Thursday 4 August 2011

Sugar - Some Real Power Pop

The other day I was flicking around the TV channels when I came across Top of the Pops 2. The song playing was the awful Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne. As I watched the in studio performance I realised something. That the band look as if they are in their thirties. After doing a quick Google search I found out that Fountains of Wayne had been going for years before they recorded Stacy’s Mom. When I first heard it on the radio I thought that the band must a crap new American version of Busted or McFly. Kids pop music with guitars.
Power pop bands pushing thirty or forty singing about being a teenager like Fountains of Wayne and Blink 182 are much worse than Hanson still singing Mmm Bop.
So let’s have some power pop that’s worth listening to. Husker Du had melodic pop sensibilities along with their frantic speed and buzz saw guitar. But when the band split up and Bob Mould went on to form another three piece called Sugar some of the melody’s were pushed to the front. Especially on the single If I Can’t Change Your Mind where Mould uses an acoustic twelve string guitar to give it a Big Star, REM sound type of sound.
It even got to number 30 in the UK charts. Back when some people cared about that sort of thing.

Download Sugar - If I Can’t Change Your Mind from here.