Moss Poles - One Summer

1987 single from this London band who went on to release a debut album and then vanish. Though they were seen as sort of a peripherally C86 band, I actually think this comes very close to late '70s power-pop territory - it wouldn't seem at all out of place on one of those compilations with the likes of The Records, Bram Tchaikovsky etc. Great tune, anyway.

Let's Active - Every Word Means No

Here's an eighties US college radio classic, from one of Mitch Easter's rare forays out from behind the scenes in the recording studio. This is from their 1983 debut EP Afoot, which sounds incredibly dated now but is still a pretty nice little collection of the mildly jangly power-pop so popular at the time.

The Bongos - Splinters

Another track from the Bongos' 1985 album, The Beat Hotel. This album got mixed reviews but I remember this song being widely acclaimed as one of the stand-out tracks and I would certainly agree. It actually strikes me as being like something the Sound might have done if they were more on the power-pop and less on the post-punk end of things. Wonderful, in any case.

Buzz of Delight - In Summer

I wasn't a fan at all of Matthew Sweet's solo material but he was in a couple decent bands in the early '80s, including this one who dissolved after their 1984 Sound Castles EP. This is the standout track, a genuinely delightful piece of twee power-pop not that far removed from Sixteen Tambourines-era Three O'Clock.

The Riptides - 77 Sunset Strip

Following on from that Pointed Sticks post a little while ago here's some more classic but somewhat forgotten late '70s punk-pop, this time from Australia (Brisbane, to be precise). Robert Vickers of the Go-Betweens was in an early incarnation of this band, who I gather were significantly better known in their native country than outside of it.

This was their first single.

Pointed Sticks - Out of Luck

Vancouver power-pop. This is an absolute belter of a single, from 1979. It was re-recorded for the Sticks' lone album the following year but this is the version you want.

Seriously this one is a classic.

Squeeze - Another Nail in my Heart

Many many years ago someone in Melody Maker (I think) described this as "a beautiful, underrated song by the ugly, overrated Squeeze". I remember being really surprised by that because I'd never heard of a critic before that didn't like Squeeze. They always struck me as sort of the quintessential critic's band.

Me, I wouldn't listen to a whole album of theirs, but I do enjoy a lot of the singles. And yes, this is a particularly nice one.

From 1980.

The dB's - Moving In Your Sleep

I've said before that I don't really get the love for the dB's but I have to admit this one is really nice. It has kind of a Sister Lovers thing going on. You don't hear enough of that album from most Big Star-influenced bands.

From their debut, 1981's Stands for Decibels.

Sloan - Two Seater

The main thing I remember about the release of Sloan's 1992 debut album Smeared was how many times they were compared to the Knack. That was (usually) meant as a compliment, although I'm not sure their label, Geffen, saw it that way in the midst of the Nirvana era. Personally, I would have preferred the album a little rawer, but it's not bad at all. I bet they were great live in those days.

This is the album's highlight, though I don't think it was ever a single.

Let's Active - Lowdown

Mitch Easter will be best remembered for producing just about every American jangle-pop band in the '80s, but he did put out some of his own music too.

The appallingly-named Let's Active - they took it from an article about Japanese people's English grammatical errors - made a bit of a splash with their debut EP Afoot, which was all cuteness. They even made a video that had them all playing with puppies. I kid you not. They followed this up with the full-length Cypress in 1984 which showed their more serious side; unfortunately it turned out cute was more their forté. Still, not a bad record by any means.

The Records - Starry Eyes

Here's an absolutely classic piece of 1970s power pop. Really, it's one of the tunes that sets the benchmark for everything that pop music ought to be.
Just perfect.

Apart from the hair, of course.

The Connells - Over There

More 1980s North Carolina power pop. I was never a huge fan of this band, who I generally found kind of boring. This, however, is a genuinely lovely song, quiet and understated but epic in its own way. Nice trumpet, too.

It's from their 1987 album Boylan Heights, produced by Mitch Easter.

The dB's - Spy in the House of Love

North Carolina's dB's were critical darlings of the early 1980s US college-rock scene, but I never particularly warmed to them. Sure they were smart, and had all the right influences, but I always felt their songs were lacking that crucial something. I've tried listening to them again recently and I haven't really changed my mind. I guess this is one of those bands whose appeal is just always going to escape me.

But in the spirit of giving credit to a band who must have been doing something right to earn the rave reviews they used to get, here's one from their third album, Like This. It's not a bad one, in fairness.

Buzzcocks - Airwaves Dream

The last song on the second-last single the Buzzcocks ever released, this sounds like nothing else in their catalogue - it's much darker and more brooding, despite the ultra-fast pace. I think it's one of the best things they ever did.

You can always tell disillusion is setting in when artists start writing critical songs about the media and sure enough, they broke up within a year of releasing this.

The Dead Flags - Anymore

Here's another Irish band, this one from Sligo and in the punk-pop vein. I discovered them at the Hard Working Class Heroes festival a year or two ago. Actually, I hadn't planned on seeing them at all, since I wasn't impressed by the songs they submitted for the HWCH page, but it worked out that there was no one else that I wanted to see playing at the time they were on so I decided I may as well check them out for a few minutes. And I have to admit they won me over with their energy, the snappiness of their set and the all-around likability of lead singer Billy Fitzgerald. Still find some of their songs a bit dodgy, but there's a definite base to work from here.

This is from their recently-released debut album Gentlemen's Club.

The Reverbs - Trusted Woods

The Reverbs' seven-song Happy Forest is the earliest recording I'm aware of by Ric Menck, who would probably be best known to readers of this blog for his work with the Springfields or maybe Velvet Crush. It was fairly typical mid-'80s Big Star/Byrds-influenced jangly power pop, and wasn't very well received either by the critics or the public at large, but I think it was quite nice.

This song in particular ranks up there with anything Ric's done since. Maybe not quite hitting the heights of the Springfields at their best, but not a million miles below - and certainly well above the kind of bland Velvet Crush, in my opinion.

Teenage Fanclub - December

Kind of an underrated album track from Bandwagonesque, with the Fannies doing what they did best - simple, straightforward pop tunes. On a record chock-a-block with them, this particular one has always stood out for me.

Big Star - Kangaroo

With the sudden and shocking death of Alex Chilton yesterday, now is as good a time as any to rectify a glaring omission from this blog. Big Star were, of course, one of the most influential bands ever, at least on the type of music you're likely to find on this site - I'd read a lot about them before I ever heard them, just from the number of bands namechecking them in the music magazines I poured over obsessively as a teenager. I think I finally just went out and bought a Big Star album on the assumption that all those great bands who loved them couldn't be wrong. And they weren't.

All of their records were great but, like a lot of their fans, I'm particularly partial to the darker third album, Third/Sister Lovers. And this is my favourite track on it - in fact, one of my all-time favourite songs by anyone ever. (I know people always say things like that when someone dies, but take my word for it - whenever I've had to do a "favourite songs" list this has been right up near the top.) The reported history behind it is that the band were falling apart and hated their producer, so they took this simple little love song and threw all sorts of odd sound effects on it just to give each other headaches, with the result that it ended up being incredibly offbeat and haunting. But it's still a simple little love song at heart.

RIP Alex - you will be so, so missed.

Tommy Keene - Strange Alliance

Tommy Keene came out of Washington DC at a time when its music scene was almost totally dominated by go-go (an indigenous relative of hip-hop) and hardcore punk, so it's not surprising that his smart, catchy power pop went somewhat under-appreciated. It's not that he deserved to be huge or anything, but there was a stage in the early '80s when Big Star revivalism was everywhere and there's no reason he shouldn't have been able to benefit more from that bandwagon.

This is the title track from his 1981 debut.

The Scientists - That Girl

On the exceptionally rare occasion I see anything written about the Scientists, they're usually described as post-punk but their debut album (self-titled but always referred to as The Pink Album, for obvious reasons if you look down the page a bit) is mostly classic pop-punk or power-pop in the Buzzcocks/Rezillos kind of mode. Few people outside of Australia seem to remember them, which is a shame.

This is the most straightahead pop song on the debut. It's not entirely representative of the rest of the album, far less their later material. But isn't it cute?