Power Pop–Badfinger
Somewhere Between Pop and Rock
I’ve been listening to Badfinger and it strikes me strange that the phrase power pop is used to describe bands like Badfinger, Big Star, and the Raspberries. I understand the use of the term; what is strange to me is that we need it. The phrase somehow seems to provide a psychological edge to justify listening to bands that basically cover pop material.
I do understand that power pop does physically describe the fact that bands like Badfinger have more “power”–more rock– than say Bread . At the same time, calling a band power pop seems to be an attempt to make the band–any band that plays pop music–seem cooler.
You can look at Bread and Badfinger’s catalogs and make the argument that there are Bread songs that rock harder than Badfinger songs. That the hardest rocking Bread songs (”Mother Freedom,” “Don’t Tell Me No”) have much more power than a number of Badfinger ballads (”We’re for the Dark”). Still, no one calls Bread power pop or says that Badfinger ballads don’t really qualify as power pop. But both groups–material wise–cover a lot of the same ground, which means they mostly focus on love songs.
I think the idea of power pop needs to be readjusted. Pop music–without power as an adjective–is as justifiable aesthetically as rock if it’s any good.
