Trying to separate out the various genres that have contributed to modern poprock is a bit hopeless. Take country, for instance. It’s right there in the rock and roll DNA of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and so many others. But country has a special relationship with poprock due to its buoyant approach to melody. Some of the greats of 1940s and 1950s country were hook masters who knew how to write a tune that would leave people singing in the shower. Merle Travis, the Louvin Brothers, Johnny Horton and, of course, the grandmaster tunesmith, Hank Williams Sr. The country rock of the late 1960s and early 1970s then was really just a return to rock and roll’s roots. And, of course, some country artists that rode the border of country pop and rock and roll never really went away in the 1960s – think the Everly Brothers or Buck Owens. Happily the tradition lives on with more recent acts mining the particular joy that is country poprock. It’s country time!
Australia must be a magical place. So many super creative people live there and they all seem to start a new band every other week. Anthony Bautovitch is the driving force behind The Forresters, just one of many musical projects he’s had a hand in over the years (you might have heard of the Orange Humble Band). Read his blog entries about this project and it’s like all the musical royalty of Australia showed up to do something on these recordings. “Tremblin’’ is from the 2008 debut Skin Deep and strikes a more traditional country vibe but check out the cool horns that slide in half way through. “Are You Ready” is from 2016’s self-titled album The Forresters and it has a stronger poprock feel. The chorus unfolds like a 1960s dream sequence. Hooky goodness here.Are You Ready
I was grooving on Rhett Miller for months before I discovered he was the lead singer for the Old 97s. “Our Love” from 2002’s The Instigator has a nice new wave aura to it, even as it takes the form of a classic country song construction. By contrast, “Lost Without You” from 2012’s The Dreamer has a more traditional country feel, if channeled a bit through Wilco. Improving with age (if that’s possible), Miller has some killer recent material, including the duet with Madison King, “Feel Like Fallin’ in Love,” and the recent collaboration with Black Prairie, 2015’s The Traveler. Love “Most in the Summertime” with its great lilting chorus line ‘Don’t give up … on me.’ The pause really makes the hook work.Our LoveLost Without You
I was digging the Steve Deaton Three’s self-titled album from 2015 when I hit their cover of Buck Owen’s “Tall Dark Stranger.” How could I know I’d be in for the definitive treatment of the song? SDT ramp it up just enough to capture the melodic magic that was always there but latent in the rather languid original version. Really, I’m surprised Dwight Yoakam didn’t cog onto this great opportunity. But just to show that these guys are not just poprock rodeo kings, check out their fabulous, driving should-be hit single, “Open My Eyes.” Not country, but a poprock spectacular single. And these are not the only charms this album contains.
At a recent house concert in Toronto, the Sam Weber band performed “All Your Favourite Bands.” It being a house concert, the song ended and I asked them about it – and discovered the definitely alt-country/folk sound of Dawes. Early recordings like “When My Time Comes” from 2009 North Hills has the poetic charm of Bruce Springsteen’s first album while “If I Wanted Someone” from 2011’s Nothing is Wrong sounds more late period Eagles. But Dawes are hard to peg, with 2013’s Stories Don’t End serving up the very Steely Dan-ish “From a Window Seat” and their most recent, 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die, throwing in a bit more FM rock a la “Rocky Mountain Way” guitar and late Doobie Brothers vocals on “Roll With the Punches.”If I Wanted SomeoneRoll With the Punches
The Jayhawks were there when alt country hit the indie rock mainstream along with Wilco, Blue Rodeo and many others. We’re not going to play the obvious ones from the 1990s. These guys are masters for a reason – they’ve continued to put out solid recordings, as “She Walks in So Many Ways” from 2011’s Mockingbird Time showcases nicely. The song has a very Everly Brothers’ “Bowling Green” vibe to my ears. Oh, what the hell. “It’s Up to You” from 1997’s Sound of Lies is a pretty sweet album cut.She Walks in So Many WaysIt’s Up To You
Last up is a band I just discovered this last week, San Francisco’s Midnight North. “The Highway Song” is a peppy poprock number sweet enough to appeal to any Dolly Parton fan, with a melody that is nicely echoed by some trebly lead guitar. Great lyrics here: “So meet me on a highway … where we can sing some tunes like Johnny and June ..” The whole of their most recent album, 2017’s Under the Lights, is pretty strong, with “Greene County” turning the classic leaving scenario on its head while “Little Black Dog” harkens back to a more traditional country sound.
Keep the country flavour of this poprock alive by slapping a few dollars down on cracker barrel, electronically speaking of course. Visit The Forresters, Rhett Miller, Steve Deaton Three, Dawes, the Jayhawks, and Midnight North online.
Summer’s here and the time is right for some treats. No, not the ice cream truck – musical treats. What follows are some bands I missed the first time around but have come to know through a host of fantastic Facebook music groups. Accent on melody, harmony and hooks!
Coming back more to the present, check out Smith & Hayes lightly swinging poprock gem from their 2014 album People All Over the World, “Slow Down.” These guys emote some pretty impressive 1970s soft rock chops, a time when melody seemed inoffensive but was actually ear worm intensive. Previous albums by the band (e.g. 2007’s Changed By a Song) showcased their command of the late Beatles era sound and that work undergirds this single. From the harmonica opening, to the acoustic guitar lead lines, to the ever so subtle and building vocal hooks, you’ll be hitting repeat on this one.Smith & Hayes – Slow Down
Our last treat is a bit of an outlier for North Carolina’s Dillon Fence, a group whose material usually had a bit more bite. But “Bite of an Apple” is a delightful vocally-focused lilting tune that really takes off with some nice interplay amongst vocal lines, all over top of a consistent ringing rhythm guitar. The song appears on the 2004 collection Best +. Though the band’s recording career only spanned 1991-94, this song was one of a number specially recorded in the early 2000s for this release.Dillon Fence – Bite of an Apple
Putting a famous name in your song title would seem to be a sure fire way to have a hit. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” or Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” readily come to mind. But really, those are the exceptions. A quick search of the internet actually turns up a whole bevy of celebrity names on songs, mostly on the indie side of things, most of them album cuts. So why do bands do it? Homage? Satire? Or are they just as celebrity obsessed as everyone else? The French duo Please was formed and recorded a song with the sole explicit intent of getting a response from Paul McCartney – not that Paul appeared to notice! The range of material covered in this post gives us a bit of all these approaches, from hero worship, to ridicule, to little more than just mentioning the celebrity name.
Some bands throw their guitars to the front of mix or offer up some hooky guitar lick that drives the song. This post features songs from bands where the guitar attack is a key part of the charm but none take up the challenge in quite the same way.
Poole’s “Supermerica” blasts open with a guitar storm not unlike more than few singles from Fountains of Wayne but the vocals have more of a Bob Mould solo tinge. The band put out three albums in the 1990s but didn’t really take off, sadly, as their 1995 debut Alaska Days is fantastic and features this song. The Travoltas drop into “I’m Sorry” with crunchy load of rhythm guitar before settling into a great poprock sound that the Dutch seem to have patented in recent years with bands like this one and Tommy and the Rockets. 
This song has nice of dose of Beach Boys harmony about two-thirds of the way through, not surprisingly given this 2002 album title is Endless Summer. The band’s most recent album, Until We Hit the Shore, continues to mine this beach-infused party punk sound. 
Australia’s Genes or The Genes (depending on the recording) make their acoustic guitars jump out of the speakers on tracks like “A Smile Will Do” and “I Know.” Our featured track is from their 1995 record, Buy a Guitar, and the whole record is pretty consistently acoustic guitar dominant in ways you didn’t really think possible. Of the three bands, only the Travoltas seems serious about promoting their music online. You will search in vain for much info or a website for the other two.I’m SorryA Smile Will Do
Of the bands featured in this post, The Ivins probably most fit the bill of potential mainstream rock success with “Roam the World” from their new album, The Code Duello. 
By contrast, Odd Robot give off an indie vibe both in terms of their guitar sound but also their vocal style. I love how it all comes together on our featured song “Take With Two White Pills” from their recent album A Late Night Panic. The guitars and vocals are some great poprock, tweaked with just a hint of that discordant indie élan. Wrapping up this post is recovering noise punk band, Terry Malts. I say ‘recovering’ because the boys appear to be changing their stripes with this most recent single “It’s Not Me” but there are indications that old habits die hard. 
The song opens with a crisp lead guitar line that loops around as the main hook of the tune while the vocals are bit more shoegaze. It’s a really great poprock single but it is about the only one in their extensive catalogue. Ok, I shouldn’t be greedy, one song is better than none. However, when I saw the band recently in Toronto even this song got the noise punk treatment. Would love to see more songs in this vein from the band.
It was 1982. I was 17, gay as springtime, and loved rock and roll. Musically at that time I would find myself caught between different worlds – there really wasn’t any place to call home. That same year a friend of mine and I snuck into our first gay bar. I thought it was going to be great, to finally be somewhere full of other gay people. But I just couldn’t get past the terrible music. It was all tuneless dance beats, nary a guitar or a melodic hook in sight. I thought of myself as pretty well informed about all kinds of music even then but all night I didn’t recognize a single song. Years later I would come to appreciate why gay popular culture had evolved as it had, why a certain kind of music dominated the scene then. But at the time I experienced it as incredibly alienating. Just another place I didn’t fit in.
And then came The Smiths. There may have been acts that I liked more at the time but none affected me as profoundly as this Manchester quartet. I found a copy of “What Difference Does it Make” in the discard pile at my radio broadcasting school and it blew my head off. The guitar hook immediately had my full attention but the lyrics were also startling – this was my life in a rock and roll song, something that had never happened before. I immediately set out to find more and picked up the BBC sessions/compilation album Hatful of Hollow. The fall of 1984 was all Smiths, all the time. The songs were so obviously about working class gay experience – “William, It Was Really Nothing,” “This Charming Man,” “Handsome Devil,” etc. – that it was painfully embarrassing to see Morrissey equivocate about his sexuality in later interviews. British artists in the 1980s seemed divided about taking a stand on gay identity with Morrissey and the Pet Shops Boys avoiding the issue while others like Bronksi Beat wrote powerfully direct songs like “Small Town Boy.” Later Smiths albums were definitely more oblique about sexuality, but it didn’t matter. The early recordings broke through a barrier of rock and roll masculinity, proving to be as exciting as any previous three chord wonder. Others would take note.
Many years later a 
With seven albums of original material there is simply too much to review here but I could easily single out a host of songs from across their catalogue. From the early period I would note the above-mentioned songs from Undressed, “Don’t Be So Sure” and “Kevin” from 1996’s Wish I’d Taken Pictures, and “Sweet Insecurity” and “Used to Turn Me On” from 1998’s Absurd Pop Song Romance. The band branches out stylistically in the new century with some new guitar sounds and song structures. 2003’s Total Entertainment comes on like a rush of adrenaline with a new sonic mix on tracks like “When He Comes Home,” “Not Good Enough for You,” and “First Betrayal,” while 2009’s That’s So Gay pumps the politics quotient on “Some of My Best Friends” and the ‘not taking ourselves too seriously’ factor on “Dirty Young Man” and “Pat Me on the Ass.” 2016’s Quite Contrary album mimics the cover of their Wish I’d Taken Pictures record released twenty years earlier, replacing the strapping lads of the original with the band’s now aging selves, though they still seem to be cavorting and having a good time. The song themes too reflect their present gay circumstances with issues like the ongoing religious attacks on queers in the US in “Blame the Bible” or aging in “(Is This What It’s Like) Getting Old.” Being from Canada, I have to high five Pansy Division’s ode to our great white north, “Manada” which manages to name check a host of Canadian cities and laud out boys, with versions in both English and French! These guys are a class act.
In the end, the question remains: is it really that important whether a band is gay or not? Yes and no. As I’ve grown older, more comfortable and confident about who I am, I don’t necessarily need to be surrounded by reflections of myself. I love all kinds of music regardless of sexuality or any other kinds of identity markings. But when we are young it is terribly important to see ourselves in popular culture. To be invisible in the world is to be invisible to ourselves. To have our hopes and dreams, heartaches and disappointments given expression in culture is to be part of the broader world. Indeed, to identify across our differences requires first that those differences be articulated. Perhaps it is easier for a rock and roll gay boy today. I hope so, though we should never underestimate how hard it is to be different. Despite the gains in social tolerance, western societies remain profoundly conformist in a host of ways.
What is it with guys and record collections? While I think things have changed a bit recently, coming of age in the 1980s the record store and music obsessions were predominantly male preserves. Nobody captured it better than Nick Hornby in the first chapter of High Fidelity, which opens with the male protagonist deciding for the umpteenth time to reorganize his record collection, this time in the order he purchased them. I remember looking up from the book thinking ‘somebody’s been watching me …’
So here are two songs that capture the traditional range of views about women and record collections. In one, the singer is delighted to find a girl with a serious record collection, noting she “blew me away, with her 45s, they’re all alphabetized …” But in the other, the narrator “did a quick inspection and found [her] ELO” and dumps her, directing her to “take your record collection and go.” In either case, the serious female record collector is either a surprise or unthinkable. Yet both songwriters are clearly mocking this sort of narrow thinking. 
Eytan Mirsky has a large body of hilarious, self-mocking poprock. One album features a pathetic looking Mirsky slouching in a chair as some girlfriend’s luggage is heading for the door – the album title? Was it Something I Said? On his song “Record Collection” (from Get Ready for Eytan!) the shallowness of his male narrator deciding to dump the girl he’s moved in with over some supposed musical indiscretions is both mocked and yet somehow also sadly believable. Meanwhile, producer extraordinaire Fernando Perdomo offers up two distinctly different versions of his charming “Girl with a Record Collection,” one leaning on a jangle poprock sound while the other exploits a more poppy arrangement.
I wonder sometimes if the mail person has mistaken my address for Quality Street because the submissions arriving in the Poprock Record mailbag have been pretty spectacular. This week’s selections run the gamut of cabaret pop, textured top 40, straight up party rock and roll, and punky riffsters.
The tuneful Adam Merrin (we featured him 
The new record from Tiny Animals comes a long six years after their last long player. To make up for lost time, they have crafted a full blown concept album, Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made On, that takes us through a night of dreaming and the bleary, sometimes nonsensical imagery that accompanies sleep (or the lack thereof). As with previous Tiny Animals albums, the sound is crisp and finely textured, often built up layer by sonic layer. The songs are sequenced seamlessly without break but some contributions are more single-ready (some more experimental) than others. I would send radio “She’s Gonna Find Out” with its quirky and catchy opener, the hooky “Stalker” which features some great vocal effects, the strolling-on-a-sunny-day “Wait, Wait, Wait,” and the band’s own choice for first release and video, “Up, Up, and Away.” And in something totally unrelated to this release, check out the band’s hilarious medley of 1980s sitcom theme songs!She’s Gonna Find OutUp, Up, and Away
The Popravinas have a easygoing, melodic rock n’ roll sound – they perform like they’ve been playing together forever. Their sound combines both acoustic and electric guitars, punchy lead lines, AM transistored vocals, a bit of California country rock at times, and a general party vibe. The whole album is enjoyable but “Santa Monica Moon,” “Wow,” and “Top of the Heartache” are stand out tracks for me. Still, if I had pick something for a single I think I’d go with “Alone Ain’t So Bad” with its slightly stronger edge of rock and roll insurgency, nice vocal arrangement, and just a bit of banjo. Hit play and let the beer flow.
We torque up the rock quotient with selections from Picnic Tool’s tart and saucy EP Einstein. The title track is a talky, rumbly rock workout full of hilarious asides, while “Chinese Heart” has a more spare sound, held together by a strong, hooky lead guitar line. By comparison “I Love the Truth” sounds more conventional if only because it features actual singing along with some nice harmonica breaks, built on a great neo-1950s music bed. Things wrap up with the fun “… About Gurls,” a crisp new wavey number full of super riffs. And then, it’s over. Even for an EP Einstein ends all too soon.
Dramatic, almost Queen-like in its changes and intensity, V Sparks grabs you and doesn’t let go on its New Sensation EP. While the record has a number of strong songs, I remain most captivated by “Death of a Star.” From the opening keyboards, the song twists and turns so often you may feel it has lost its way. But when it hits the chorus you’re in a melodic sweet spot that you just don’t want to end. A remarkable effort that makes you wonder where this band will go next.
So many would-be hits have ended up in the equivalent of a rock and roll wasteland: the cut-out bargain bin, unheard and/or underappreciated. What if those great tracks could be resurrected in a different time to more appreciative ears? Today’s time capsule top five gathers up a number of strong singles that deserve another crack at the hit parade.
The Dogs were a French punky new wave band, particularly active recording-wise from the late 1970s to late 1980s. Like Elvis Costello, they evolved from pub rock into something harder, taking punk’s influence to sharpen their basic rough-edged rock and roll sound on albums one and two before attempting a more commercial breakthrough on a record number three, Too Much Class for the Neighbourhood. By contrast, their fourth album, 1983’s Legendary Lovers, represented a return to some of their earlier rough edges, ably demonstrated on the fantastic single, “Never Come Back.” This is an uber cool sound – check out the ringing guitars and the heavily French-accented English pronunciation. By all accounts The Dogs were a legendary live band, something that really seems obvious from the evident and palpable excitement oozing from this recording.Never Come Back
The number of bands whose albums got lost in the various record label merger and acquisitions that took place throughout the 1990s would include The Sighs. Originally signed to Charisma/Virgin, their 1992 debut What Goes On failed to excite EMI, the new owners, who let it stall with lacklustre promotion. The band’s second album four years later also failed to take off. And that is shame. Just listen to “Make You Cry” with its jangly opening and incredibly catchy chorus, the latter featuring a stunning harmony vocal. When I first heard the band hit the “he’ll make you cry” line it literally stopped me in my tracks. This should have been a break out hit single.Make You Cry
Even’s “Seconds” is an amazing 1960s-inspired single from their 2001 album A Different High. Well, actually, it wasn’t the official single, but this scribe thinks it should have been. The hypnotic hooky lead line, the super Beatles’ Rubber Soul-era vocals, the overall chimey-ness of the sound – surely this says hit material. Perhaps things could have turned out different for Even, an Australian outfit perennially at the top of the critics’ lists but not the charts, if this had been the official 45 shipped to radio? I know, probably not. But it remains at the top of the Poprock Record charts. Actually, a great deal of Even’s catalogue is in high rotation around here. This tune is just the tip of a great songcraft iceberg. You really can’t go wrong with any of their six albums and three EPs.Seconds
The sibling two-thirds of Greenberry Woods split off to form Splitsville in the late 1990s, eventually releasing five albums between 1997 and 2003. For a band with that much material, they leave a surprisingly light imprint on the ole internet. Influences abound on their music – Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, as well as all the usual 1960s suspects (e.g. Beatles, Beach Boys, etc.). “I Wish I’d Never Met You” is from their last album, Incorporated, and it is definitely channeling a bittersweet Teenage Fanclub feel both musically and lyrically.I Wish I’d Never Met You
A quick listen of “Waterfall” from San Francisco’s The Fresh and Onlys might have you scratching your head at descriptions of their sound as garage rock. Garage pop maybe. Sure the vocals hover with that distinctly sixties garage rock ambience but the guitars are wonderfully melodic, both the rumbly one that anchors the versus and the more buoyant one that anticipates and rides through the chorus. Aptly named, “Waterfall” it’s a song that rushes over you in a most pleasant way.
There was a group of kids in high school who were into all the punk and early post-punk material. I could dig some of the sentiments but just couldn’t hear the tunes. That’s why I steered more to the new wave side of the street: Elvis Costello over the Damned, the Jam over Sex Pistols, and the mid-to-late period Clash over the early Clash. But if we see punk as more a sentiment than a genre, then we can always find a number of acts punking up the perimeters of poprock. Today we explore that punky poprock sentiment.
We begin – where else? – Austin, Texas. The Republican voting, open-carry gun-toting, millennial-cult-confronting state also breeds a damn fine indie music scene. Jonly Bonly exemplify that tradition with a cool rush of adrenaline-soaked punky poprock on their debut album, Put Together. I love the kick off to “I Don’t Mind” – so 1960s garage rock – and then the catchy lead guitar line that threads its way throughout the song. “Never Thought I’d Die” has a nice hook and an interesting mix of guitar sound, as does “Long Distance.” All three songs are strong on melody.
The Lowboys take us somewhere in Virginia, the band being mostly the work of Joseph Hurlock, described on Facebook as a “song guy from VA.” The performances here all have a wonderfully chaotic feel to them. “Defense Mechanism” is a song that often seems to be hanging on to its structure by a thread, given the endearingly shambolic vocal, but the basic hook survives and the chorus hints at a more straight up poprock potential. Don’t miss the eccentric solo. “Don’t Fail Me Now” is another good song that meanders out of the gate but somehow really comes together in the chorus.
Last up is Volcano, I’m Still Excited, an Austin-meets-Brooklyn combo that vocally reminds me of Everything Everything on their only single, “In Green.” The song is a work of subtle discordant genius and clocks in at just over two minutes. As quickly becomes apparent in listening through their self-titled debut (and only) album, these guys have the musical chops but they make their cuts in the most unexpected places.
I guess I lived in a 1960s bubble. Growing up with my parents’ record collection it seemed that if the music was catchy and the performance was strong then it would be hit. But I think it was the stalling of Marshall Crenshaw’s career after Field Day that woke me up to fact that not all great music gets to be widely popular. There is an inescapable randomness to it all. You don’t get two more clear examples of the fickleness of the fame god than Soul Engines and The Someloves. Today’s tracks are red-hot bona-fide should-be hits.
The Soul Engines hail from the Jersey shore and apparently put out a few albums, though only 2002’s Closer Still is widely available. If their other records are even half as good as that one, the world is missing out on some pretty incredible music. The whole album is a pretty solid genre-crossing effort, a perfect melding of old rock and roll, Everly Brothers’ style country harmonies, and upfront melody. But two songs stand out as extraordinary efforts: “It’s Just Another Day” and “Tomorrow’s Girl.” I can’t stop hitting replay on these two tunes. “It’s Just Another Day” bursts open with a rapid fire smatter of jangly lead guitar that eases into the song with a nice organ backdrop. The guitars, organ and vocals play off each other with a sound reminiscent of a lot of western-style 1980s poprock like True West, Rank and File, and Canada’s Blue Rodeo. “Tomorrow’s Girl” kicks off with some great drumming that never lets the energy dissipate. It’s a tune with great swing and harmony vocals: the whole arrangement of the song is perfect, there just isn’t a note out of place. These songs would be in heavy rotation on Poprock Record radio!It’s Just Another DayTomorrow’s Girl
The Someloves are yet another example of the seemingly endless poprock talent pool that is Australia. Formed in Perth in the mid-1980s, the band released a handful of singles and just one album, 1990’s Something or Other. In this case, the lack of success is a bit easier to understand as one half of the band’s creative duo simply refused to tour in support of their recordings, killing their record deal. Still, there have been non-touring success stories in rock and roll and given how drop dead amazing their lone album is, the lack of accolades and gold records remains surprising. I mean, check out the killer roll out of “Know You Now.” It’s all ringing guitars and The Three O’Clock-style breathy vocals that builds to an catchy chorus and then back to more ringing chords. It’s an intense three minutes and 49 seconds of poprock. “Sunshine’s Glove” works a similar formula but ups the melody enrichment, allowing the ringing guitars to echo the hooks. Pretty addictive stuff as a kind of double A-side single. The good news here is that unlike the Soul Engines, a fabulous double CD greatest hits retrospective is available for The Someloves: 2006’s Don’t Talk About Us.Know You NowSunshine’s Glove
Poprock Record 