Powerpop

Today, my favorite ocean liner ever: the RMS Olympic. Related Discover more from PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Author: Badfinger (Max) Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all. View all posts by Badfinger (Max)

I thought I’d better get some more power pop back on a blog called PowerPop. I was reading Dave’s post on a Fastball song called Out of My Head, and I thought of this song automatically. I liked Fastball when I first heard them in the late nineties. Their big breakthrough was The Way, and I liked that song, so I got the album. I always veered more toward this song. There was just something about that jangling guitar sound that caught me. Our band actually played this song when it was released.

I love the Faces because they never sounded polished to death. This song sounds like five guys playing rock and roll because that was exactly what they wanted to be doing. Ronnie Lane is probably my favorite member of the Faces. Rod Stewart had the voice and was obviously the biggest star, but there was something about Lane that I always liked. He was a great songwriter and bass player, and I loved what he did with the Small Faces, Faces, and later with Slim Chance and his solo career.

I thought I knew most of the Replacements catalog, but this one somehow slipped past me. This song was recorded in early 1985 during sessions that eventually led up to Tim. What caught my attention immediately was the producer, Alex Chilton. Yes, that Alex Chilton from Big Star, one of the bands that influenced Paul Westerberg and the Replacements. The song didn’t make Tim, but it eventually appeared on the 1986 UK compilation Boink!! and later as a bonus track on the 2008 reissue of Tim.

This is one of those songs where I heard the cover before I heard the original. I know some folk fans might not agree with me, but Bob Seger’s version of this classic song is still the one I think of first. Sometimes the first version you hear just sticks with you. Seger is from Michigan, but the South adopted him as one of their own. I heard him constantly while growing up. Whenever I’m in the small town I grew up in, the song Mainstreet is always in my mind.

I first heard about this ship when I saw some divers go into it. It’s almost pristine. Lake Superior has preserved this ship almost perfectly. It had… SS Kamloops: One of Lake Superior’s Enduring Mysteries Please come over today as we talk about the SS Kamloops from the Great Lakes. Related Discover more from PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

I like songs that announce themselves right away, and Electric Worry certainly does that. That guitar comes in and you know immediately this isn’t going to be a quiet ride. It’s heavy, dirty, bluesy rock, and when Neil Fallon’s vocal comes in, it has exactly the power the music needs. This isn’t normally the first place I go musically, but when a riff grabs me like this one does, genre doesn’t matter much. Clutch formed in Germantown, Maryland, in 1991.

This is country music stripped down to what matters. A great song, a small group of musicians, and a singer who makes you believe every word. His songwriting was beyond reproach. Ironically, this is one of my favorite Hank songs and one of the very few he didn’t actually write. I’ve always loved Hank Williams, and this is one of those recordings where everything fits. His voice, the steel guitar, fiddle, and most of all the feeling. There is nothing fancy about it. It doesn’t need to be.

I cannot believe I’ve never posted a Randy Newman song. I first heard of him through Short People, and that is not counting the countless covers I’ve heard of his songs covered by other people. Being a Dodgers fan, I get a little extra kick out of hearing this song. The Dodgers play I Love L.A. after they win at Dodger Stadium, so when I hear those opening notes, I automatically associate it with something good happening. It’s hard for me to separate the song from baseball now.

I found this song after posting about Ten Years After. One of my readers, M.Y. (Thank you, M.Y.!) brought this one up. She told me about it, and I could not believe I missed it all these years. Put Alvin Lee and George Harrison together on one song, and you already have my attention. Then make it a slow blues with both of them playing guitar, and I’m not going anywhere. George remade himself when he learned slide. He was a good guitar player before, but he became a great one on slide.