I think that The Wannadies is one of greatest bands in the world - I just don’t understand why they didn’t make it even bigger… Practically every song is a smash hit as far as I’m concerned!
I’ve linked some YouTube-clips that are definitely worth checking out. The first is the video for the song Friends which is one of their best songs…
The second clip is this simple but cool video for the song I Don’t Like You.
The third clip is from their awesome song Hit. We attempted to play it once with a cover band but it is seriously difficult to get the guitars and rhythm right. The Wannadies are just so tight…
Just look at their unbelievably cool discography; all of their albums are sooo good!
The Wannadies (1990)
Aquanautic (1992)
Be a Girl (1994)
Bagsy Me (1997)
The Wannadies (1997) - release for the US market
Yeah (1999)
Before & After (2002)
Skellefteå (1998) - Compilation and remix album
Tune in on Spotify for some excellent tunes by The Wannadies.
The next album on the list is another one that changed my life and the way I perceived music. Will Owsley is the founder of a legendary powerpop trio called The Semantics, which featured Ringo Starr’s son Zak Starkey on drums. Their sole album Powerbill was only released in Japan and the band never got the break they sought for. You might think that this is the album I’m going to talk about - which I could have gone on about at length - but I’m going to focus on Owsley’s first solo album Owsley released in 1999.
The story as I’ve heard it is that he recorded this album in his home studio, which he financed by touring with Amy Grant. When he started shopping around for a deal a lot of labels liked what they heard but wanted him to re-record the album to make it sound “cooler” or something like that. Owsley refused and waited until he found the label that wanted to put it out as it was, and he was rewarded for his persistence with a grammy nomination for “best engineering”. Ain’t that great?
Anyhow, the album in itself is a masterpiece. Packed with powerpop gems, full of energy and beatle-esque songwriting, it had a great impact on me when I first heard it a year after it came out and inspired me in so many ways, changing the way I write music. “Oh No The Radio” might be one of the coolest opening tracks of all time, and “Coming Up Roses” is a song every songwriter would wish they’d written!
Unfortunately, only one track is available for listening on Owsley’s MySpace. But it’s the beautiful ballad “Sentimental Favorite” so there’s really no reason to complain. I’ve been searching YouTube for any kind of Owsley or Semantics clip withouth luck. If you readers happen to stumble upon a clip, let me know.
By many considered to be the very first album of the genre, this next essential powerpop album is a true gem that everyone should be aware of. The importance of Big Star’s debut album “#1 Record” from 1972 can hardly be ignored, influenced, as it has, bands like The Posies (whom I focused the last issue on), Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet to mention a few. Big Star is a band that didn’t get its deserved recognition back when they started out in the early 70’s, but has gained some interest in later years - much like Nick Drake.
This is yet another of those albums that, in my opinion, doesn’t have a single weakness. Not a bad track. It’s got the real rocker tracks like “Don’t Lie To Me”, “In the Street” and “Feel”, as well as beautiful ballads such as “Thirteen” and “The Ballad of El Goodo”, which might be one of the most beautiful songs ever written.
Big Star disbanded in the mid-70’s but reformed in 1993, adding Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow from The Posies to the lineup. They also contributed to the 2005 album “In Space” which is a fine piece of work, although it doesn’t even come close to the debut.
Here’s a YouTube clip from The Tonight Show with the new lineup performing “In the Street” (which you might recognize from That 70’s Show, for which Cheap Trick recorded their own version)
The song In the Street was originally performed by 70’s band Big Star. A cover-version of the song was recorded by Cheap Trick in 1999 for use as the theme song for the television show That 70’s Show. Great TV-show, great music and a cool video. Definitely worth checking out!
The second album I want you to check out may very well be the one album that has influenced me the most. It’s the phenomenal third album from The Posies entitled “Frosting on the Beater”, released in 1993. I’d say that this is the very album that got me hooked on powerpop in the first place, and in many ways “Frosting” defines the genre for me. It’s impossible to find a weakness on the album, since all of the songs are true gems in their own right.
My favorite song on the album and one of my favorite songs of all time is “Solar Sister”. To this day I cannot seem to tire of it. Actually, it’s hard to tire of any of the songs, but other “must-listens” are “Definite Door”, “Dream All Day”, “Flavor of the Month”, and the hauntingly beautiful closer “Coming Right Along” with the eerie C-tuning on the guitar that I spent a whole afternoon in High School trying to figure out.
These past couple of years I’ve had the pleasure to get to know the frontmen of the band - Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer - and the two still produce the most amazing music, both as The Posies and separately. If you start to delve into their back catalogue you’ll find some of the greatest music written during the past fifteen years or so.
Here’s a YouTube clip of “Solar Sister” that I just found. The harmonies on this song are absolutely killer!
Sometimes you end up doing things that you could never dream about a few years ago… My daughter’s birthday party is coming up and I’m doing the sweets. Talk about being grown up!
One could argue that: Tommy Fake will bake a cake - to Molly Fake.
I also found an interesting site that is definitely worth checking out. John ME (previously The Motorhomes) can be found on MySpace and has some great tunes that you should check out! On the site you can watch this YouTube-clip where he performs a cool version of Jackson 5’s I Want You Back
I found this fantastic YouTube clip of the flamboyant Queen-singer Freddie Mercury. It is from the Live Aid performance in 1985 and the question is - how brilliant can a man be?!? I think that he is one of the best singers ever and his performance on stage is better than almost everything I have ever seen.
The vocal harmonies are fantastic and quite close to powerpop.
On 23 November 1991, Freddie announced to the press that he had tested positive for HIV and had AIDS. Speculations had of course been going on for years. 24 hours later he died - merely 45 years old.
OK, so there are a few albums that have really influenced me and my songwriting over the years, and shaped this band into what it is. As someone wise once said - we are all just a product of our influences.
The first album I’m going to recommend you try to track down is the one album that The Grays released in 1994 entitled Ro Sham Bo. I just recently came over it myself and hadn’t heard before last year. It’s the band that Jason Falkner formed after he left Jellyfish (which is another group I’ll be getting to in another issue), and it contains a number of great powerpop gems.
The opening track from the album, entitled “Very Best Years” is one of my favorite songs at the moment. A while ago I discovered that they’d made a music video for it, which you can check out here:
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