In the Mix: Power Pop Perfection Vol 2

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

Songs in this episode:

0:02 NZ Net Radio – In the Mix: Power Pop Perfection Vol 2
0:08 The Beatles – And Your Bird Can Sing
1:20 NZ Net Radio – In the Mix: Power Pop Perfection Vol 2
2:15 The Who – Pictures Of Lily
3:19 Big Star – In The Street
4:23 Teenage Fanclub – Star Sign
5:27 The Heats – I Hope You're Wrong
6:31 The Goods – Summer's Almost Gone
7:35 Tweeds – I Need That Record
8:39 The Speedies – You Need Pop
9:58 NZ Net Radio – In the Mix: Power Pop Perfection Vol 2
10:47 Shoes – Boys Don't Lie
11:51 Pete Yorn – Idyllwild
12:55 King Tuff – Stairway To Nowhere
13:59 Weezer, Wednesday – We Might as Well Be Strangers (ft. Wednesday)
15:03 Flamin' Groovies – Shake Some Action
16:23 NZ Net Radio – In the Mix: Power Pop Perfection Vol 2
17:06 Todd Rundgren – Couldn't I Just Tell You
18:10 Dwight Twilley Band – I'm On Fire
19:14 Smug Brothers – Interior Magnets
20:18 Material Issue – Valerie Loves Me
21:22 The Raspberries – I Saw The Light