Episode
In the Mix: Power Pop Perfection Vol 2
- Podcast
- New Zealand Net Radio
- Published
- Jul 31, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3558
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.nznetradio.net.nz/podcast/#ep-79
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Summary
Power pop is the genre that never quite got its moment — and somehow that’s the whole point. It’s a sound built on the Beatles’ Revolver-era jangle and the Who’s coiled aggression, then handed down through a lineage of bands who wrote perfect three-minute songs and watched them sail straight past the charts. This week’s show traces that line from the source: “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Pictures Of Lily” set the template in the mid-60s, and the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action” and Big Star’s “In The Street” carried it into the 70s, where commercial indifference became something close to a badge of honour. What’s remarkable is how the vindication keeps arriving late. Big Star sold almost nothing in 1972 and ended up soundtracking a hit sitcom two decades on. The Speedies were Brooklyn schoolkids whose “You Need Pop” found a second life in a printer commercial. Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque was voted album of the year over Nevermind, a decision that looked eccentric at the time and looks rather braver now. And the thread runs unbroken to the present — the Lemon Twigs and Weezer are working the same seam as Todd Rundgren, Dwight Twilley and the Raspberries did fifty years ago, with a similar disregard for whether anyone’s paying attention. Broadcast 31 July 2026