Name: Don
Email: DPrice8@mindspring.com
Location: Tempe, AZ. USA
 
1. On Off Broadway
2. The Boyfriend Danny Wilde
3. Next Position Please Cheap Trick
4. Wheelie Refreshments
5. Out of Range Ani DiFranco
6. Neopolitan The Odds

Comments:

Off Broadway (USA) made one of the greatest skinny-tie power pop cds of all-time with On, in 1979. This Chicago -area band had a minor hit with Stay In Time, but the whole album is brilliant, with catchy hooks and clever lyrics. A must! I'm told that lead singer, Cliff Johnson, was a founding member of Pezband.

Before finding success in The Rembrandts, Danny Wilde was in the terrific band Great Buildings and he also released two "solo" albums. The Boyfriend, my favorite, is a gem, and features the beautiful harmonies that Danny and Phil Solem perfected with the Rembrandts. This album is a bit edgier, but is unmistakably power pop. If you can find it grab it! Martin Briley lends a hand on the song Body to Body.

Obscure? Maybe not; but this Cheap Trick album is certainly their least known and most under appreciated. Produced and engineered by power pop god Todd Rundgren, this album is a strange mix of musical styles (some succeed, some don't), and spent a considerable amount of time on my turntable. Rundgren likes to play with synthesizers and effects, and you'll find plenty of them here, along with some really great songs. It may not be perfect, but it's Cheap Trick, and how bad can that be?!

This CD should come with a warning: "you will not be able to get these songs out of your head!" The Refreshments released this CD in their hometown of Tempe, AZ (where I live) and it caught the ears of some AOR guy from a major label. The result was a professional re-recording of Wheelie to produce Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy, the Polygram release (listed by LSU0923 in his obscure classics). I prefer this earlier version only because of sentimental reasons. Fun stuff!

Ani DiFranco is not power pop; Ani DiFranco is simply wonderful. I'm including this CD because it was my introduction to Ani's music, and I think it's one of her most accessible. This powerful singer/songwriter started her own record label so she could release her music just as she wanted it. Thank God for that. If you don't own any of Ani's cds RUN, don't walk, and get a copy of Out of Range. Her music cannot be categorized into one style, but it's just plain good!

The Odds, an incredibly catchy band from Canada, put out a few exciting
slabs of powerpop, then disappeared. "Neopolitan" features a song about
a guy losing his virginity to an older woman the night Elvis Presley died
("Wendy Under the Stars"), and the very pretty song "Trees."

Intravenus De Milo Spinal Tap
(1974)

This album is a departure from 1972's Blood to Let, in that the band took a more pop approach, attempting to incorporate harmonies in their music for the first time. While not as literary as the seminal Shark Sandwich, Tap's songwriting had matured dramatically from the banal 1969 release Silent But Deadly. Tufnel's guitar work is as puzzling as ever, and whatever the rhythm section is lacking (new drummer) is compensated by St. Hubbins' extra-mediocre singing. Play this one at 11 (of course)!