Perfect Pop Songs

"I always found it a little odd that my audiophile friends would tend to look down on pop."

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. ;-)