Perfect Pop Songs

Great one @cd318! I have "Johnny Angel" on a 7" 45 (one of my first), and again fall in love with Shelley every time I hear it.

From roughly the same time---and also performed on the TV show he was appearing in at the time of it’s release---is "Young World" by Ricky Nelson. This perfect Pop song also contains a perfect guitar solo by the great James Burton, the obvious model for George Harrison’s solo in "Nowhere Man". Compare the two.

Also from the early-60’s are the amazing run of hits from Roy Orbison, including his biggest, "Oh, Pretty Woman". Best use of an Orbison song in a movie: the scene in Blue Velvet in which Frank (played to creepy perfection by Dean Stockwell) lipsynchs to "In Dreams". VERY disturbing.

The Everly Brothers also had an incredible string of perfect Pop song hits, most written by the husband-and-wife team of Felice & Boudleaux Bryant. "Bye Bye Love", "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have To Do Is Dream", "When Will I Be Loved" (already mentioned above), "Let It Be Me" (done by Dylan for his Self Portrait album), "Cathy's Clown", and "Love Hurts" (recorded by Gram Parson and Emmylou Harris for Gram's Grievous Angel. Good, but the Brothers' version is great). 

What a thread! Some Power Pop, a particularly favorite genre of mine (and apparently a lot of others):

"Cruel To Be Kind", Nick Lowe

"Girls Talk", Dave Edmunds

"Queen Of Hearts", Dave Edmunds (forget about Juice Newton’s pale imitation)

"Teacher Teacher", Rockpile

"Bad Case Of Loving You", Moon Martin (ignore the terrible cover by Robert Palmer)

"Cadillac Walk", Moon Martin (and the great version by Mink DeVille)

"Waterloo", ABBA

"Trying To Find My Baby", The Dwight Twilley Band

"Precious To Me", Phil Seymour

"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", The Rubinoos. Great guitar solo by Tommy Dunbar

"She’d Rather Be With Me", The Turtles. Incredible drumming by Johnny Barbata!

"Love’s Made A Fool Of You", The Bobby Fuller Four

"Peggy Sue", "Rave On", "Words Of Love", "It’s So Easy" (Linda Ronstadt’s version may be even better), & a bunch more by Buddy Holly. For scorching Rockabilly, listen to his version of "Down The Line" (Jerry Lee Lewis did a great version of this bitchin’ song as well)

On the flip side of the brilliant "Walk Away Renee" 45 is the also wonderful "Pretty Ballerina". Both are sterling examples of Baroque Pop, a sub-genre. ;-)

We tend to take The Beatles for granted (I perhaps more than most); they had more excellent Pop-type songs than any other Rock Group you can name, from "I Saw Her Standing There", "Please Please Me", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", to "Come Together", "Because", "Something" (gorgeous), and "Here Comes The Sun", the last two written by George Harrison, who by ’69 had caught up with Lennon & McCartney. McCartney credits Buddy Holly with giving him his sense of melody. Buddy was just getting started when his plane went down, a real tragedy.

A Pop song can be performed in just about any style, and many have been. What is now considered Country, for example, is largely Pop music. A far cry from it’s Hillbilly beginnings.

ABBA made music considered to be Pop. Their records sold a lot, so were indeed popular. If they DIDN'T sell well, would they therefore not be considered Pop? Of course not. Yes, Pop is short for popular, but the use of the term Pop for a genre of music uses that term in a less-than-literal sense.

The 3 Tenors album sold more copies than most non-Classical albums. Are we to consider well-selling Classical albums Pop music?

@mitchagain: The Dwight Twilley Band! Their first album (Sincerely) is full of great Pop-Rock. It's like Elvis crossed with The Beatles. Bill Pitcock's flurry of guitar notes in the break midsong in "I'm On Fire" is astounding! Their second album (Twilley Don't Mind) is great too, but then drummer/singer Phil Seymour left the Group to go solo, and his absence really hurt. Future albums were no longer credited to The Dwight Twilley Band (their name was originally going to be Oyster), but just Dwight Twilley. Phil's albums on Boardwalk are real good too. By the way, Pitcock and my ex were a couple for a few years, and he offered to teach our son guitar. What a missed opportunity! An early DTB video (on American Bandstand, I believe) shows Tom Petty playing bass.

Speaking of Tommy James (as someone did above), his "Mony Mony" is a great one. In a similar vein is The Guess Who's version of "Shakin' All Over", my favorite rendition (superior imo to The Who's).

@reubent, do you like the Paul Collins (U.S.) Beat? Their s/t debut is killer Pop-Rock, and they were one of the best live bands I ever saw and heard (at The Whiskey Au Go Go in late '79/early '80). Bristling with kinetic energy, at The Who levels! Pre-The Beat, Paul Collins was the drummer in The Nerves, a trio whose other members were Peter Case (later in The Plimsouls) , and Jack Lee (writer of the Blondie hit "Hanging On The Telephone"). Their single release--a 7" EP, has become collectable, selling for close to $200. My copy is staying in my collection. ;-)

Here's a great one: "Shake Some Action" by The Flamin' Groovies, produced by Dave Edmunds.

Man, some great Pop listed just above! I’ve been a "song pusher" my entire adult life. That’s the thing about Pop music: It’s all about the song. I have a nice little 7" 45 RPM collection, about 800 singles. I had a lot of 45’s before getting my first album, as did all my contemporaries. This was before the album format for "teenage" music was commonplace.

My first albums were those by The Ventures and the instrumental Surf Bands (I had all by The Astronauts, out of Denver Colorado), Chuck Berry (his greatest hits album on Chess Records), early Paul Revere & The Raiders and The Beach Boys. As everyone knows, the British Invasion changed everything. The album became THE format, the single just a tool to sell an album.

Along with the change to the album format, what sold the records of Rock Bands was not necessarily their songs, but the "sound" the Band/Group made. That is of course too broad a generalization to be literally true, but it was the direction Rock music took as the decade progressed. Eventually, having a Pop "sound" was considered uncool. Okay, Herman’s Hermits weren’t cool, but their recording of "I’m Into Something Good" (written by Carole King & Gerry Goffin) is GREAT! (produced by Mickie Most, who believe it or not also did Jeff Beck’s first album, Truth). So is "Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat". Great, that is, if you like Pop.

Marshall Crenshaw obviously knows a good song when he hears (or writes) one, and his recording of "I’m Sorry (But So Is Brenda Lee)"---written by Ben Vaughn---is glorious beyond words.

I’ve loved Freedy Johnson from the moment I first heard him. How ’bout Don Dixon? Great Pop songwriter and producer (including the records of his woman, Marti Jones).

You Pop lovers, keep a lookout for the second album by Julianna Raye (Something Peculiar), produced by Jeff Lynne. An utter delight!

Dave Edmunds recorded a lot of great Pop on his second album---Subtle As A Flying Mallet, and produced it in the Phil Spector Wall-Of-Sound style. His recording of "Maybe" (a hit for The Chantels in the 50’s) is Pop to the max! He does some Spector material on the album, and a great version of The Everly Brothers’ "Let It Be Me" (Dylan included his version on the Self Portrait album), and "Born To be With You" (a hit for Dion before anyone had heard of The Beatles). Each album side ends with a Chuck Berry song recorded live in an English pub, Dave backed by the UK band Brinsley Schwartz, whose bassist was a very young Nick Lowe. Dave and Nick later formed the great, great band Rockpile (also the title of Dave’s first album).

I had the pleasure of working with two masters of the Pop song---Emitt Rhodes and John Wicks of The Records (a great Pop Group). They’re both dead now, so perhaps you shouldn’t hire me for your next project. ;-)

Pop is imo any song with a good melody and "hooky" (sing-along) chorus refrain. Pop songs have traditionally also followed a classic structure (though they don’t necessarily have to): Intro/1st verse/chorus/2nd verse/chorus/bridge (called middle 8 in England)/verse/last chorus/outro. The bridge/middle 8 is employed less frequently now, often ignored by Rock Bands that don’t have a superior songwriter (most ;-). During the Psychedelic period (starting in 1966), Lennon & McCartney started "messing" with the Pop song structure. They---being more-talented songwriters than most in Rock Bands---could pull it off; most didn’t, leading to some of the worst "songs" I’ve ever heard.

A sterling example of a Pop song is "When You Walk In The Room", written by Jackie DeShannon and released by her as a single in 1963. The Searchers covered it in ’64, and was the first time I heard this majestic masterpiece. Springsteen has included the song in his live show, though he as always bludgeons the song to death. Agnetha Faltskog of ABBA (now THERE’S a fantastic Pop Group!) does a great version, found on her My Coloring Book album.

Then there is "What becomes Of The Brokenhearted", originally done by Jimmy Ruffin (Joan Osborne stole the show with her version at the tribute concert for the Motown house band). Written by William Weatherspoon, Paul Riser, and James Dean (not the actor, of course), it is a breathtakingly great Pop song.

Another at the very top of the form is "God Only Knows", written by Brian Wilson (music) and Tony Asher (lyrics), and first recorded by The Beach Boys and included on their Pet Sounds album. Paul McCartney, a pretty fair songwriter himself, has said he considers it the best song he has ever heard. Another stunner by Wilson (music and lyrics) is "Til I Die"---melancholy beauty rarely heard (found on the 1971 album Surf’s Up).

Is Tom Petty Pop? Well, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are a Rock Band, not a Pop Group. The Mamas & Papas were a Pop Group, as were ABBA, The Carpenters, and most other Vocal Groups. But a Rock Group can make a Pop record, and many of the best do. Cheap Trick are very Poppy ("Surrender"), but are obviously a Rock Group. The Ramones were also very Poppy (and proud of it. They were thrilled to be produced by Phil Spector---that is, until he locked them in his castle and wouldn’t let them leave), but no one’s going to mistake them for The Association.

A Rock Band performing Poppy material is commonly referred to as Pop-Rock in music criticism, a category that includes a lot of people. Guys like Emitt Rhodes (easily McCartney’s equal in songwriting and singing, and a better drummer ;-), Squeeze, Marshall Crenshaw, Nick Lowe, hundreds of others. Pop songs performed in the Rock style. Though they were about as far from being a Pop Group as is possible, "The Weight" by The Band is a perfect Pop song.