Tags
Billy Joel, Duran Duran, Get Ready, Lost Sirens, Music Complete, New Order, Paper Gods, River of Dreams, Storm Front, Waiting for the Siren's Call
Time passes and it’s amazing the musical acts you realize you haven’t thought about in a long time. Could even be bands you once loved but now regularly pass over in the record collection. Then something brings them back to mind and you discover they have carried on, despite your indifference. Of course, sometimes such rediscoveries can be painful. But in the case of these three once mega-successful acts, the missing years have some seen them produce great stuff worthy of a bit of musical reconnaissance.
If ever there was a band that seemed likely to gain the ‘fad artist’ label, it was Duran Duran. Flashy outfits, winning hairstyles, and plenty of jump-cut videos were oh-so-early 1980s. When they abandoned their hook-driven material for more bass-heavy R&B on 1986’s Notorious the exit sign over their career seemed to be flashing brightly. But despite the odds they persevered, turning out ten more albums over the years, all with at least a few pretty solid, hook-driven tunes, songs like “I Don’t Want Your Love,” “Ordinary World,” and “Come Undone.” The new millennium has seen the release of strong albums like Astronaut (2004) and All You Need is Now (2010). But their most recent Paper Cuts (2015) is arguably their best since 1983’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Largely written and and produced by recent wunderkind Mr. Hudson, the record still has the remarkably familiar stamp of Duran Duran while breaking new ground musically. Standout tracks include title cut “Paper Cuts” and “Sunset Garage.” If you haven’t checked out the band in a while, it’s time to return to the fold.
Paper GodsSunset Garage
I still remember finding my first used copy of New Order’s “Blue Monday.” I wasn’t really into techno or dance but there was just something so cool about the hypnotic driving bass and keyboard riffs. I dutifully purchased Low Life and Brotherhood when they came out. But I do remember being a bit disappointed with Technique, which seemed a bit too aptly named for comfort. New Musical Express complained that the band should just break up rather than repeat themselves (but then MNE was pretty infamous for hating bands as soon as more than a handful of people started liking them). So, in the nineties me and New Order drifted apart. Imagine my pleasant surprise to catch up on their post-Technique catalogue only to discover some of their best recordings! 1993’s Republic was OK, but 2001’s Get Ready is amazing, upping the traditional indie rock sound without losing the club vibe. And the songs are pretty strong: “Crystal,” “60 Miles an Hour,” and “Run Wild.” Four years later the band did it again with the stellar Waiting for the Siren’s Call, featuring killer tracks like “Krafty” and “Turn.” Songs left off the latter album were released as Lost Sirens in 2013 and they weren’t just leftovers: check out strong tracks like “I’ll Stay with You” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.” 2015’s Music Complete (minus longtime bass player Peter Hook) couldn’t help but disappoint by comparison, though “Superheated” is pretty cool.
CrystalTurnI’ll Stay With YouSuperheated
The first record I ever bought was Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. It was 1978 and one of the only non-country albums stocked in the dry goods store in Cassiar, the asbestos mining town in northern BC where we lived briefly when I was 13. On reflection, I don’t like it nearly as much as The Stranger (with its drop dead hit single, “Only the Good Die Young”), or Glass Houses, which really was Joel’s songwriting peak (from a poprock perspective). Sometimes you have to make do. But after The Nylon Curtain and An Innocent Man I kinda lost interest in what Joel was doing. I mean, I really couldn’t figure out how the dirge-like “We Didn’t Start the Fire” could make it from the out-take pile let alone top the charts. Different strokes. And then Joel just stopped making albums altogether after 1993, surely a bizarre development in our music-as-commodity world. I would have said ‘who cares’ until I ran across two beautiful late Joel songs recently, one each from his last two albums. “And So It Goes” from 1989’s Storm Front has a slightly Randy Newman-esque feel to the arrangement, when it’s not just exquisite Joel balladry. But minus the flash – this performance is remarkably restrained and vulnerable. “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” is the best thing on 1993’s River of Dreams, a beautiful love song for his daughter.
And So It GoesLullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
Catching up with former superstars is so much easier in the internet age. Check out Duran Duran, New Order and Billy Joel in all the usual places.
I get by with a little help from my friends. Because I can’t possibly keep up with all the great new music coming out every day, other blogs are a reliable source of new material. And I’m proud to say that I think my blogroll is a finely curated list of sites that really deliver on content. In fact, they’re so good I can’t visit them too much or I’ll just want to write about all the things they’ve already posted! But sometimes cruising through the blogs reminds me of hitting the record shops when I was younger. Vancouver in the early 1980s had a plethora of new and used record stores: Kelly’s, A&A Records, Track Records, Neptune Records, and, of course, the main new records shop, A&B Sound. A&B focused mostly on selling stereo components (I bought my first tape deck there on layaway!) but used albums as a loss leader to get people into the store. Their signature ‘featured bargain’ bins (where they stacked records flat on top of each other) crowded the front of the store and usually sold for $4:99 when the going price for an album was typically anywhere from $6:99 to $10:99. I would buy records I had no clue about, just because they looked cool and were cheap. Such bargains included New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies, Men at Work’s Business as Usual, and OMD’s Dazzle Ships. Well, the record stores, like the book stores of my youth, are largely gone. But the excitement of finding new music lingers on, now re-platformed to the blogosphere!
Absolute Powerpop may not generate the volume of blog posts he once did, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention. His best of lists for 2017 were colossal: a top 100 singles, top 20 EPs, top 10 Americana and top 100 albums list. I snagged eight new artists that really caught my ear. But I want to draw your attention to 
Powerpopaholic is the godfather of power pop blogs. Given the range and depth of his coverage and sheer volume of posts, if a band or song is somewhere on the power pop spectrum it will eventually appear here. I snagged five new bands from his Top 30 list this year but have chosen to showcase 
I only picked one new artist from I Don’t Hear a Single’s many ‘best of’ lists but that’s because I’ve been nicking great stuff from him all year! Berwanger, Mothboxer, Daisy House and many, many more. IDHAS is an early finder – bands show up here that inevitably show up everywhere else, but a few months later. And he has a particularly good handle on the British and European scene. Having said that, my find from IDHAS is 
Powerpopulist seems like a machine that scours the internet for freely offered up tunes from great indie bands you’ve yet to hear of. I am constantly blown away by his industry – so many bands! So many tunes! His tastes typically run a bit harder than mine but he does love his jangle. His ‘best of’ list ran to 109 songs, from which I scored five acts that are real keepers. 
What I love about this single is its simplicity. It starts with a classic rock and roll motif, heard a gazillion times, nicely light on delivery with what sounds like an acoustic guitar. But then it slowly builds out with a half dozen subtle embellishments here and there. Like the beachy background vocals or Chuck Berry lead line breakout at the 1:53 mark. The main vocal itself is nicely subdued, delivered like a secret shared in bed. The song was featured in the 2007 movie Wedding Daze and Macdonald’s 2011 release The Art of Hanging Out and represents a departure from this artist’s now main body of work. Macdonald is largely known as the sometime drummer for Teenage Fanclub but more recently has produced an impressive body of quasi-classical and instrumental work, some of it for soundtracks. Check out his beautiful 2015 release Music for String Quartet, Piano and Celeste, which reminds me a lot of some of the best Wyndham Hill releases many years back. But I do wish he would turn his formidable talents back to such simple poprock fare as this great tune.
We need to start 2018 off on the right foot. Why not chase the blues away with ukulele-fueled songs of love, solidarity, and kittens? Yes, kittens. And snowflakes. And a bit of magic. It may look and sound like a hokey project at first glance but Jeremy Messersmith’s amazing 2017 release, 11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs for Ukulele: A Micro Folk Record for the Twenty First Century, delivers the goods. 10 songs performed in just under 16 minutes with an intense but laid back delivery that oozes authenticity. Some are sweetly charming (like “Everybody Gets a Kitten”) while others are just touchingly sweet (like “Everything is Magical” or “I’m a Snowflake Baby”). In anyone else’s hands these songs would quickly turn to mush but Messersmith manages to wring out every last drop of authentic feeling. It helps that the songwriting is so strong, careening from simple three chord wonders (“Everything is Magical”) to more saucy and complicated pre-WWII era jazz structures (“Love Sweet Love”). There isn’t a bum track on this all too brief album, which fittingly ends with the beautiful, delightful, and inspiring “We Can Make Our Dreams Come True.” Buy it. Play it. Again. I feel better already!
Forgive your intrepid musical reporter if some of the headlines aren’t exactly ‘breaking’ time-wise. Our foreign bureau is understaffed. And we have to make our own coffee. But I’m pretty confident that some of these artists will be breaking news to someone …
Halifax combo Monomyth sound like a nice 1960s beat group whose record has been messed with by some discordant indie interlopers. The effect is delightfully jarring, often surprising, and essentially disarming. Things start out sounding familiar but end up somewhere different. “Falling in Love” sounds like a hit single put into low gear, not quite taking off conventionally but really doing its own thing. Or “High on Sunshine” has a chorus worthy of all those great 1960s country-rock classics, set in a mess of fun melodic distractions. Some tracks are cast in more familiar registers, like the band’s eerie reincarnation of The Replacement’s on “Re: lease Life (Places to Go)” or the catchy, jangly “Drinking in Bed in E.” I love the vocal harmonies on “Cool Blue Hello” with its occasional conjuring of a Bernard Sumner/New Order vocal at times. Other tracks seem to contain a tension between straight up guitar pop and a discordant indie sound, particularly “Go Somewhere” and “Palpitations.” “New Year’s Review” has a great punked up 1970s pop feel. This is one of those fun, ‘out there’ records: hooks aplenty but not quite delivered how you might expect them.
Hamilton’s The Foreign Films have a major triple album project – The Record Collector – they have been getting out over the course of a number of years. The records appear under a number of names, in a manner that is bit confusing. No matter. The material is fantastic. Check out the crisp pop rock elegance of “Broken Dreamers” or the swinging hookiness of “Land of the 1000 Goodbyes.” Reaching back in their catalogue I love the Bowie-esque “Lucky Streak” with its killer lead line or chugging rhythm guitar-centric “Yesterday’s Girl,” both from 2011’s Fire from Spark. Or note the snaky lead guitar hook that stiches together the melodic “Another World Behind the Sun” from 2007, chock full of Magical Mystery Tour motifs.
Technically The Red Button’s recent Now It’s All This is a compilation/re-release, combining the duo’s two previous albums but adding an EP’s worth of new material. These guys have their Beatles’ chops down but they’re also talented and original songwriters, so the obvious John/Paul influences are worked up into exciting new material. If you missed the original releases, this is a fantastic collection. If you’ve got them already, there’s still some great new tunes here, like the collection’s title track “Now It’s All This.” Personally, from the whole collection I love the Costello-ish “Hopes Up,” “I Could Get Used to You,” and the wonderful “She About to Cross My Mind Again.”Now It’s All ThisHopes Up
San Francisco’s Pseudonym have a dreamy pop sound, a pleasant melodic drone that seeps into your brain with indelible effect. They remind me a bit of a more lofi version of The Mighty Lemon Drops, accent on a more acoustic vibe. Exhibit A: album opener “I’m Fine,” a slow burn, ear worm song if ever there was one. Things pick up tempo-wise with a more insistent, surging feel to the hooky “All the Little Things.” Other highlights include the very catchy “Victimless Crime” and the more spare, acoustic numbers like “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and “We Had a Deal.” Altogether Pack of Lies is a solid collection.
I don’t think I’ve been this excited about a band since I overheard The Shins in some small town bookstore in 2005. This specific song is so hooky perfect it hurts. From the elegant arrangement of the instrumentation to the low key sweetness of the vocals, everything just comes together to create a hook that won’t quit. Just try to hit pause after hearing the line “I don’t know how local you are …” The magnetic pull of this tune is subtle but strong. It was pretty much hit play, hit repeat for me for a couple of days.
What were the biggest hits that weren’t in 2017? Who were the biggest should-be stars? In our alternate universe here at Poprock Record, these guys were all over the charts, the chat shows, the scandal sheets, as well as memed all over Facebook, Snapchatted by the kids, and Instragrammed into oblivion. Jesus, they were so popular you are well and truly sick of them by now. But sadly for our poprock heroes, the universe is not just ours to define. In the world beyond our little blog, they could all use another plug.
Daisy House dominated my playlist this year, both their current record and their back catalogue. They channel the 1960s but never let it wholly define them. They have two amazing singers and one fabulously talented songwriter. They deserve all the accolades the internet can hand out. If this were 1970 they’d probably be headlining The Flip Wilson Show tonight. The Rallies were an accidental discovery that turned into an obsession. Their whole album is great but “Don’t Give Up” makes my heart twinge every time. Aimee Mann and Fastball ably demonstrated this year that veterans can still turn out fantastic, career-defining albums. And I got to see both of them live! Los Straightjackets did Nick Lowe proud, producing a phenomenal tribute to his body of work. “Rollers Show” was my go-to summertime happy tune.
I won’t review every selection from the two-four, but I will say that I think the mix of poprock I feature on the blog is evident here. There’s fast and slow, country and rock, guitars and keyboards, etc. And then there’s always the hooks. Case in point: check out the 42 second mark on Greg Kihn’s “The Life I Got.” If you don’t feel the excitement he creates with some classic poprock guitar arpeggiation and the subtle vocal hook you’re kinda missing what we’re doing here. Here’s hoping 2018 is as hit single worthy as this past year has been!
I am going to sneak in an honourable mention for what I consider the compilation of year: 
Canadian Daniel Romano serves up a winning musical hand with the surprising release of not one but two new albums to kick off this new year. The records showcase two strong sides of his eclectic songwriting personality: country-folk and poprock.
Nerveless starts out strong with it’s title track, the spare and roomy arrangement recalling a classic 1970s sound. From there it’s pretty hard to choose highlights – there are just so many great songs here! “Anyone’s Arms” hits all the poprock marks with its great pumping piano and hooky acoustic guitar – very 1970s power pop. “Good Will” and the “Devil’s Handshake” exhibit Romano’s great talent to embed no end of catchy elements to sweeten the basic song hooks. “I’ve Never Tried to Understand” has a lovely grand and sweeping pop song structure. “Bored Enough to Love” starts out like it’s almost going to launch into “I Got You Babe” before turning into a creative pastiche of different styles.
By contrast, Human Touch is a more muted folk and country effort, the title perhaps a nod to some other guy’s paired album release from the early 1990s. The album kicks off with the very subtle built up on “Bring Me to the War.” “An Earthly Stretch of Colour” is a nice folky number with strong acoustic lead lines and slow burning hooks. “Don’t Fool Me” has that aching country ballad sound. But my favourite track is undoubtedly the understated title track, which sounds to me like a great lost 1970s country rock classic.
The wild popularity of the Netflix series Stranger Things told me something was up. This wasn’t some cleaned up riff on the 1980s like That Seventies Show was for the previous decade, but all the ugliness of the period in living colour. Big hair, badly fitting clothes, and that legacy of 1970s botched renos cast against a backdrop of deeply sonorous yet strangely ominous keyboards. Imagine Krafwerk playing in the background of Three’s Company. Then when Walk The Moon’s spot on reproduction of a 1980s pop dance single “Shut Up and Dance With Me” hit the top of the charts I knew it was ‘welcome back 1980s, all is forgiven …’
Bleachers really nailed the 1980s sound on their 2014 debut, Strange Desire. It was like Jack Antonoff went through all the great records from that decade and isolated the keyboard and drum sounds from various hits to act as the palate for his own songs. I couldn’t stop listening to “Rollercoaster” with its Springsteen-esque wistful opening that gives way to an insurgent and relentless poprock mini-masterpiece. I could just laud the whole album – it’s that good – but check out the John Waite “Missing You” meets Hall and Oates loping rhythm of “Wake Me” or the frosty ‘I’m so cool being this indifferent’ English vibe of “Like a River Runs.” 2017’s Gone Now complicates things with a host of guest producers but the 1980s resonance is still there, particularly when he’s channeling Prince on songs like “Hate That You Know Me” and “Let’s Get Married.” Personally, I really like the pastiche quirkiness of “I’m Ready to Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise,” which sounds like a Fun b-side.
A more serious engagement with the 1980s comes from Ireland’s The Strypes. The buzz around this group’s early material had Roger Daltrey, Paul Weller, and Jeff Beck lining up as fans. And why wouldn’t they? The band was doing British blues like the pros, but with an inspired spring in their step. Hey, that’s fine for people who like that sort of thing. But I love the Who, the Rolling Stones and the Jam when they leave the blues behind and develop their own distinctive, more melodic songwriting styles. So I was thrilled with the transformation of the band on their most recent release, 2017’s Spitting Image. Now the blues sinks into the background in favour of more 1980s poprock stylings of Rockpile and the Jam. Things rocket out of the gate with “Behind Closed Doors” and never look back. Just check out the masterful poppy roll out of “Grin and Bear It” or Jam-like intensity of “A Different Kind of Tension.” And then “Black Shades over Red Eyes” has the easy swing of Elvis Costello’s first album, with a bit of Springsteen thrown in. The album still shows its blues roots here and there, with a particularly bluesy sense of melody on “Oh Cruel World.” An acoustic EP of the record is also great, particularly the stripped down version of “Grin and Bear It.”
I grew up in a totally secular home where Christmas was largely understood as a kind of socialist event. A little something for everyone, and something thoughtful (rather than expensive) was the gift-giving philosophy. Holiday tunes rather than Christmas hymns were de rigueur. My mother had a stack of 45s that would come out every year– Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, Rolf Harris – you get the picture. So, for me, it can’t be Christmas without some merry melodies!
This year’s mix runs the gamut from power pop to new wave to mash ups to folky acoustic. Coventry’s own The Primitives kick things off with their trademark mix of hooky power pop on “You Trashed My Christmas” from the Elefant Records special holiday album. Love the use of the bells! Then to Sunderland, UK where The Futureheads keep the energy up on their “Christmas was Better in the 80s.” There is something about the vocal delivery of this band I love. This song sometimes exudes the sonic feel of their first album but also develops in different directions with kooky abandon, pushing the boundaries of traditional holiday fare. Then we tamp things down a bit with the pleasant melodies of Cleveland’s own Bears on their “I’m a Snowman.” While technically just a winter themed number, who can resist the fun organ sounds and sweet harmonies? Not I. Rounding out this first batch of tunes is the eclectic West Coast poprocker Spirit Kid with his new wavishy “Santa Claus is His Name.” This song is an interesting mix of old and new influences – in many ways, a very late 1970s take on 1950s motifs worthy of David Edmunds.
Ok, let’s shift gears here in round two. Ohio-based Over the Rhine seem to be channeling Jennifer Warnes in full Leonard Cohen mode on their winter themed “Snow Angels.” Lovely piano and an understated vocal give this a haunting and lasting quality. In the ‘something completely different’ file, check out Mojochronic’s unusual and very effective mash-up of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” with the Police’s “Roxanne,” interspersed with dialogue from the original stop-motion animated movie. Mike Viola’s Candy Butchers bring us back to familiar territory with their poprock ode to seasonal forgiveness on “Give Me a Second Chance for Christmas.” Just listen to these holiday-coated hooks! Viola is a master of the poprock form. The Franco-American duo Freedom Fry return to the holiday music scene with their great Holiday Soundtrack EP. Their reinvention of the traditional classic “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” as a hooky keyboard-based instrumental is pure ear worm brilliance, while their time shifting “Next Christmas” vibes a very Simon and Garfunkel melodic warmth, particularly in the chorus. Wrapping up this season’s musical presents is a brand new acoustic Christmas contribution from Pop Etc. “All I Want for Xmas (Just My Baby)” is a swinging pop gem, sure to become a regular addition to your seasonal playlist.
