Customer Reviews

20 Greats From Golden Decade of Power Pop

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just to get 20/20's "Yellow Pills" and The Pop's "You Oughta Know" on the same collection is mind blowing, but to also get The Shoes' "Too Late", The Beat's "Rock and Roll Girl", Flaming Groovies' Shake Some Action" and Phil Seymour's "Precious to Me" should send any power pop fan's head spinning into the stratosphere! Toss in the best of Raspberries, Cheap Trick, Dwight Twilley, Big Star (although they could have picked a better song from this band) and Todd Rundgren and you have a darned-near perfect power pop collection. Giving this one a negative review simply illuminates how little one knows of the genre and it's very best, sorry to say. Only The Records and perhaps Nick Lowe could have strengthened this already glorious gem of a collection.

I've owned this compilation since it was released and have enjoyed listening to it every time. I can't believe anyone who enjoys this type of music would be such a sour puss and give it a negative review. I had all ready owned 6 of the tracks on one form or another so all these together was impossible for me not to buy. But really what I was looking for was songs of their caliber(Shake Some Action one of my long time favorites) from bands I'm not familiar with.

Any kind of "genre" collection is bound to disappoint, as this one does. But on the plus side, the single version of Big Star's "In the Street" is worth the price of this CD alone, it being a looser take than the LP version. It's great to have both Phil Seymour's and The Dwight Twilley Band's (featuring Phil Seymour) hits on the same CD. "It's Too Late" by The Searchers is an inspired choice, but many of the songs here lack enough appeal to want to hear them more than once. And then there's "What I Like About You" by The Romantics, which is overly familiar from way too many plays through the '80s to the present. For a power pop collection to really be comprehensive,
there should be other key artists represented, such as Stories ("Take Cover" or "Top of The City"), Canadian rocker Pagliaro ("Some Sing, Some Dance" or "Lovin' You Ain't Easy") and Crabby Appleton ("Go Back"). British popsters The Hollies ("Won't We Feel Good" or "Out on the Road"), The Marmalade ("Radancer"), and its spinoff Blue ("Little Jody") made some great recordings that easily fit into the "power pop" category as well. This collection seems a bit too Americanized whereas it should be more global. But 50% of this CD is essential stuff.

Re-records/Poor live versions included here. Like Badfinger's 'Blue Baby', it's a live recording but sounds like it recorded 20 years after it was a hit. The vocalist sounds older and very rough. Listen to any original recording of this and the diff is like day and night.

Groups like Scruffs, Shoes, Spongetones, Pezband, Paley Brother are such minor acts and had such little chart action, it's painful to have had to pay money for this music CD...