The History of Power Pop

Ongoing History of New Music

Curiouscast

Music History, History, Music, Music Interviews, Music Commentary

4.8 • 604 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the beginning—and I’m talking about, say, 1955—it was easy to categorize popular music…there was rock, pop, country and r&b…it was nice and simple…pretty much all mainstream music you heard could be dumped into one of these four buckets… But even back then you could get more granular…you could slice certain genres into thinner slices to include big band, Dixieland, Ska and hillbilly…and jazz…and gospel…and Broadway show music…and I guess we can’t leave out classical, can we?... And as rock’n’roll grew, it fragmented and separated and stratified with each passing year…before long, it wasn’t enough to say that you were in a “rock band”…you had to specify what kind of rock band you were… In 2014, a guy named Glenn McDonald created a project called “every noise at once”…he was able to identify 1,264 micro-genres of popular music…and new micro-genres are being invented every day…every hear of blackgaze or deep filthstep or skweee?...they exist…trust me… Some of these genres rise and fall pretty quickly…they’re “of the moment” and soon sound completely outdates…others, though, have staying power…they can be with us for decades…why?...because they just work, that’s all… And one genre that’s been working very well for over half a century is called “power pop”…this is its story… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing
0:04.3	history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.
0:09.3	Listen, before we start the show today, a quick note.
0:12.0	Thanks to you, the ongoing History of New Music podcast has been racing up the podcast charts,
0:17.8	and we've been receiving a bunch of email and direct messages from fans of the show
0:21.3	that you wanted to hear more episodes.
0:24.3	Okay, done.
0:25.3	We've heard you and we're happy to do just that.
0:27.9	So we're ramping things up around here.
0:29.9	You will now get an additional ongoing history of new music podcasts every week all summer long.
0:34.7	So that's two shows for the price of, well, none. So get it. I mean, show is free.
0:41.5	Okay, wait, also enjoy this week's episode. Here we go. In the beginning, and I'm talking about
0:47.5	about 1955, it was easy to categorize popular music. There was rock, pop, country, and R&B.
0:56.6	Nice and simple.
0:57.7	Pretty much all mainstream music that you heard could be dumped into one of those four buckets.
1:02.5	But even back then, you could get more granular.
1:06.1	You could slice certain genres into thinner slices to include big band, Dixieland, Skah, and Hillbilly,
1:13.6	and jazz, gospel, Broadway show music, and I guess we can't leave a classical, can we?
1:22.5	Anyway, as rock and roll grew, it fragmented and separated and stratified with each passing year, and before
1:29.1	long it wasn't enough to say that you were in a rock band. You had to specify what kind of rock band
1:35.3	you were in. In 2014, a guy named Glenn McDonald created a project called Every Noise at Once,
1:42.3	and he was able to identify 1,264 microgenres of popular music.
	...

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