20 Greats from the Golden Decade of Power Pop

Various Artists (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 19, 2005)
• Original Release Date: July 19, 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Varese Fontana
• ASIN: B000A0GP4U
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,518 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Go All the Way - Raspberries

2. In The Street (single version)- Big Star

3. What I Like About You - The Romantics

4. Couldn’t I Just Tell You - Todd Rundgren

5. Shake Some Action - Flamin’ Groovies

6. Come Out And Play - The Paley Brothers

7. Better Take It Easy (single version)- The SpongeTones

8. Surrender - Cheap Trick

9. You Oughta Know - The Pop

10. Yellow Pills - 20/20

11. Stop! Wait A Minute - Pezband

12. She Say Yea - The Scruffs

13. Precious To Me - Phil Seymour

14. Rock and Roll Girl - The Beat

15. It’s Too Late (UK single version)- The Searchers

16. I’m On Fire- Dwight Twilley Band

17. Good Girls Don’t -(single version)The Knack<

18. Too Late - Shoes

19. Let Go - Dirty Looks

20. Baby Blue - Badfinger (Live recording from the Agora Ballroom,

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Power Pop is a cross between the crunching hard rock of The Who and the sweet melodicism of The Beatles and The Beach Boys, with the ringing guitars of The Byrds thrown in for good measure. Power Pop bands filled a void left by The Beatles when they broke up in 1970. Throughout the early ’70s, several bands, most notably Badfinger, Raspberries and Big Star, established the sound of Power Pop, with a whole array of like-minded bands emerging in the later part of the decade. Groups like Cheap Trick, The Knack, The Romantics, Dwight Twilley, Raspberries, and Badfinger had the biggest hits, but The Flamin’ Groovies, Shoes, and 20/20 among others became Power Pop favorites.

This is the first comprehensive single disc overview of Power Pop ever assembled. It includes just about every major band of the genre and is filled with non-stop Power Pop classics.
Featured here are several tracks previously unavailable on CD, including the single version of The Knack’s Top 10 hit "Good Girls Don’t," the UK single version of the great 1979 Searchers track "It’s Too Late," and "You Oughta Know" by The Pop.
Also included is the rare single version of Big Star’s "In the Street," used as the raucous theme of That ’70s Show as performed by Cheap Trick.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We are so lucky to have this!!!, August 14, 2009

By	John D. Pride (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

11 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Incomplete, narrowly-focused collection of '70s power pop, July 20, 2005

By	Fredric A. Cooper "Hollies fan" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How Bad It Gets..., March 24, 2009

By	Stephen Cramer "stevecramer2" (Salem, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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...