that might be because I was in it, and the main writer...

[Stubblecat]

[quote="Dunnyman"]Thank you all for the rec's! I ordered Never Hear the End Of It & Parallel Play from Amazon, and whilst searching the used bins here in Seattle I found Navy Blues. Why hasn't the USA caught on to how good this stuff is? They're right up there writing-wise with Fountains of Wayne, and damned prolific. There wasn't much info on any upcoming tours, but do they generally hit most of Canada on tour, like say, Vancouver? [quote]

Sloan's a very reliable touring band. They're on a break right now, but tour dates often come up totally randomly at their website, http://www.sloanmusic.com . Not only do they tour all throughout Canada, but the U.S. as well as Europe. The Rolling Stones loves them, and took them through Europe last year.

Probably the main reason why they're not more popular is the fact that they're basically an indie band now.
They were signed in the big post-Nirvana alternative rush, when Halifax had a hot music scene. They released their first album on Geffen Records, and it was a moderate critical success. It obviously did well in Canada, but not much action Stateside.
After a contentious battle with Geffen over the sound and song selection of their second album, Twice Removed, Sloan got out of their contract and signed a distribution deal with MCA, releasing albums on their own boutique label, Murderrecords.
After that deal was up, they signed a distribution deal with the dreaded BMG label. BMG did not serve them well, and videos no longer got made and singles no longer got promoted.

Now, they release albums themselves in Canada, and through KOCH in the U.S. Everything is self-financed, so there's not much cash for promotion. They make most of their money through touring and licensing some of their songs for beer commercials and the electronics store Future Shop.

Ergo: No promotion, no notice in the U.S.

[tucco]

The Sweet
Mott the Hoople
Nick Gilder (hot child in the city)
The Raspberries

Those classic acts fall under power-pop.

[futilitarian]

You mentioned Teenage Fanclub... you should check out:

Army Navy

Bad name but good pop from last year. This is from the review on eMusic, "From the first driving drum beat straight through to the last song's final notes, the debut from California's Army Navy shines. Resembling an updated Teenage Fanclub or a hyperactive Death Cab for Cutie, the group's catchy melodies inspire singing along before the words can even be learned. The album packs a mighty punch — every song's a perfect single."

[chris_mcclinch]

Give Franz Ferdinand a try.

[Steve T Power]

Give Franz Ferdinand a try.

Their first two albums were great, i just noticed they have a new one out. Have to track it down.

[barnaclelapse]

The Smiths - either Meat is Murder which is their most ''rockin'' album or Louder Than Bombs which shows their full palette.

If you dig Michael Penn you should ceck out Aimee Mann - one of the best singer/songwriters out -there.

I'm not really sure if they fit but check out Pulp's Different Class - awesome pop album.

This may not be in the same group, but thinking along the lines of The Smiths you might like a band called The Psychedelic Furs.

[Dunnyman]

If anyone else is a powerpop fiend, I recommend ya check out Tinted Windows, a supergroup consisting of Adam Schlesinger (FoW), James Iha (Smashing Punpkins), Taylor Hanson (Hanson) and the one and only Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick!
http://www.rollingstone.com/blogs/smoki ... indows.php
I see this as just being way cool, and a good shot in the arm for powerpop!!!

[Stubblecat]

Methinks I will check 'em out. That lineup sells it right away, even with the dude from Hanson.

[HGervais]

So I'm curious....Brain Eno's solo work...where do I start?

[Stubblecat]

That's a tough one... I can't really get into his work, although I do enjoy some of his production.

Read this, and it will guide you into how to approach Brian Eno: http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/bria ... aneno.html