Nobody has ever managed to define power pop, and John Borack, who has written a book about it, says nobody ever will — with one exception: KISS isn’t it. He wrote a great column on the Remember The Lightning blog (well worth supporting). So volume four of Power Pop Perfection treats the definition as the game. A few of these records settle the question instantly: 20/20’s “Remember the Lightning”, with Phil Seymour of the Dwight Twilley Band sitting in on drums; a Knack album track that Berton Averre meant to sound like the Hollies, until Bruce Gary hit it like Keith Moon; and Badfinger, produced by the Beatles’ former road manager on the Beatles’ own label. The rest of the hour tests the edges. Is a six-minute song power pop when it’s Th’ Dudes‘ “Be Mine Tonight”, the record where a young Dave Dobbyn put down the lead guitar and stepped up to the mic? What about Emitt Rhodes, who made a whole album alone in his parents’ garage in 1970, or a novelty hit about a phone number that, according to its co-writer, nobody ever owned? And what happens when Geoff Downes — Buggles, Yes, Asia — makes a single that one reviewer says drips with power pop and another calls a ballad? You can hear Downes Braide Association‘s “Wonderland”, from their sixth album Trauma, out last week, and decide. The family trees run all through the hour. The Nerves split in the late seventies, and both halves are here: Paul Collins’ Beat, who had to change their name because of a British ska band, and Peter Case’s Plimsouls, whose “A Million Miles Away” turned up in Valley Girl after the band had already broken up. Marshall Crenshaw’s producer co-founded Sire and produced Blondie’s first record. The Keys’ only album was produced by Joe Jackson, released only in Britain, and recently covered on tour by the Lemon Twigs. The newest record in the hour is “The Line”, the opening track on Jawdropped‘s debut Secret To Spare, recorded live in a room in Los Angeles by a band who’d rather talk about songs than labels. Auckland’s The Beths sit beside it — four jazz graduates who turned out to be one of the best guitar-pop bands anywhere. Australia gave the Romantics a number two hit when America stopped at 49, and New Zealand quietly gets the best moment of the lot: the mum in Fountains of Wayne’s tribute to the Cars is Rachel Hunter. We finish with the Raspberries’ “Go All the Way”, banned by the BBC in 1972 — and an open question about whether the Knack track at the start of the hour is actually better. Broadcast 2 October 2026
