02.19.06

(Possibly) The Best Power Pop Ever

Posted in Bands, Music at 10:55 pm by Moody

For much of my life I could not tolerate pop music. Although I grew up in the ’70s listening to the likes of Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye, Jefferson Airplane, Al Stewart, and all that era’s most popular stars, I developed in my adolescence a disdain for anything that looked even remotely pop. I turned my attention to so-called underground bands and/or “darker” music: Sisters of Mercy, :zoviet*france:, Christian Death, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Pink Floyd, Soft Cell and the like (bands I still have fondness for). While others were extolling the virutes of Tom Petty, OMD and The Thompson Twins, I was wallowing in heady reverb, Grand Guignol theatrics, industrial noise pollution and distortion box vocals.

I mention all this because it still matters to me. Perhaps it’s because I am nearing forty years of age now, but my musical tastes have broadened vastly. I’m proud of that. A look at 7000+ songs on my iPod will tell you that my tastes are eclectic and yet nearly all-inclusive. What you still won’t find a lot of, though, is pop. I may begrudgingly nod my head to Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” or Britney Spears’ “Toxic” now and then, but — and make no mistake here — it is begrudgingly, and I usually have to listen to Carcass or A Life Once Lost for an hour afterward. Some things never change — or don’t change much. If it’s pop, for me to like it requires that it somehow transcends the genre. More often than not, it’s only one song that makes it through the filter, and often then it’s simply a matter of the artist having had a particularly great producer behind the song (e.g., such is the case for the two previously mentioned songs). Rarely, rarely, rarely do I wholeheartedly embrace a pop band’s entire oeuvre.

But there is one group who manages to grab all the stars for me, and they are the Canadian power pop supergroup The New Pornographers, made up of Destroyer’s Dan Bejar (who does not consider himself an official member), the highly talented Neko Case, Thee Evaporators’ John Collins, Limblifter/Age of Electric drummer/vocalist Kurt Dahle, Fancey’s Todd Fancey, A.C. Newman and Blaine Thurier. Never before have I heard a band pull together all those elements that make music so fun, so compelling, so danceable, and so compulsively, repeatably listenable both musically and lyrically.

Lyrically, Mass Romantic’s “Letter from an Occupant” gives a solid example of the band’s pop prowess, making emotional sense even as it skirts the hem of the poetically enigmatic:

I'm told the eventual downfall
is just a bill from the restaurant.
You told me I could order the moon, babe,
just as long as I shoot what I want.

What the last ten minutes have taught me:
bet the hand that your money's on.
Where the hell have the '70s brought me?
You trade me away long gone.

For the love of a god, you say,
not a letter from an occupant.

The time that your enemy gives you,
good times are not the ones you want.
I cried five rivers on the way here,
which one will you skate away on?

The tune you'll be humming forever,
all the words are replaced and wrong,
with a shower of yeahs and whatevers,
you trade me away long gone.

For the love of a god, you say,
not a letter from an occupant.

Where have all the sensations gone?
It's the song, the song, the song that's shaking me.

The New Pornographers liberally spice their songs with lyrics that get stuck in your head and flawlessly implement the kind of catchy hooks that you inevitably catch yourself humming throughout day. In other words, they are in good company with the too often overlooked Big Star, as well as Super Furry Animals, The Sunshine Fix and Imperial Teen. They are clever like Arrested Development was a clever sitcom that should never have been cancelled.

And they are maturing. Twin Cinema, their third effort, proves that they are a superband with real staying power. They have expanded and simultaneously tightened their sound. If their first album was a little unfocused (though not detrimentally so) and their second album an affair of finding their groove, then their third release is a solid expression of the band’s collective sound. You can read more about the album at the band’s official Website, and I recommend checking out the review over at Pitchfork.

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