Country, Americana, Folk, Power Pop, Indie Pop
The world tour of power pop classics takes me back to Australia. The Sunnyboys from Sydney released their debut album in 1981 and it is a classic and full of great songs. Especially the singles Happy Man and Alone With You are friggin’ awesome. This is the first single Happy Man and it’s definitely one of those songs that easily qualifies to the “hey, this must be the best song ever” -list.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3drdluoYiE]
I actually just got the most likely amazing Titan: It’s All Pop compilation today. It’s been on my shopping list since Numero Group released it, but somehow I just never ordered it. Well until a friend of mine (thanks JiiäM) who knows so much more about power pop than I do reminded me by posting this amazing song to his facebook feed. Real Life Saver by Gary Charlson was originally released in 1978 by Kansas City-based Titan Records. I’m looking forward to spend some quality with this Titan Records compilation, because I bet there are more pop treats like this. It will difficult to top this though. Real Life Saver is a perfect pop song as far as I’m concerned.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGMn21xjYzk]
This would fit quite nicely into that power pop section as well, but let’s keep that for the classics. Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms debut album was released in march 2011 by Bellyache Records, but I just heard it some weeks ago. It doesn’t change the world as we know it, but it is a damn enjoyable record full of short and loud power pop songs. Direct quote from the bio “finding inspiration in classic one-man-band albums by Emitt Rhodes, Paul McCartney, Jason Falkner…” might get some pop freaks interested. I know it did the trick for me. The album is also a free download on his bandcamp at the moment (that might change, I don’t know). Because it’s 3 am while I’m writing this, I’ll pick a song called Why Can’t I Sleep? as the sample song. And at the moment the answer to that question is, because I’m listening to awesome pop music.
Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms at Bandcamp
Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms Website
I just watched this video half a dozen times in a row and absolutely love it. Therefore I have to share it with you. Matt Kline was a member of The Fox Hunt and he also wrote plenty of amazing songs for them. Even though I don’t really like the name of the band, I really love their music and the previous album Long Way To Go was the album of the year 2010 here at onechord.net. After the album Matt Kline quit the band and that was a big shock because I think he wrote and sung many of those Fox Hunt songs that I loved the most. But he didn’t quit music completely and I’ve been following his Facebook page since I noticed there was one. Tonight he posted this video and even though this is just a live video, I love this so dearly and keep on watching it over and over again.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RTrNw2ZH1U]
Matt Kline’s Music Page at Facebook
(and if the person who shot this video, wants me to remove it, I will do that. I just had to post this live video because Matt Kline is so brilliant and so unknown).