Drawn from previous posts, this is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
Power-pop is what we play - what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop the Beach Boys played in the days of "Fun Fun Fun" which I preferred
--Pete Townshend, 1967
Power pop. Power Pop 101, in fact.
You can't talk about power pop without talking about the early Who, "I Can't Explain" through The Who Sell Out. It's not just because Pete Townshend coined the phrase; it's because he and his band embodied it. Everything the Who did before Tommy is at least peripheral to power pop, and much of it is the power pop Gospel.
I was very much a latecomer to appreciating the Who. I remember hearing "Pinball Wizard" and "See Me Feel Me" on AM Top 40 radio, but I didn't really develop any serious interest in the Who until my senior year in high school. A spring '77 presentation of '60s rock 'n' roll videos at Syracuse University hooked me on "I Can't Explain," prompting me to scurry back to my sister's copy of the essential Who compilation Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy. Appreciation achieved! A year later, Bomp! magazine taught me that the Who invented power pop. Appreciation intensified.
(And yeah, I still say the Beatles invented power pop. Ain't no losers in this debate.)
Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy introduced me to "The Kids Are Alright," one of power pop's early defining tracks. In the '90s, when I wrote a history of power pop for Goldmine, I called the article "The Kids Are Alright." I regarded the song as a sort of power pop litmus test: If you can't imagine a group pulling off a credible cover of "The Kids Are Alright," it ain't a power pop band.
"The Kids Are Alright" remains one of power pop's all-time defining tracks, a powder keg of combustible bubblegum, teen frustration, guitar, harmonies, kerosene, and a match. And Keith Moon. I don't know what Moon's drum kit did to deserve such a beating, but I'm pretty sure the poundin' percussive punishment won't dissuade his drums from committing future sins. Recidivist drums. Naughty drums! Somebody's gonna get their drum head kicked in tonight.
I don't mind.
In college, I briefly preferred a cover version by the UK band the Pleasers to the Who's nonpareil original. Part of this was to rib my roommate's girlfriend (who was a BIG Who fan), but I really did have that preference at the time. Decades later, our weekly rockin' pop radio shindig This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio was originally supposed to be called The Kids Are Alright--It's Sunday night, and THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT!--with the Pleasers singin' the titular tune. We switched to the Ramones-approved This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio while on the way to the studio for our debut show in 1998.
We're not kids, not now and not then. But it's alright.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is due out soon; meanwhile, you can get an autographed copy of my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) here, and you can still get my previous previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.
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